Only Human/Portable Door - Softcover

Holt, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184149416X ISBN 13: 9781841494166

Publisher: Orbit, 2004

Synopsis

ONLY HUMAN

Something is about to go wrong. Very wrong. But what can you expect when 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?

There's only one hope for mankind. And that's being optimistic.

THE PORTABLE DOOR

Starting a new job can be extremely stressful. You meet your colleagues and forget their names. You meet your boss and forget his name. Then after breaking the photocopier, you forget your own name.

And the next day you get to do it all again.

About this title

Product Description:

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 a welding machine soon leads to a violent belch, and before you know it the human condition - not to mention the lemming condition - is tumbling down the slippery slope to chaos.

Review:

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Orbit
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 184149416X
• ISBN 13: 9781841494166
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 768