May Contain Traces of Magic

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 show more 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! show less

'Bloody Hell, Jill,' Chris growled. 'You make it sound like birdwatching.'
She laughed. 'Some of them are bit like that,' she sort-of-whispered back, 'they've got copies of the Observer Book of British Demons that they carry with them wherever they go, and whenever they come across a grade or subspecies they haven't seen before, they tick them off the list and boast about it for days in the canteen. All a bit sad, really, but I guess it's their way of keeping motivated. At least they don't have the dead ones stuffed and mounted any more, like they used to when I joined the department.'

There is a link to "The Portable Door" and its sequels, as the protagonist of this book works for J. Wellington Wells, but Chris is a salesman who spends show more his time driving round the West Midlands selling magical goods such as dried water and portable folding parking to shopkeepers, and sees himself as being on the periphery of the magical world, although his girlfriend Karen works as a scryer and their old school-friend Jill is a senior member of staff in the government's demon control department.

Although Chris resents his boss asking him to take a work placement student called Angela with him on his rounds, he isn't expecting to come across a demon killing on Angela's first day. From then on things go from bad to worse, since as well as being targeted by demons, Chris is falling under the spell of his magical SatNav, which could have fatal results if he isn't careful.

I liked this almost as much as "The Portable Door", with only the rushed ending letting it down slightly. show less

Started out very promising; I groaned a bit on spotting a link to John Wellington Wells & Co., who lost my interest a good while ago, but it's a background connection rather than anything major. I liked the basic premise with the sentient SatNav and some of the possibilities it seemed to be offering. As I read on, though, it stodged up significantly. The characters didn't get much development, and spent a lot of time holding out on one another, so on the frequent occasions when people may or may not really be themselves it's a bit hard to notice the difference.

There are some interesting ideas in the book (dried water, portable parking-spaces, how fey and demons work), but I felt like they were a bit neglected (particularly dried water, show more which is a massive smoking Chekhov's Gun that doesn't remotely pay off the anticipation, in fact the meagre bit you do get is rushed and doesn't really explain itself). This was mostly because Holt took the book in the same JWW direction that has already lost my interest: dreams, alternate realities and iterative time travel. One consequence is that it's impossible to puzzle out the plot yourself, so you're reduced to accepting developments as they come, and when they do they tend to feel pretty arbitrary. "Oh, look, he's ended up in another reality again, or possibly back in time, or maybe it's a dream, unless that previous bit was the dream... " A couple of other baffling things are explained away briefly in exposition at the end and that's really all you get.

I just felt like this was a bit uninspired. Couple who don't really get on, check. Multiple layers of time-travel and reality-hopping, check. Dissatisfied, unsuccessful male protagonist tossed about by Fate and only occasionally finding the energy to fight back, check. Mysterious manipulative women with hidden agendas, check. People deceiving each other and not even understanding why, only to work it out at the end when the convoluted exposition occurs, check. Deux ex machinesque ending, check. There were some fun touches, don't get me wrong. I do not hate this book. It's a reasonable read, has some keenly-observed sections and ideas, and some very funny moments. If you're going on a long journey, there's no harm in picking it up at the station or airport - but expect to drop it off at a charity shop at the other end, rather than read it again. show less

It's a pity, but complex plotting doesn't necessarily make good writing. It takes a really excellent writer to tie her or his readers up in such tangles that at times they don't know whether they're coming or going, but without leaving them at the close wondering why all the complexity should have been necessary. Borges could do it; Lem could do it; Margaret Atwood can (sometimes) do it: Holt can't.

If you liked his more recent work, it's a fair bet that you'll like this - particularly since Holt has yet again inserted several of his previous jokes and characters.

My real beef with what Holt is doing nowadays is that there are already plenty of far less capable writers churning out this kind of stuff. He can do - has done - so much show more better. I'd happily have sacrificed his work from The Portable Door onwards - possibly even further back - for him to have written just one more of his Lucia books. show less

Until I entered this onto Librarything I didn't realise that it was part of a series.
Chris Popham is a salesman and takes his satnav for granted. Until she starts talking back, and his life starts to unravel. His products are magical and the demand is going down. His marriage is in trouble and things start to get worse.

It's a whacky ride and I found it a great fun read.

Fun read, pretty much like other Holt novels, he builds a fun world that doesn't necessarily make complete logical sense and then he has low-key British humor (humour) with it. This might be part of series but it really stands alone just fine.

Interesting premise and mostly interesting characters. Yet - as with so many of Tom Holt's books for me - he lost my interest about half way through and the rest was a slog. Too much in-depth internal dialogue that got boring for me; I found the plot a bit too complex and tedious.