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A review by verkisto
Doughnut by Tom Holt
3.0
I'm a big fan of K.J. Parker, so I was stoked to listen to this book. For those unaware, Tom Holt is K.J. Parker, with the difference being that Parker writes fantasy intrigue novels, and Holt writes ... modern-day satirical science fiction? Is that accurate?
Doughnut is about Theo Bernstein, a down-on-his-luck ex-physicist with one arm that's there, but invisible, trying to get his life back together after being responsible for blowing up the Very, Very Large Hadron Collider. Turned down for a job flipping burgers, he takes a job at a slaughterhouse, shoveling guts into a drain. While there, he receives a letter informing him that his old faculty adviser has left him some money and items in his will. From there, he discovers a new world -- literally. It exists someplace alongside our own.
Parker/Holt has a knack for highlighting the absurdity of life, and he does so here with Doughnut, as well. He also brings his unique wit to the book, dipping it in wry before putting it on the page. His similes and metaphors alone are enough to crack me up, and Doughnut is full of them.
The story, though, isn't that great. Part of it is Theo: He's hard to like, and comes across as more pathetic than sympathetic, and he doesn't seem to have a lot of agency. That's typical for Holt/Parker, but somehow I couldn't muster up enough feeling for Theo to have any real connection to the plot. The plot is also complicated (which, again, is pretty typical for the author), but it's hard to follow what's happening once. It's partly my fault for listening to this on audio, because the sudden jumps from place to place were a lot harder to follow in that format.
Overall, though, the story lacks the subtle structuring that Parker/Holt brings to his K.J. Parker fiction. I'm used to reading those books and feeling like events are just spooling out at random right before he pulls everything together into a breathtaking conclusion, but with Doughnut, it felt more random. He does pull everything together, but somehow it didn't feel as cohesive. Maybe that's due to the book being novel-length instead of novella-length, since I've only read Parker's novellas so far. Regardless, I'm not giving up on the Holt novels; I just wish this one had lived up to my expectations.
Doughnut is about Theo Bernstein, a down-on-his-luck ex-physicist with one arm that's there, but invisible, trying to get his life back together after being responsible for blowing up the Very, Very Large Hadron Collider. Turned down for a job flipping burgers, he takes a job at a slaughterhouse, shoveling guts into a drain. While there, he receives a letter informing him that his old faculty adviser has left him some money and items in his will. From there, he discovers a new world -- literally. It exists someplace alongside our own.
Parker/Holt has a knack for highlighting the absurdity of life, and he does so here with Doughnut, as well. He also brings his unique wit to the book, dipping it in wry before putting it on the page. His similes and metaphors alone are enough to crack me up, and Doughnut is full of them.
The story, though, isn't that great. Part of it is Theo: He's hard to like, and comes across as more pathetic than sympathetic, and he doesn't seem to have a lot of agency. That's typical for Holt/Parker, but somehow I couldn't muster up enough feeling for Theo to have any real connection to the plot. The plot is also complicated (which, again, is pretty typical for the author), but it's hard to follow what's happening once
Spoiler
we jump into the multiverseOverall, though, the story lacks the subtle structuring that Parker/Holt brings to his K.J. Parker fiction. I'm used to reading those books and feeling like events are just spooling out at random right before he pulls everything together into a breathtaking conclusion, but with Doughnut, it felt more random. He does pull everything together, but somehow it didn't feel as cohesive. Maybe that's due to the book being novel-length instead of novella-length, since I've only read Parker's novellas so far. Regardless, I'm not giving up on the Holt novels; I just wish this one had lived up to my expectations.