My Hero

by Tom Holt

Writing novels? Piece of cake, surely ... or so Jane thinks.
Until hers start writing back. At which point, she really should stop. Better still, change her name and flee the country. The one thing she should not do is go into the book herself. After all, that's what heroes are for. Unfortunatly, the world of fiction is a far more complicated place than she ever imagined. And she's about to land her hero right in it.

Genres: Fantasy, Humor, Fiction, Comedy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Ebooks, Novels

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Tom Holt (Thomas Charles Louis Holt) is a British novelist.
He was born in London, the son of novelist Hazel Holt, and was educated at Westminster School, Wadham College, Oxford, and The College of Law, London.
Holt's works include mythopoeic novels which parody or take as their theme various aspects of mythology, history or literature and develop them in new and often humorous ways. He has also produced a number of "straight" historical novels writing as Thomas Holt and fantasy novels writing as K.J. Parker.

Reviews

[Riju Ganguly]

Once again, a story that should have become a short, sharp, possibly snarky novella with in-jokes abounding, has been enlarged to a novel, in the process losing all its steam.
Meh!

[Tom Loock]

Re-read about 17 years after the first time:

My Hero is one of Tom Holt's best comedic fantasies: it's smart, (as always) very clever and extremely funny, in parts even hilarious.

As far as the number of cameos goes, this one must be at the top of its class. Though I'm tempted to list a few notables, I don't want to spoil it for anyone. It's a romp through popular (mostly YA) literature as of 1996.

If you have never read any novel by Tom Holt, this is one I would highly recommend.

[Usfromdk]

Entertaining and funny, but overall too messy and unstructured to get more than 3 stars. Too many characters, too many narrative jumps along the way, too many 'convenient' rule changes whenever the plot demanded. Jasper Fforde tried out a similar kind of plot as well in some of his books (Lost in a Good Book etc.), and in my opinion did a better job.

[Olly Colluphid]

A real slog to finish. Most Tom Holt books are enjoyable but this one was rather incoherent. The problem with there being no rules is that there is no jeopardy or reason to care...

Try his other books.

[Louise]

Very wacky, a bit all over the place but very funny, an enjoyable read.

[K. Morral]

This is a second read, of the version in my earlier review (omnibus edition).

[Michael Ritchie]

An early dive into the fictional world. It's good, but five years later Jasper Fforde will do it so much better. Still, as funny as usual from Holt.

[STU]

Mostly good.
Humorous, clever and enjoyable.

Didn't like the way it ended - lost me and didn't make much sense to me.

[Steve]

As always, Holt gives us a wild fun ride. One of the things I enjoyed was his commentary (sort of) on writing fiction.

[Lynn]

Interesting premise. The line between fiction and reality becomes permeable. Characters in books cross over to reality and authors cross over to the fictional worlds of books.

[Kenny]

I bought a Tom Holt Omnibus for £2 a while back, and finally got round to it. I figured I'd never read him, but while searching for this, looked at some more of his books, and found out I'd read at least one other of his as a teenager. So memorable stuff it may not necessarily be, but this one was a bit more fun - characters and authors come to life/enter books and there's some entertaining set pieces in having the characters as sort the current role for a jobbing actor in fictionish land (and quite a bit of fun with Hamlet). If this was a tv film, it would be a bit Comic Strip.

So, not normally my cup of tea, but for the same price, a diverting read. Entertaining, easy to whizz through, and better than I thought it would be but still, may be another twenty years before I'm returning.

[Nathan Dehoff]

This one is about fictional characters crossing over into reality, and authors entering their own stories. There's definitely a similarity here to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, right down to Hamlet being one of the characters who visits the real world. I didn't find this to be one of Holt's best, but it had its clever elements, including a sentient gun.

[G.R. Matthews]

Finally finished this one. It started really well, lots originality and twists to narrative, but then it gets bogged down in its own cleverness... and I got lost. A real shame, the first Tom Holt book I've struggled to get through. He is still a talent, this was just an off day (in my opinion).

[Chanel Earl]

I read the first half and then skipped to the last chapter. It wasn't as engaging, hilarious or easy to follow as the other Tom Holt books I read recently.

[C]

Another delightfully quick romp with Tom Holt. So self-reflective that it comes back around to being acceptable.

[Jen!]

You can read m review here - http://combustiblereviews.com/2015/11...