The Portable Door

What fun! Holt plays brilliantly off literary references both new and old (everything from Harry Potter to Shakespeare to Gilbert & Sulivan) and his dry British wit is right up my alley. An absolutely delightful read. Funny, adventuresome, and clever to boot!

This is the first of three books in the Paul Carpenter series by Tom Holt. The other two are 'In Your Dreams' and 'Earth, Air, Fire, and Custard.' I accidentally read the third book first and so thought that I wouldn't enjoy the first book very much, but I was wrong. I consider Tom Holt's writings to be the real world comparison of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Basically, it may be helpful to read them in a certain order, but in the end, it doesn't matter because they are all just as good on their own since both authors are a comic genius. While Pratchett deals with a made-up world on the back of a turtle, Holt deals with 'our' world. The Carpenter series is based around office life, with a bit of magic mixed in. Extremely funny, even if you have never worked in an office. I also love the art on the front of Holt's books, so simplistic, but precisely dead-on as to what the story is about. For those who have never read Holt before, pick up one of his books and give it a try!

This is a brilliant beginning of a series that plays with the conventions of fantasy and offers a great deal of insight into the machinations of office life. It's as though Arthur Dent was dropped into the world of Harry Potter and got a job in The Office (the Ricky Gervais version). The story focuses on the misadventures of Paul Carpenter, a twentysomething man who has been coasting through life, who needs a job and finds one at J.W. Wells, a clandestine company with a building that resembles an M.C. Escher drawing. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, as most of the joy in this novel is stumbling along with Paul and discovering just how weird his world has become. It's a great read with plenty of hilarious moments, but a real depth to it that draws the reader in. And thankfully it's only part one of the series.

There are so many memorable bits in this book your brain would be quite addled if you tried to store them all. Paul is your prototype hopeless dork (reminds me of my brother with the ability to fall in love randomly and always helplessly) who gets a job (against all expectation) with a mysterious company. His co-worker is the same odd girl who interviewed with him, and she has some revolting personal hygene habits. They're made for each other, only neither of them is quite sure of this, and it may never happen. All sorts of disastrously weird things occur which put the sparkle in your Holt, and I'm not going to say too much more about the plot. There was one scene where there were so many literary references thrown in it was like pin the tail on the donkey trying to place them all. Very cool, and Paul is about as useful as day old porridge, ditto Sophie, his co-worker. Will the dorks rule the world? You'll have to read it and see. Kotori Nov 2004

I automatically give any book extra points for laugh-out-loud moments, and although there aren't that many in this book, they ARE present, esp with Mr. Tanner's mum around.Paul Carpenter is having a bad day. Well, it's his first day of work at J.W Wells & co as a junior clerk, along with Sophie, a woman with all the [looks], as the books' cover tells you. Nevertheless,when Paul and Sophie forget the company's rule of leaving the building by 5:30p.m., they discover that things are not all they expected. The building's owned by goblins, for one thing. And when one of the senior partners sets them to cleaning out and categorizing all the odd items in the basement (they find Scarlett o'Hara's birth certificate and the map to King Solomon's mines, among other things) Paul finds things getting weirder and weirder. For one thing, he meets the mother of one of the senior partners. Mr Tanner's mum is a highly engaging character.Tom Holt is oft compared to Terry Pratchett, but since his novel is actually set in England, I found his characters using a lot more English slang than discworld characters would. Although this can be slightly uncomfortable at first, you soon get used to it as the story takes you on a log-ride of a plot, with slow moments, sudden twists and turns, and a final splash of a climax before you climb out of the story.Paul seemed unutterably wimpy at first, even annoying sometimes, but about halfway through the book, I started feeling sorry for him, and then rooting for him, and he finally did grow a backbone and I was cheering for him all the way.Read The Portable Door if you're looking for a light-hearted fantasy novel about 'The Corporation' and two clueless junior clerks in England. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected I would.