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Here Comes the Sun
The sun rises late, dirty and so badly in need of a service it's a wonder it gets up at all. The moon's going to be scrapped soon and a new one commisioned - but then, they've been saying that for years...
All is not well with the universe, and though there's a hell of a tidying up job to be organised after some carelessness with earthquakes and tidal waves, surely it's crazy to get mortals to run the show? Things may be bad, but isn't that going to extremes?
The irrepressible Tom Holt hits the mark yet again with a dazzling foray into fantasy ... of the hilarious kind.
All is not well with the universe, and though there's a hell of a tidying up job to be organised after some carelessness with earthquakes and tidal waves, surely it's crazy to get mortals to run the show? Things may be bad, but isn't that going to extremes?
The irrepressible Tom Holt hits the mark yet again with a dazzling foray into fantasy ... of the hilarious kind.
282 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
22 people are currently reading
454 people want to read
About the author
Tom Holt
98 books1,173 followersTom Holt (Thomas Charles Louis Holt) is a British novelist.
He was born in London, the son of novelist Hazel Holt, and was educated at Westminster School, Wadham College, Oxford, and The College of Law, London.
Holt's works include mythopoeic novels which parody or take as their theme various aspects of mythology, history or literature and develop them in new and often humorous ways. He has also produced a number of "straight" historical novels writing as Thomas Holt and fantasy novels writing as K.J. Parker.
He was born in London, the son of novelist Hazel Holt, and was educated at Westminster School, Wadham College, Oxford, and The College of Law, London.
Holt's works include mythopoeic novels which parody or take as their theme various aspects of mythology, history or literature and develop them in new and often humorous ways. He has also produced a number of "straight" historical novels writing as Thomas Holt and fantasy novels writing as K.J. Parker.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
October 19, 2020
I have mixed feelings for this book. On the one hand, it is very funny. On the other, the humor doesn’t always work, at least not for me.
I’m a big fan of Terry Pratchett. It’s fantastic, wonderful, delightful. And now I think I know why: The humor in his books are part of the integral whole of Discworld. Holt’s humor, while very similar (see a prime example in the first of the quotes below, the one that made me want to dive right in) to Pratchett’s, feels forced, crammed in, as if trying to fit as much as possible. After a while, even fun/funny stuff can get boring if there is no point to it.
So plus points: some of the humor, maybe even a fair amount; the overall story; the ending (which may be the very best part of the book for me).
Minus points: some of the humor, maybe even a fair amount; keeping track of the story in places, especially in the second half and especially some of the characters; more than occasional boredom.
It’s more than a two but not quite a three, mostly because I’m now leery of taking on another Holt book even though I very much enjoyed The Portable Door. Sigh! Now I’m staring at Odds and Gods … to read or not to read….
Quotes that caught my eye
The sun rose.
It was dirty. It as late, it was thirty billion miles overdue on its next service. There was a thin film of oil on its surface, the result of a sprung gasket. But it was up and running, and that in itself was something of a miracle, all things considered. (3) [See? Reminiscent of Pratchett, no?]
She splashed resolutely up the road, trying to avoid the lager puddles and speculating as to whether ditching fins and growing legs had been the evolutionary breakthrough everyone reckoned it was. (17)
The sun, riding high – very high – in the morning heavens was flicking on and off like a huge, blazing indicator. Blinding flashes of light, then sudden darkness, twenty times a second. All the signs were that planet Earth was approaching a function and preparing to turn left.
Perhaps, jane said to herself as she struggled into a pullover, it’s an eclipse. Lots of eclipses. Perhaps they’re using up an enormous backlog of eclipses before they pass their best-before date. (45)
Jane stood there, one small mortal trying to make sense of the Universe. All things considered, it was a pretty ambitious undertaking, and nobody could have blamed her if she’d not even tried. Aristotle had tried, after all, and Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, and Einstein, and a lot of others too, all of them better qualified and probably far better paid than she was. The combined results of their researches, one had to admit, had not been impressive. Nobody could possibly have reproached Jane if she had failed. (46)
In all fundamentally important respects, Sir Isaac was right. Gravity is, as he observed, physical force resulting from the interaction of bodies possessing mass upon each other. It is not dependent upon the whim of any deity or supernatural entity. It can, in other words, be relied on; provided, of course, that somebody remembers to grease the main drive-shaft once in a while. (57)
She looked down. Yes, there was the floor, just where she’d left it. there was her furniture. Same old furniture, mostly the unsuitable and heterogeneous offerings of relatives and friends, except that previously it hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to jump off the ground and float about the place like a shoal of dazed tuna. And there was her breakfast – mug of coffee, slice of toast – swimming obligingly towards her through thin air. (59)
He went a bit funny in the head after that so they put him on Earthquakes. Nobody notices if you’re a bit funny in the head on Earthquakes. (64)
“Anyway,” he said, “this rule said that in order to preserve the natural equilibrium within an enclosed workplace, the pressure of internal paranoia rises to counter-balance the level of external pressure from without. It’s a well-known phenomenon, apparently.”
“I think I get you,” Ganger replied, stroking his chin. “Sort of, if you can’t stand the heat, knife the chef.” (76)
There was quiet in the boardroom, compared to which the inside of the average tomb would sound like Rome in the rush hour. Just as the silence was about to solidify and start dripping down the walls, Finance and General Purposes shook off his air of stunned torpor, fitted a less than pleasant expression to his face and cleared his throat. (95)
Helga lowered her head and peered out of the window. It wasn’t easy to see through, because the unutterably picturesque leaded panes were so distorted with genuine age that light only squeezed through them after a severe struggle. (111)
And anyway, people who run universes should have their housework done for them, surely. I mean, it doesn’t say and on the eighth day, He changed the bed, cleaned the oven and did the hoovering, does it?
That’s probably because He was a He. (132)
There was nothing to show for it. The less there was to show for it the better, and so she had a hundred per cent success rate. (133)
Jane followed, her belief not so much suspended as dangling by a thread. (152)
Trooper 8345 Moonblade shook his head. “Nah,” he replied. “They’d just think you were making things up. Or imagining things, as a result of the nasty blow to your head.”
“But I haven’t had a nasty blow to my head, Dave.”
“These things can be arranged, Nev.”
The two men exchanged non-verbal communication for two, maybe three seconds. You can say a lot in three seconds if you don’t have to bother with words. (160-61)
Access to Complaints is, naturally, open to everybody and everything in the universe, regardless of species, metaphysical status or temporal orientation; however, for the sake of internal administrative efficiency, the Department reserves the right only to consider complaints which are submitted in the prescribed form.
The prescribed form is Form C301, a fifteen-page booklet printed on the pages of beaten gold, twelve miles long by five miles wide. Once completed, the form must be submitted in triplicate, and the top copy must be countersigned by an apostle, saint (minor Celtic saints excepted), archangel, Bodhisattva, Taoist patriarch, dæmon of Grade 5 or higher, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire or other person of similar standing in the community. (166)
The words evaporated on his lips like rain on a blast-furnace as the beam of his torch licked something huge and shiny in the far corner of the room. A part of his brain – the part where most of his thoughts refused to go, except in pairs in broad daylight – said I know what that is. The rest of his brain pretended it hadn’t heard. (167)
You see, things in their natural state don’t naturally gravitate into a mess. For instance, if you pour sand out of a bucket on to the ground, it forms a nice neat cone. If you spill water, you get a lovely pool with the sides all nicely level and a precisely flat top. It’s only work that flops about all over the place if you drop it. (210)
The sky, with its million twinkling points of light, is only wallpaper, after all, put there to cover over the cracks in the vault of heaven caused by the use of cheap, bulk-bought plaster. Like all patterned wallpaper, it’s a real cow getting the edges lined up properly, if you look long enough, and know what you’re looking for, sooner or later you’ll find the point where the paper-hanger cocked it up; where the constellation whose real name is the Toothbrush of Adonis is duplicated on both sides of a millimetre-thick invisible line, and where the cosmos bulges out over an unsmoothed air-bubble, follow the invisible line down to ground level, and you’ll find a tree whose branches are a little bit higher on one side than the other. That’s the join. Bjorn knew this because he too had served his time, up on a high stepladder with a bucket of paste and a long brush. He even knew what was underneath the stars. (228)
Congratulations! You are now the owner of a new Terra 5636. If properly looked after, it will give you many years of reliable and pleasurable service.
Although the Terra 57636 has been hand crafted using only the finest quality materials, in order to get the very best in performance and reliability from you machine, you should observe the following basic rules:
(1) Ensure that all surfaces are clean and free from excess oil. Do not remove the trees, as this interferes with the supply of oxygen to the intake manifolds.
(2) Try to avoid discharging toxic waste into the oceans. This can upset the ecological balance and lead to excessive wear on the icecaps.
(3) Nuclear weapons should be used in the Terra 57636. It has not been proofed to withstand the pressures likely to be generated by nuclear explosions the manufactures cannot be held responsible in the event of accident or damage resulting from non-observance of this warning, which will also invalidate the guarantee. (248-49)
It was turning out to be a bad day.’
The sun was refusing to start. A crew of seven muscular mechanics had given it their best shot and all they’d managed to do was flood the engine and bend the starting handle. The bright spark who’d suggested putting a set of jump leads on the battery of the moon was now in hiding, helped considerably by the fact that there was now no light of any description.
As a result of a freak short-out on the mainframe at Weather, it was now slashing up with rain over two continents. The same fault was having drastic effects in Perjury, where the thunderbolt cannons had jammed themselves on automatic override and were giving insurance salesmen. Presidential spokesmen and the organisers of awards ceremonies a very hard time indeed. Fortunately, the manifold cam rocker on the Liefinder unit had sheared its locking stud, which meant that each shot landed precisely eighteen inches to the left.
Gremlins in the signal-box at chronology processing meant that the Western hemisphere had just had sixteen consecutive bank holidays in the space of fifteen minutes.
The random selector needle at Requisistions, the central prayer-answering agency, had stuck solid on god save the Queen, with the result that Her Majesty had had a truly unpleasant morning being repeatedly snatched from the jaws of sudden and unexpected death by supernatural forces. A gang of maintenance men were crawling towards the stylus across the main resonator disc with big hammers and extremely mixed feelings; because if they got the bloody thing free and then it went and stuck again on Give us this day our daily bread, they were definitely not going to be held responsible.
All dreams delivered within the last forty-eight hours had been returned marked Not Known At This Address. Some of them were ticking.
And finally, as if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, the music of the spheres was suddenly distinctly audible throughout the length and breadth of the cosmos, and had turned out to be That’s Entertainment, played with one finger on a Yamaha organ.
This is what happens when on-one’s in charge. (261-62)
‘CHARGE!’
‘Er, chief…’
‘ARE YOU QUESTIONING A DIRECT ORDER, TROOPER?’
‘Not as such, chief, certainly not, no, perish the thought. It’s just, me and the lads, we were wondering…’
‘WHAT?’
‘Like, like, sort of, change where, chief, because I mean, charge, yes, behind you every stop of the way there, absolutely one-hundred-and-ten per cent commitment on all sides, no sweat, guaranteed, only it’s just that as orders go, sort of like, ninety-nine-point-nine-nine per cent absolutely brilliant, but directionally speaking, I wouldn’t say it was vague exactly, really not vague at all, vague’s quite the wrong word for this situation, more sort of general, in fact, more flexible really, yes, that’s it, flexible, but maybe just this once, you know, in the circumstances, perhaps if we were to play down the flexibility angle just somewhat in the interests of greater, well, er, precision, if you sort of catch my general drift, perhaps, well, it was just a thought, you know, maybe, er.’
‘FOLLOW ME!’
‘Thanks, chief. Got that. Right on. Right.’ (262-63)
‘You’re lost, aren’t you?
Bjorn stopped dead in his tracks and frowned. Having a vocabular marginally smaller than that of the average phrase-book compiler has its drawbacks. What Bjorn wanted to do was to explain that the sort of place where they were now, you were always, by definition, lost; the crucial thing was to be lost in the right way; because then, once all your directional preconceptions had been stripped away and you were floating free, like a magnetic needle in a saucer of water, the chances were that (because, in a truly random environment, objects take the line of least resistance) the barometric pressure of convenience would draw you on in the right direction, much more swiftly and surely than if there was a bloody great yellow line drawn on the floor with THIS WAY painted in fluorescent letters every five yards.
What he actually said was ‘Yuh.’ (263-64)
There were two gateways.
One was green, one was red. That was all right. It was what was written over them that worried Jane.
The green one said SHEEP and the red one said GOATS. There was also a huge needle, with the hindquarters of a camel sticking out of its eye. Two men in Italian suits were standing behind it, pushing, while a third was making frantic efforts with a bar of soap. (285)
“Well,” George went on, “where you are now, miss, you’re in the main entrance hall of judgement control. That’s where you have to show your credentials to Immigration, to see if you’re going to go first class or economy, smoking or non-smoking. Your baggage will be weighted, and if it’s tried in the balance and found wanting then you get charged excess. And like you said just now, miss, being dead is essential. No exceptions you see. Rules is rules” (286)
I’m a big fan of Terry Pratchett. It’s fantastic, wonderful, delightful. And now I think I know why: The humor in his books are part of the integral whole of Discworld. Holt’s humor, while very similar (see a prime example in the first of the quotes below, the one that made me want to dive right in) to Pratchett’s, feels forced, crammed in, as if trying to fit as much as possible. After a while, even fun/funny stuff can get boring if there is no point to it.
So plus points: some of the humor, maybe even a fair amount; the overall story; the ending (which may be the very best part of the book for me).
Minus points: some of the humor, maybe even a fair amount; keeping track of the story in places, especially in the second half and especially some of the characters; more than occasional boredom.
It’s more than a two but not quite a three, mostly because I’m now leery of taking on another Holt book even though I very much enjoyed The Portable Door. Sigh! Now I’m staring at Odds and Gods … to read or not to read….
Quotes that caught my eye
The sun rose.
It was dirty. It as late, it was thirty billion miles overdue on its next service. There was a thin film of oil on its surface, the result of a sprung gasket. But it was up and running, and that in itself was something of a miracle, all things considered. (3) [See? Reminiscent of Pratchett, no?]
She splashed resolutely up the road, trying to avoid the lager puddles and speculating as to whether ditching fins and growing legs had been the evolutionary breakthrough everyone reckoned it was. (17)
The sun, riding high – very high – in the morning heavens was flicking on and off like a huge, blazing indicator. Blinding flashes of light, then sudden darkness, twenty times a second. All the signs were that planet Earth was approaching a function and preparing to turn left.
Perhaps, jane said to herself as she struggled into a pullover, it’s an eclipse. Lots of eclipses. Perhaps they’re using up an enormous backlog of eclipses before they pass their best-before date. (45)
Jane stood there, one small mortal trying to make sense of the Universe. All things considered, it was a pretty ambitious undertaking, and nobody could have blamed her if she’d not even tried. Aristotle had tried, after all, and Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, and Einstein, and a lot of others too, all of them better qualified and probably far better paid than she was. The combined results of their researches, one had to admit, had not been impressive. Nobody could possibly have reproached Jane if she had failed. (46)
In all fundamentally important respects, Sir Isaac was right. Gravity is, as he observed, physical force resulting from the interaction of bodies possessing mass upon each other. It is not dependent upon the whim of any deity or supernatural entity. It can, in other words, be relied on; provided, of course, that somebody remembers to grease the main drive-shaft once in a while. (57)
She looked down. Yes, there was the floor, just where she’d left it. there was her furniture. Same old furniture, mostly the unsuitable and heterogeneous offerings of relatives and friends, except that previously it hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to jump off the ground and float about the place like a shoal of dazed tuna. And there was her breakfast – mug of coffee, slice of toast – swimming obligingly towards her through thin air. (59)
He went a bit funny in the head after that so they put him on Earthquakes. Nobody notices if you’re a bit funny in the head on Earthquakes. (64)
“Anyway,” he said, “this rule said that in order to preserve the natural equilibrium within an enclosed workplace, the pressure of internal paranoia rises to counter-balance the level of external pressure from without. It’s a well-known phenomenon, apparently.”
“I think I get you,” Ganger replied, stroking his chin. “Sort of, if you can’t stand the heat, knife the chef.” (76)
There was quiet in the boardroom, compared to which the inside of the average tomb would sound like Rome in the rush hour. Just as the silence was about to solidify and start dripping down the walls, Finance and General Purposes shook off his air of stunned torpor, fitted a less than pleasant expression to his face and cleared his throat. (95)
Helga lowered her head and peered out of the window. It wasn’t easy to see through, because the unutterably picturesque leaded panes were so distorted with genuine age that light only squeezed through them after a severe struggle. (111)
And anyway, people who run universes should have their housework done for them, surely. I mean, it doesn’t say and on the eighth day, He changed the bed, cleaned the oven and did the hoovering, does it?
That’s probably because He was a He. (132)
There was nothing to show for it. The less there was to show for it the better, and so she had a hundred per cent success rate. (133)
Jane followed, her belief not so much suspended as dangling by a thread. (152)
Trooper 8345 Moonblade shook his head. “Nah,” he replied. “They’d just think you were making things up. Or imagining things, as a result of the nasty blow to your head.”
“But I haven’t had a nasty blow to my head, Dave.”
“These things can be arranged, Nev.”
The two men exchanged non-verbal communication for two, maybe three seconds. You can say a lot in three seconds if you don’t have to bother with words. (160-61)
Access to Complaints is, naturally, open to everybody and everything in the universe, regardless of species, metaphysical status or temporal orientation; however, for the sake of internal administrative efficiency, the Department reserves the right only to consider complaints which are submitted in the prescribed form.
The prescribed form is Form C301, a fifteen-page booklet printed on the pages of beaten gold, twelve miles long by five miles wide. Once completed, the form must be submitted in triplicate, and the top copy must be countersigned by an apostle, saint (minor Celtic saints excepted), archangel, Bodhisattva, Taoist patriarch, dæmon of Grade 5 or higher, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire or other person of similar standing in the community. (166)
The words evaporated on his lips like rain on a blast-furnace as the beam of his torch licked something huge and shiny in the far corner of the room. A part of his brain – the part where most of his thoughts refused to go, except in pairs in broad daylight – said I know what that is. The rest of his brain pretended it hadn’t heard. (167)
You see, things in their natural state don’t naturally gravitate into a mess. For instance, if you pour sand out of a bucket on to the ground, it forms a nice neat cone. If you spill water, you get a lovely pool with the sides all nicely level and a precisely flat top. It’s only work that flops about all over the place if you drop it. (210)
The sky, with its million twinkling points of light, is only wallpaper, after all, put there to cover over the cracks in the vault of heaven caused by the use of cheap, bulk-bought plaster. Like all patterned wallpaper, it’s a real cow getting the edges lined up properly, if you look long enough, and know what you’re looking for, sooner or later you’ll find the point where the paper-hanger cocked it up; where the constellation whose real name is the Toothbrush of Adonis is duplicated on both sides of a millimetre-thick invisible line, and where the cosmos bulges out over an unsmoothed air-bubble, follow the invisible line down to ground level, and you’ll find a tree whose branches are a little bit higher on one side than the other. That’s the join. Bjorn knew this because he too had served his time, up on a high stepladder with a bucket of paste and a long brush. He even knew what was underneath the stars. (228)
Congratulations! You are now the owner of a new Terra 5636. If properly looked after, it will give you many years of reliable and pleasurable service.
Although the Terra 57636 has been hand crafted using only the finest quality materials, in order to get the very best in performance and reliability from you machine, you should observe the following basic rules:
(1) Ensure that all surfaces are clean and free from excess oil. Do not remove the trees, as this interferes with the supply of oxygen to the intake manifolds.
(2) Try to avoid discharging toxic waste into the oceans. This can upset the ecological balance and lead to excessive wear on the icecaps.
(3) Nuclear weapons should be used in the Terra 57636. It has not been proofed to withstand the pressures likely to be generated by nuclear explosions the manufactures cannot be held responsible in the event of accident or damage resulting from non-observance of this warning, which will also invalidate the guarantee. (248-49)
It was turning out to be a bad day.’
The sun was refusing to start. A crew of seven muscular mechanics had given it their best shot and all they’d managed to do was flood the engine and bend the starting handle. The bright spark who’d suggested putting a set of jump leads on the battery of the moon was now in hiding, helped considerably by the fact that there was now no light of any description.
As a result of a freak short-out on the mainframe at Weather, it was now slashing up with rain over two continents. The same fault was having drastic effects in Perjury, where the thunderbolt cannons had jammed themselves on automatic override and were giving insurance salesmen. Presidential spokesmen and the organisers of awards ceremonies a very hard time indeed. Fortunately, the manifold cam rocker on the Liefinder unit had sheared its locking stud, which meant that each shot landed precisely eighteen inches to the left.
Gremlins in the signal-box at chronology processing meant that the Western hemisphere had just had sixteen consecutive bank holidays in the space of fifteen minutes.
The random selector needle at Requisistions, the central prayer-answering agency, had stuck solid on god save the Queen, with the result that Her Majesty had had a truly unpleasant morning being repeatedly snatched from the jaws of sudden and unexpected death by supernatural forces. A gang of maintenance men were crawling towards the stylus across the main resonator disc with big hammers and extremely mixed feelings; because if they got the bloody thing free and then it went and stuck again on Give us this day our daily bread, they were definitely not going to be held responsible.
All dreams delivered within the last forty-eight hours had been returned marked Not Known At This Address. Some of them were ticking.
And finally, as if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, the music of the spheres was suddenly distinctly audible throughout the length and breadth of the cosmos, and had turned out to be That’s Entertainment, played with one finger on a Yamaha organ.
This is what happens when on-one’s in charge. (261-62)
‘CHARGE!’
‘Er, chief…’
‘ARE YOU QUESTIONING A DIRECT ORDER, TROOPER?’
‘Not as such, chief, certainly not, no, perish the thought. It’s just, me and the lads, we were wondering…’
‘WHAT?’
‘Like, like, sort of, change where, chief, because I mean, charge, yes, behind you every stop of the way there, absolutely one-hundred-and-ten per cent commitment on all sides, no sweat, guaranteed, only it’s just that as orders go, sort of like, ninety-nine-point-nine-nine per cent absolutely brilliant, but directionally speaking, I wouldn’t say it was vague exactly, really not vague at all, vague’s quite the wrong word for this situation, more sort of general, in fact, more flexible really, yes, that’s it, flexible, but maybe just this once, you know, in the circumstances, perhaps if we were to play down the flexibility angle just somewhat in the interests of greater, well, er, precision, if you sort of catch my general drift, perhaps, well, it was just a thought, you know, maybe, er.’
‘FOLLOW ME!’
‘Thanks, chief. Got that. Right on. Right.’ (262-63)
‘You’re lost, aren’t you?
Bjorn stopped dead in his tracks and frowned. Having a vocabular marginally smaller than that of the average phrase-book compiler has its drawbacks. What Bjorn wanted to do was to explain that the sort of place where they were now, you were always, by definition, lost; the crucial thing was to be lost in the right way; because then, once all your directional preconceptions had been stripped away and you were floating free, like a magnetic needle in a saucer of water, the chances were that (because, in a truly random environment, objects take the line of least resistance) the barometric pressure of convenience would draw you on in the right direction, much more swiftly and surely than if there was a bloody great yellow line drawn on the floor with THIS WAY painted in fluorescent letters every five yards.
What he actually said was ‘Yuh.’ (263-64)
There were two gateways.
One was green, one was red. That was all right. It was what was written over them that worried Jane.
The green one said SHEEP and the red one said GOATS. There was also a huge needle, with the hindquarters of a camel sticking out of its eye. Two men in Italian suits were standing behind it, pushing, while a third was making frantic efforts with a bar of soap. (285)
“Well,” George went on, “where you are now, miss, you’re in the main entrance hall of judgement control. That’s where you have to show your credentials to Immigration, to see if you’re going to go first class or economy, smoking or non-smoking. Your baggage will be weighted, and if it’s tried in the balance and found wanting then you get charged excess. And like you said just now, miss, being dead is essential. No exceptions you see. Rules is rules” (286)
July 10, 2017
This book was recommended to me because of similarities to Terry Pratchett. I bought it 7 or 8 years ago but didn't or couldn't read it then for some reason.
This time around I found it to be an easy read and funny, but only smirk funny, not LOL funny. When reading Pratchett, I often laugh audibly, but this one didn't quite get me there.
This book is British and of it's time (published in 93, I think) to an extent that forced me to look up words or references at least 3 times and I decided not to bother at least a few more times. Presumably I missed some references, too, that I didn't know to look up.
The story is kind of rollicking silliness with references to corporate culture, systemic inefficiencies and a hodge pods of religious and philosophical references. As a world, this one didn't hold up as well as some, but that may have been the point.
This was the first thing I've read by Holt, and since the copy I bought of this book contains two books in one, I will probably give the second a try, but I'm not sure this book alone would make me search out more by this author.
This time around I found it to be an easy read and funny, but only smirk funny, not LOL funny. When reading Pratchett, I often laugh audibly, but this one didn't quite get me there.
This book is British and of it's time (published in 93, I think) to an extent that forced me to look up words or references at least 3 times and I decided not to bother at least a few more times. Presumably I missed some references, too, that I didn't know to look up.
The story is kind of rollicking silliness with references to corporate culture, systemic inefficiencies and a hodge pods of religious and philosophical references. As a world, this one didn't hold up as well as some, but that may have been the point.
This was the first thing I've read by Holt, and since the copy I bought of this book contains two books in one, I will probably give the second a try, but I'm not sure this book alone would make me search out more by this author.
March 1, 2019
Some entertaining and inventive concepts - flaky plot. Read it c10 years ago, read it again to confirm we should get rid of the copy - confirmed - dump it
June 20, 2021
I approached this book hoping for Pratchett-like writing and humor. It tries, it really does. It's not that far off, but it's off nevertheless.
May 31, 2022
The universe does not need a god or gods to be or to run. Jane proved that in this great story. Tom Holt is one of the best!
August 13, 2022
Silly. Somewhat struggling to hang together in the first 2/3 but enjoyable enough as a romp.
October 18, 2025
Tom Holt’s Here Comes the Sun is a wonderfully daft cosmic comedy where bureaucracy meets the apocalypse.
December 1, 2014
I still like Holt, but he's starting to wane. This is mainly because he is moving away from the Wodehouse/Benson situational type of humor to the Pratchett one-liner & pun type. No, that's not quite the description either. What Holt has been missing in these last few books is a simple coherency of plot. The plot is there, but rather than following one or two characters (Wodehouse tends to follow only one, the viewpoint character), Holt has taken to Douglas Adams-ing and going from direct narration by an omniscient and wise-cracking author to a maniac movement between three or four viewpoint characters. Is it funny? Yes, but the funny is a quick, brisk kind rather than the slow build-up.
Here Comes the Sun is mainly a sendup of bureaucracy. What if the universe were actually one big machine, that required drivers and mechanics for the sun, regional planners for weather, an idiot administration (there is, of course, no other kind of administration, so I guess that's an oxymoron), and the long- suffering support staff. Well, I can imagine it, and I think my imagination would cast it as a horror novel rather than as a comedy. I think Here Comes the Sun worked better than the even-more maniacal Overtime, but I'd like to pass Holt some virtual valium and hope for a book more like Goatsong the next time around.
Here Comes the Sun is mainly a sendup of bureaucracy. What if the universe were actually one big machine, that required drivers and mechanics for the sun, regional planners for weather, an idiot administration (there is, of course, no other kind of administration, so I guess that's an oxymoron), and the long- suffering support staff. Well, I can imagine it, and I think my imagination would cast it as a horror novel rather than as a comedy. I think Here Comes the Sun worked better than the even-more maniacal Overtime, but I'd like to pass Holt some virtual valium and hope for a book more like Goatsong the next time around.
April 30, 2020
Not as Good as Expected
This book is not Tom Holt's best work. I have been an avid reader of Tom Holt's universe or what could be called, " how the universe actually runs including the fiddly bits we aren't supposed to notice and the great heaving obvious bits that we have an existential imperative to absolutely ignore for the good of our sanity " (my description). The character development, overall story line and breadth of types if characters in the story is limited and not up to the standard of previous books. For instance, I expected Gabriel to be fleshed out a bit more. It gives one the impression he has exhausted the particular genre. For me Tom Holt ranked in the lofty company of Tom Sharpe, Terry Pratchett, and Robert Rankin, all superb story tellers that could engineer sub plots that could curl your hair, heat up your tea and throw a plot for a curve in a Klein bottle. Here Comes the Sun may very well be the next to last gasp of Tom Holt's expertise with this genre due to subject exhaustion - but I hope not. Hopefully The next book, The Management Style of the Supreme Beings will bring a return to his superb style.
This book is not Tom Holt's best work. I have been an avid reader of Tom Holt's universe or what could be called, " how the universe actually runs including the fiddly bits we aren't supposed to notice and the great heaving obvious bits that we have an existential imperative to absolutely ignore for the good of our sanity " (my description). The character development, overall story line and breadth of types if characters in the story is limited and not up to the standard of previous books. For instance, I expected Gabriel to be fleshed out a bit more. It gives one the impression he has exhausted the particular genre. For me Tom Holt ranked in the lofty company of Tom Sharpe, Terry Pratchett, and Robert Rankin, all superb story tellers that could engineer sub plots that could curl your hair, heat up your tea and throw a plot for a curve in a Klein bottle. Here Comes the Sun may very well be the next to last gasp of Tom Holt's expertise with this genre due to subject exhaustion - but I hope not. Hopefully The next book, The Management Style of the Supreme Beings will bring a return to his superb style.
April 23, 2015
The premise is extremely intriguing and seemed perfect for the kind of situational, satirical humour I love. However, the book is let down by a hopelessly meandering plot without a hint of coherency. I would recommend reading it for a few brilliant bits in the middle, like the Holy Roman Emperor who has no knowledge of his divine stature and runs a down-on-its-luck pizza parlour, or the hilarious depiction of Heaven and Hell as administrative bodies and all the red-tape and nonsense that goes with the trade, but only if you don't really have anything better lying around. Also, Grailblazers or Who's afraid of Beowulf are better titles from Holt.
August 16, 2015
Low 1. At times writers of homorous prose decide to place greater store by their own inventiveness than by addressing key aspects of all good storytelling, such as plot development. In this instance, Holt missed a golden opportunity as the idea behind the story held great promise, of the ethereal powers-that-be in charge of the universe needing help from a mere mortal to set their house in order. In reality, the plot becomes unwieldy with a cast of charcaters thrown haphazardly into the mix, leaving the reader far too much to decipher their significance. Messy.
December 31, 2015
Holt combines old beliefs in the celestial hierarchy of angels with the British Civil Service to demonstrate just why the world is such a mess. Not only is the Sun wearing out, but one of the angels has been forced out due to his finding out about how the origin of life was botched, and the devil Ganger (who's a pretty nice guy despite his job) brings in a mortal named Jane, who has some ideas as to how the universe can be run more efficiently. It's pretty funny, but it's clear that Holt was still developing his style in these early books.
December 3, 2011
All is not well with the universe, as it is very inefficiently run by the heavenly bureaucracy, which is in dire need of a shake-up. And that's what it gets when a bored human office-worker called Jane gets a job there as a management trainee. An enjoyable story, which explains some of the oddities of the world's underground railways (see chapter 16).
May 4, 2012
Probably the weakest effort I've yet read by Holt. The plot was convoluted, nonsensical (not in the good way) and ultimately resulted in not much of anything. None of the characters were particularly compelling. The only redeeming quality was that there were just e ough interesting set-pieces to keep me plodding through.
Probably closer to 2 1/2 than to 3.
Probably closer to 2 1/2 than to 3.
December 7, 2007
Kind of funny. Kind of interesting. That's about it.
September 8, 2016
Not one of his better ones. I wish I had those hours of my life back! Don't waste your time with this one. Stick with "Expected You to be Taller" or "Ye Gods!".
November 23, 2013
This should be very funny, but it didn't work for me. I will try another Holt book, but I had a hard time getting through the allegory and sticking with this.
July 2, 2015
All I can say is, how bizarre!
September 1, 2019
I do like Tom Hault's books but couldn't get in to this one. There were some good moments but story wise I struggled with it but please read his other books as they're brill!
September 23, 2014
In hindsight, I'm honestly not sure if I finished reading this. If I did, it was a struggle.
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