I don't always get British humor. I really want to, but for every time I find myself metaphorically rolling on the floor (usually I only find myself literally rolling on the floor is when I am accidentally or otherwise lit on fire. It happens more often than you would think), there are times where I end up just blinking a lot, thinking that I just missed something potentially funny. Such it is with Monty Python, such it is with Douglas Adams, and such it is with the new book by British humorous fantasy writer (fantastic humorist?) Tom Holt, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages.

The plot of the book is somewhat complex, as it entails a conglomeration of different parts that intersect a bit, but don't really all come together until the end.

We have Polly, a real estate lawyer (well, a solicitor, since we're being all British) who is experiencing odd goings-on at work: namely, her coffee randomly disappears, but also finished work randomly appears that people swear that she accomplished when she knows she hasn't.

We have Polly's brother Don, the musician who normally goes through life trying to determine the perfect note for a new jingle but has recently discovered a pencil sharpener with which he can apparently do magic (and inadvertently cause his neighbor to disappear).

We have a pig (yep, a pig) who manages to use logic to derive quantum mechanics and the nature of matter/energy transportation, 'cause she can't figure out any other way that the nice humans who watch over her could have taken away her various litters of piglets without her seeing.

We have a dry-cleaner store run by a lovely older couple who wake up every morning to discover that their shop (and their flat above said shop) has appeared in a different part of England, with new clients showing up daily not concerned (or even noticing) that the shop didn't exist at that location the day before.

We have two knights (one in white, one in black... naturally) who seem to be repeating the same duel over and over again without really questioning why.

We have a bunch of chickens who seem to think that they are (or were) humans.

And we have Polly's boss Mr. Huos, and his hired PI, Stanley Gogerty, who might both possibly seem to know more about what is going on than others would think. Do they really? Oooh, the suspense!

Well, I certainly hope they know what is going on, really, as I kind of didn't. As I said, it's rather complicated, but the book is very "go with the flow". It's a little hard to keep everyone straight at the beginning, but you get a good feel for the different characters, even without knowing how everything fits together until the end.

But how is the humor? Well, very British. I was highly amused at many points throughout the story (both due to the specific writing, and due to the situations), but at others I recognized the humor but can't claim that I found it all that funny, and at yet other times I just blinked a few times and felt like I was missing something.

Part of the the issue, though, is the difference between Holt's writing (and humor) style and my reading style. I read fast. Fast enough that I sometimes find myself skimming words rather than recognizing and acknowledging each and every word. Some writing styles work well with this reading style... Holt's doesn't. To fully appreciate his humor, one must really pay attention to every word. This isn't a problem with the book, by any means, just a slight disconnect for me.

But the book (and Holt's writing style in particular) did rather remind me of Douglas Adams. So if you like Adams's work, then I'm betting you'll like Holt. This book is my first introduction to him, but reading some of the quick synopses on Wikipedia of his other books makes me want to read more, just from the set-ups and knowing nothing else about the books (such as Only Human, "in which four human souls are switched respectively with a machine, a painting, a lemming, and a demon", or Odds and Gods, "which features assorted pantheons and their adventures after 'retirement'".).

So give the book a chance, see if the humor is for you. But keep in mind that while pursuing sausage (mmm... sausage), it could be chicken-related questions that trip you up.

   -- K. Burtt