Mightier Than the Sword My Hero , Who's Afraid of Beowulf? [Paperback]

"Mightier Than the Sword" is another compendium of two of Tom Holt's works. This one contains Who's Afraid of Beowulf? (which I rated at a (marginal) Very Good) and My Hero (which I had to rate as Bad). So, as I usually do with compendium-type works, I take the arithmetic average of the contents and rate this book at an OK 3 stars out of 5. Here are my reviews for the individual works:

- "Who's Afraid of Beowulf?:" I was quite surprised with Tom Holt's "Who's Afraid of Beowulf?" Not for any deep literary reason. But, simply because Beowulf isn't in the book. Outside of the fact that the main characters originate at about the same time and area as Beowulf (and that he's mentioned two or three times in the story), there's no Beowulf here at all. This is entirely different from Holt's modus operandi in his The First Tom Holt Omnibus: Flying Dutch & Faust Among Equals (Tom Holt Omnibus) where, in "Flying Dutch," the story revolves around the Flying Dutchman, and in "Faust Among Equals," it's all about Faust. Regardless of that, the story is well done and interesting. The characters are good, the plot is sound, the modern and historical references are amusing. But, it just lacks the spark or brightness of Holt's other "good" works. I'd actually like to rate this at 3-1/2 stars. But, since I'm forced to go with integers, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and rate it at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.

- "My Hero:" Holt came up with an interesting concept in "My Hero" (fictional characters having an independent existence). But, he fails in its execution. To get his characters from their problem state over to a satisfactory conclusion, he has them popping from Reality into various works of Fiction (I'm capitalizing those words because Reality and Fiction are dimensions of the universe in the book). There's no problem with that. Unfortunately, instead of choosing the fictional works in some kind of logical, chain-of-event type of manner, he seems to just pop them into the various plots at random. Now, that wouldn't be too bad in a fairly short book. But, my copy (part of his Mightier Than the Sword: Contains Who's Afraid of Beowulf? and My Hero (The Second Tom Holt, Omnibus)) is 325 pages long. That's just too long for, as another reviewer said in a more positive review, "in-one-door-and-out-the-other chase scenes." After a while, it just becomes boring. Even the length might have been mitigated if he spent the time with some meaty material. But, understandably, this is a Tom Holt book, and that's just not what he does. Instead, he spends the time making fun of the various foibles of authorship and the publishing industry. Again, that just can't support 325 pages of text. So, unfortunately, I have to rate this book at a Bad 2 stars out of 5.

There are two novels in this thick tome, the best of which is WHO'S AFRAID OF BEOWULF about a female archaeologist who finds more than she bargained for at a Viking burial site in Scotland. It is an amusing little novella not quite long enough or strong enough to stand on its own, but it is just the right length for the kind of story that it is. I found several images to chuckle at, and the character of the evil CEO/sorcerer-king provided most of them.

The second, longer novel in this volume is titled MY HERO. This is a cute premise of characters escaping from their authors' control and of authors getting caught in their own stories. It is a cute premise and well executed, but the premise is too slender a reed to support the story's length.

My main complaint is that the characters in both these stories are two-dimensional and sketchily done. I can read a book with a weak plot if the characters impress me, but plot alone and clever writing is not enough to hold my interest.

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  3.0 out of 5 stars