Book Review | The Management Style of the Supreme Beings by Tom Holt

When the Supreme Being and his son decide that being supreme isn't for them any more, a new management team has to be found—and fast!

Dynamic, resourceful and always customer-focused, the Venturi brothers are perfect for the job, and keen to get stuck in. First on their to-do list is Good and Evil, an outdated system that was always a bit confusing and just made everyone feel bad about things. 

Unfortunately, the sudden disappearance of right and wrong, while welcomed by some, is a big concern to those still in favour of its basic principles. Particularly given that the Venturi brothers have replaced it with something that seems decidedly... well, evil.

***

The easily-offended will be offended easily by Tom Holt's new novel, a madcap Miracle on 34th Street in which religion in particular gets a ribbing, but readers with less delicate sensibilities should be ready to romp, because The Management Style of the Supreme Beings is a whole bunch of fun from word one. And it's more than a simple send-up: it also stands as a sublimely ridiculous examination of morality in the modern era.

God, the thing begins, is getting on. "Fact is [...] I feel old," (p.38) He says to his dearly beloved son as they fish for the same Sinderaan species that "had split the atom and proved the existence of the Higgs boson when Earth was still entirely inhabited by plankton." (p.37) An age or an instant later, as the five-dimensional fish nibble and divine drinks are sipped, the Big Guy admits He thinks it might be time to step aside—as manager of the planet, naturally.

You build a business from the ground up, you care for it, worry about it, you take pride in its progress, you're there for it when things don't go so well. But there always comes a time when you have to let go. Or does there? (p.37)

For obvious reasons, Jesus—who goes by Jay these days—doesn't disagree. After all, "they're father and son but also equal aspects of the One; it's therefore logically impossible for them" (p.35) to part ways in anything other than a philosophical fashion. It's to His credit that Jay does wonder where that's likely to leave Uncle Ghost, who's gotten a bit dotty in His dotage, before giving God the nod... but notably, nobody mentions Kevin.

Kevin is "the younger son of God, marginally less well beloved" than his celebrated big brother "and with whom his father was not always quite so well pleased." (pp.1-2) That's probably because Kevin is desperately inept. He's the kind of person who sticks to instant because he broke the cappuccino machine and everyone in a position to fix it with a minor miracle is too busy. Even celestial mechanics, "the easiest part of the business," (p.9) is beyond this poor kid, whose destiny seems to be to watch one rerun of Touched by an Angel after another, which... well, the less said about, the better.

To wit, when the time comes to hand off the heavens and the earth, Kevin isn't even in contention...

Book Review | The Good, the Bad and the Smug by Tom Holt

New Evil.

Same as the Old Evil, but with better PR.

Mordak isn't bad, as far as goblin kings go, but when someone, or something, starts pumping gold into the human kingdoms it puts his rule into serious jeopardy. Suddenly he's locked in an arms race with a species whose arms he once considered merely part of a calorie-controlled diet.

Helped by an elf with a background in journalism and a masters degree in being really pleased with herself, Mordak sets out to discover what on earth (if indeed, that's where he is) is going on. He knows that the truth is out there. If only he could remember where he put it.

***

Evil just isn't what it was.

Used to be, you could slaughter a dwarf and gnaw his gnarly bones all the way home without attracting any undesirable attention. Now? Not so much. It's a new world, you know? And it might just be that the new world needs a new breed of evil.

In The Good, the Bad and the Smug, Tom Holt—aka K. J. Parker—proposes exactly that as the premise of a satirical and sublimely self-aware fairytale that brings together the wit and the wickedness of the author's alter ego with the wordplay and the whimsy which have made the YouSpace series such a sweet treat so far.

Readers, meet Mordak: King of the Goblins, and winner of a special award at this year's Academy of Darkness do. The prize is just the icing on the (unfortunately metaphorical) cake; he's been turning a whole lot of heads of late. Why? Well:

It wasn't just Mordak's arbitrary and bewildering social reforms—universal free healthcare at rusty spike of delivery, for crying out loud—though those were intriguing enough to baffle even the shrewdest observers, frantically speculating about the twisted motives that underlay such a bizarre agenda. It was the goblin himself who'd caught the public imagination. Mordak had it; the indefinable blend of glamour, prestige, menace and charm that go to make a genuinely world-class villain. (p.3)

It isn't all he has to offer either, for Mordak is also the face of New Evil: a "caring and compassionate" (p.281) agenda he's in the middle of forcing down folks' throats when his eternal enemies—is there anything worse than people, really?—suddenly find themselves filthy rich. So filthy rich, in fact, that they could cause a proper problem for the goblins.

This is an obstacle Mordak simply must overcome if he's to have a chance of realising his reforms. To wit, together with Efluviel, an elf who'd do almost anything to get her job as a journalist back—a job Mordak can give her as easily as he took it away in the first place—the King strikes out on an unexpected journey in order to expose the source of all the goddamn gold the humans have gotten their grubby paws on.

Book Review | The Outsorcerer's Apprentice by Tom Holt

A happy workforce, it is said, is a productive workforce.

Try telling that to an army of belligerent goblins. Or the Big Bad Wolf. Or a professional dragons layer. Who is looking after their well-being? Who gives a damn about their intolerable working conditions, lack of adequate health insurance, and terrible coffee in the canteen?

Thankfully, with access to an astonishingly diverse workforce and limitless natural resources, maximizing revenue and improving operating profit has never really been an issue for the one they call "the Wizard." Until now.

Because now a perfectly good business model—based on sound fiscal planning, entrepreneurial flair, and only one or two of the infinite parallel worlds that make up our universe—is about to be disrupted by a young man not entirely aware of what's going on.

There's also a slight risk that the fabric of reality will be torn to shreds. You really do have to be awfully careful with these things.

***

An affectionate send-up of the fairytale from the author of such sarcastic tracts as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages and May Contain Traces of Magic, The Outsorcerer's Apprentice features overlords and underlings, self-aware wolves and woodcutters, plus a prince from another world: ours.

Benny isn't a prince of anything hereabouts, however. Point of fact, he's in a bit of a pickle when the book begins. He has his final exams at Uni in a few weeks, and with his whole future before him, all of a sudden he doesn't have a clue what he's been doing. Studying to be a mathematician, maybe? In a moment of inspiration that some might mistake for laziness, he realises what he really needs is a good, long break to take stock of his situation. To that end, he borrows his Uncle's "omniphasic Multiverse portal" (p.137) and travels to a parallel reality where he can pretend to be a powerful person, because of course. Wouldn't you if you could?

The YouSpace XP3000, designed by Professor Pieter van Goyen of Leiden [is] capable of transporting you to any or all of the alternate realities that make up the Multiverse. Intuitive targeting software and state-of-the-art Heisenberg compensators mean that all you have to do is think of where you'd like to go, and you're instantly there. It's as simple as that. 

All you'll need to operate your YouSpace XP3000 personal multiverse interface is a dream—and a doughnut. (pp.136-137)

What Benny—pardon me, Prince Florizel—doesn't yet get, and won't for quite a while, is that his very presence in this innocent kingdom is destined to affect its host of fantastic inhabitants, including, but not limited to, dwarves, dragons, goblins, elves, etc.

Readers come to this conclusion somewhat sooner than fair Florizel; by way of Buttercup, a wily woodcutter's daughter waylaid with increasing frequency by wolves wearing old ladies' clothes. She grows so sick and tired of their charade that she starts worrying she may be single-handedly endangering the population—because of course Buttercup kills all the animals that attack her. She's had a lot of practice, and they'd eat her otherwise.