Only Human [Hardcover]

Tom Holt's popular comic fantasies began with Expecting Someone Taller in 1987: Only Human is his 15th novel in this vein. When God takes his son "Jay" on a fishing holiday in a far-off galaxy, the unpublicised younger son Kevin finally gets a chance to play with the family computer. This is Mainframe, "the PC of God that passeth all understanding," custom-built by Kawaguchiya Integrated Circuits to run the world ... and definitely unsafe to tinker with. Kevin's blunders shift souls into the wrong bodies: a machine operator swaps places with his machine, a woman with an old portrait, a Duke of Hell with a vicar, and Prime Minister Dermot Fraud with a suicide-bent lemming. Meanwhile Kawaguchiya's computer system achieves self-awareness, Zxprxp the visiting alien explores Earth's weaknesses and a demonic conspiracy is afoot. Holt provides numerous funny one-liners: a heavenly fridge magnet reads "ANGELS DO IT IMMACULATELY", while Customs in Hell has green and red channels for "Nothing to abandon" and "Abandon hope here". At the same time, he's genially pessimistic about humans and their intractable stupidity. Maybe the lemmings have the right idea after all? Our world seems doomed to end, not with a bang but a snigger ... Vintage Holt. --David Langford

`Tom Holt stands out on his own . . . If you haven't read any, go out and buy one...'

`Frantically wacky and wilfully confusing . . . gratifyingly clever and very amusing'

'Frothy, fast and funny'

Something is about to go wrong. Very wrong. What do you expect if the Supreme Being decides to get away from it all for a few days, leaving his naturally inquisitive son to look after the cosmic balance of things? A minor hiccup with a human soul and before you know it you're on the road to chaos.

Tom Holt is the author of such comic fantasy classics as WHO'S AFRAID OF BEOWULF?, EXPECTING SOMEONE TALLER and OVERTIME.