May Contain Traces of Magic
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"""The best similes since Douglas Adams. Buy it for heaven's sake." "--SFX "on "Little People"
Product Description
There are all kinds of products. The good ones. The bad ones. The ones that stay in the garage mouldering for years until your garden gnome makes a home out of them. Most are harmless if handled properly, even if they do contain traces of peanuts. But some are not. Not the ones that contain traces of magic. Chris Popham wasn't paying enough attention when he talked to his SatNav. Sure, she gave him directions, never backtalked him, and always led him to his next spot on the map with perfect accuracy. She was the best thing in his life. So was it really his fault that he didn't start paying attention when she talked to him? In his defence, that was her job. But when 'Take the next right' turned into 'Excuse me,' that was when the real trouble started. Because sometimes a SatNav isn't a SatNav. Sometimes it's an imprisoned soul trapped inside a metal box that will do anything it can to get free. And some products you just can't return.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Meet Chris Popham, a salesman miserable with his lot. He's been in a long term relationship with Karen, a girl he knew from school he went on the rebound with that never ended when Karen's best mate Jill turned him down. Still in love with her, Chris meets up with Jill once a week, and wishes things were different. He's not too happy with his job either, trying his hardest to sell magical products such a portable parking space, powdered water, and instaglamour cream, and not having the best of luck with it.
Then his SatNav starts talking to him, and everything changes. A trainee, Angela, is lumbered on him to show the ropes, and demons start showing up. In his car. They're after the One who is to Come, but he has no idea who she is, and why he's involved in it all. Soon he starts wishing his life was back the way it was before, but no such luck. Just who is the One who is to Come? What do the demons want with her? Why are the demons showing up where Chris goes? And why on earth is his SatNav talking to him?
Wow. Just wow. This book is awesome! Tom Holt is a British author, and it's obvious from the writing. Such a typical British voice, and British humour! I giggled out loud on more than one occasion reading this book, it was just fantastic!
The characters in this book are great, but none match up to Chris. He's just so sarcastic and simple, and sometimes annoying, but you can't help but feel for him when his crappy life is turned upside down, and is genuinely flabbergasted at everything going on around him. He doesn't know what to do, and makes mistakes more than once, but you can't blame him. I can't really go into too much detail without spoiling things, but he's just adorable - a bit like an abandoned dog.
The plot of this book is just brilliant! You never know how things are going to turn out, who's telling the truth and who's lying, and just what will happen next. You find yourself trying to figure things out along with Chris, but then another disaster will happen, and your back to square one when more things are put in front of you to think about. It's mind boggling until the very end, and then everything makes sense. It's just such a fantastically written, and pretty damn funny book, with such an amazing plot. I highly recommend this book, it's just so awesome!
Then his SatNav starts talking to him, and everything changes. A trainee, Angela, is lumbered on him to show the ropes, and demons start showing up. In his car. They're after the One who is to Come, but he has no idea who she is, and why he's involved in it all. Soon he starts wishing his life was back the way it was before, but no such luck. Just who is the One who is to Come? What do the demons want with her? Why are the demons showing up where Chris goes? And why on earth is his SatNav talking to him?
Wow. Just wow. This book is awesome! Tom Holt is a British author, and it's obvious from the writing. Such a typical British voice, and British humour! I giggled out loud on more than one occasion reading this book, it was just fantastic!
The characters in this book are great, but none match up to Chris. He's just so sarcastic and simple, and sometimes annoying, but you can't help but feel for him when his crappy life is turned upside down, and is genuinely flabbergasted at everything going on around him. He doesn't know what to do, and makes mistakes more than once, but you can't blame him. I can't really go into too much detail without spoiling things, but he's just adorable - a bit like an abandoned dog.
The plot of this book is just brilliant! You never know how things are going to turn out, who's telling the truth and who's lying, and just what will happen next. You find yourself trying to figure things out along with Chris, but then another disaster will happen, and your back to square one when more things are put in front of you to think about. It's mind boggling until the very end, and then everything makes sense. It's just such a fantastically written, and pretty damn funny book, with such an amazing plot. I highly recommend this book, it's just so awesome!
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
With effortless wit, Holt introduces the reader to another world where the underlying mechanics and physics of how the world works is closer to that of myth and fairytale, and only marginally more unreliable than the real world we know. For Chris Popham, a travelling salesman and amiable loser seeking to impress customers into buying a wider range of JWW magical products than the inexplicably popular DW6 dried water ("just add..."), there's always the risk of a malfunctioning product like the instant car-park space trapping him in another dimension. Not to mention the trouble with Demons. All fine and dandy when they're held in objects like a SatNav kept secure by protective charms, but Chris has been encountering a lot of rather more dangerous ones while out on his rounds, and wonders if it has anything to do with his friendship with Jill, a high-ranking official at Demon Control in the Department of Metaphysics, the new work placement student tagging along with him, or the entity in his SatNav with whom he has formed a dangerously close relationship.
It's the typical Tom Holt one-remove-from-reality that makes May Contain Traces of Magic great fun, with its juxtaposition of mild-mannered fools, looking only for a quiet life getting inadvertently mixed up in fabric of the universe business. Even if I were to tell you who was the troublemaking Demon ruining Chris's miserable but comfortable life, Holt delights in constantly shifting realities to the extent that you're never sure what the truth is. Despite pushing the situation a little too far past its limits in this respect with unnecessary complexity, the story and Holt's writing remains consistently entertaining.
It's the typical Tom Holt one-remove-from-reality that makes May Contain Traces of Magic great fun, with its juxtaposition of mild-mannered fools, looking only for a quiet life getting inadvertently mixed up in fabric of the universe business. Even if I were to tell you who was the troublemaking Demon ruining Chris's miserable but comfortable life, Holt delights in constantly shifting realities to the extent that you're never sure what the truth is. Despite pushing the situation a little too far past its limits in this respect with unnecessary complexity, the story and Holt's writing remains consistently entertaining.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Tom Holt is an interesting writer - at times brilliant, at other times (as here) too damn clever for his own good. Like other readers, I spent most of this book wondering what the hell was going on and who half the characters were - some people may like that, I don't (that's what I go to work for). I've been reading Tom Holt for longer than I care to remember (there's a compliment in there somewhere) but for me, he still hasn't written a better novel than "Flying Dutch" (sorry to depress you, Tom).
I did like the bit towards the end where Chris Popham turns around and tells the shop owner he's just sold x dozen of the book that tells you what you need to know that they're crap and don't work.
I did like the bit towards the end where Chris Popham turns around and tells the shop owner he's just sold x dozen of the book that tells you what you need to know that they're crap and don't work.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Its not terry pratchett
I bought this one due to a review by another purchaser based on their statement if you like Terry Pratchett you will like Tom Holt. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mrs. F. Street
My contain traces of magic
An unusual story line, but extremely funny in parts. Really holds you until the end.
A marvellous novelist which I will be buying more of in future.
A marvellous novelist which I will be buying more of in future.
Published 6 months ago by B. L. Brown
The usual Tom Holt fare.
A quick read, but that might be down to my having trouble putting it down. It's the usual Tom Holt fare, this world with a parallel other world of magic and Gods stamped on top of... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Uncle Audrey
Good stuff
Excellent book, wasn't sure which way it was heading, exciting all the way through. Tom Holt is a great author, wish they were a bit cheaper though, £6. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Uknod
May Contain some humor...
Tom Holt has written in the the area of comic fantasy for years and he's one of those authors that I occasionally find myself picking up in order to read something slightly... Read more
Published 19 months ago by M. C. Symonds
More of the same
I managed to get to the end of this book, but only because I was on holiday in a place where English texts were unavailable. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Dr. Bob Matthews
OMG
If I was inclined to say "Oh my God!", which I am not, I would have said it over a hundred times whilst reading this book. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Lance Mitchell
Typical Tom Holt
Funny and easy read. Not much to learn or to think about later, but good entertainment for summer. You get a story where you are not quite sure what universe you are in for a long... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Nils-Fredrik Pedersen
Tom Holt
The latest Tom Holt book has all the trials and tribulations of the life of a traveling salesman - but with a small difference! Read more
Published 24 months ago by KittyM
Good, not great
Hi there. Well, first of all I'm French and that doesn't make the most suitable person to critic a British novelist. Read more
Published on 13 May 2010 by A. Rhie
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