Tom Holt

A Tribute

The nineties was certainly the decade of the emergence of humorous fantasy, in the eighties we had the average Robert Asprin, the insipid Craig Shaw Gardner and the new kid on the block Terry Pratchett. However, as we moved into the nineties, Terry Pratchett hit a stride that has been as unbelievably superb, as it has been prolific, a great man named Rankin arose from the dead water known as Brentford and a former reluctant infant prodigy rose to prominence

His name was called Tom Holt and his first humorous book, Expecting Someone Taller, was published in the late eighties. Two more were published before the end of the decade and the rest is history. Now Tom has published 22 books, 15 of which are humorous and all are on par with the best of the rest.

Tom was born in September 1961, in London, and first studied at Westminster school, before moving on to Wadham College, Oxford and the College of Law. He produced his first book, Poems by Tom Holt (1973), at the tender age of 13 and to his horror was immediately hailed as a child prodigy.

Tom first foray into humour was two sequels to E F Benson's Lucia series, Lucia in Wartime (1985) and Lucia Triumphant (1986) he has also written two historic novels, one biography, one poetry and one collection with his filk songs.

I first discovered Tom at the beginning of the nineties when I stumbled across a copy of Expecting Someone Taller in a back street bookshop, opposite the Royal High Courts of Justice in the Strand, London. After that I was hooked and have not stopped reading whatever Holt produces. Tom is often liken to Terry Pratchett (which is no small praise) but I suspect that this is merely because they are both English and both write humorous fantasy. There are certainly no similarities in their writing style.

As the new millennium came and went Holt has shown no sign of letting his output slow down, or letting his quantity control slip. Which can only be a good thing. More power his pen, is what I say.