Status
Available
Collection
Series
Publication
Orbit (2012), 368 pages
Description
Fantasy. Fiction. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:Polly is a real estate solicitor. She is also losing her mind. Someone keeps drinking her coffee. And talking to her clients. And doing her job. And when she goes to the dry cleaner's to pick up her dress for the party, it's not there. Not the dress �?? the dry cleaner's. And then there are the chickens who think they are people. Something strange is definitely going on �?? and it's going to take more than a magical ring to sort it out. From one of the funniest voices in comic fiction today comes a hilarious tale of pigs and parallel w
User reviews
LibraryThing member Jenners26
Before I read this book, I’d never heard of Tom Holt. I read this book for one reason: this blurb by my beloved Christopher Moore, which appeared in the NetGalley write-up:
“Tom Holt may be the most imaginative satirist to land on our shores since Douglas Adams.” — Christopher Moore
Funny
Why don’t I try to tell you what the book is about so you can see for yourself? Take a deep breath. Here goes.
My Attempt To Describe The Book’s Plot
The book starts with a sow working out some physics questions in order to determine where her piglets keep disappearing when they go inside a rather large trailer near the pig pen. When she finally makes her way inside, she seemingly vanishes into another dimension. (But more on that later. That is just the warm-up.)
The real start of the book is when we meet Polly, a lawyer at a construction firm who has had some rather odd things happening to her lately: disappearing coffee, work being done without her doing it, strange notes in her files. Plus she can’t seem to find the dry cleaners where she left her dress; it has seemingly vanished into thin air. When she talks to her brother Don about whether she might be going crazy, her fears are allayed by his explanations. That is, until Don picks up clothing at the missing dry cleaners and finds a mysterious pencil sharpener that apparently lets him perform magic—magic that includes accidentally disappearing his annoying upstairs neighbor as well as the ability to create minions out of his hair.
From there, things get a little weird. As Polly and Don try to figure out what is happening, we bounce around meeting other characters, including: the couple who work at the dry cleaners that moves to a new location every night (and don’t think about going in the downstairs bathroom around 10:30 in the morning); Mr. Huos (Polly’s boss) who has a rather unusual back story as well as the headache of having the properties he’s developed disappearing overnight; and Mr. Stan Gogerty, the only man who has a chance of unraveling all the things that are plaguing these poor people (but only if he can escape from a tube station that hasn’t been built until 10 years in the future). Oh, and did I mention that the key to figuring out what is going on comes down to determining which came first … the chicken or the egg?
So????
If reading the book description gave you headache or made you roll your eyes, this book isn’t for you. If, however, you found yourself saying “Yes! Yes! Yes! This sounds like the goofy, abusurdist kind of book I like but just can’t find enough of!“, this book is for you!
I loved this book—although it occasionally caused me a headache trying to keep up with who was doing what and where and when. It is best not to think too much, sit back and let it all come clear in the end. When you read a book like this, it is like getting on a roller coaster: you sit down, strap yourself in, and prepare to have a wild ride that doesn’t always make sense, has lots of twists and turns and craziness but is good, clean, mind-bending fun.
My only real complaint was that I often got confused about who was narrating. “Is this the chicken talking,” I’d think, “or is this the knight stuck in the time warp?” (Yeah … it is that kind of book.) It would have been helpful to have some clearer transitions (for example, a small heading saying “Don” if we are with Don). However, I did read the book in PDF format that I downloaded from NetGalley so it is entirely possible that the non-galley of the version of the book has this information. However, even with that minor quibble, I still very much enjoyed this book. In fact, I actually snorted with laughter a few times. Here are some of the passages that really made me giggle (although it is the kind of book where passage after passage is amusing).
Describing a rather special library: They called it a library, which was a bit like calling croquet on the vicarage lawn a fight to the death.
“Um,” he said, and then his voice stopped working, a failure so abrupt and total it was hard to believe Microsoft didn’t have anything to do with it.
The voice was very loud and when it spoke the ground shook under his feet, but he’d stood up to bigger bullies before. He’d used Windows Vista. He’d installed broadband. Incomprehensible and immensely powerful forces entirely beyond his control were all in a day’s work as far as he was concerned.
I really enjoyed this book and was thrilled to find out that Tom Holt has quite a few other books for me to explore. How did I not hear of this author until now???? Well, at least I’m in the know now. If you’re a Tom Holt fan, what would you recommend I read next?
“Tom Holt may be the most imaginative satirist to land on our shores since Douglas Adams.” — Christopher Moore
Funny
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that Moore (who Tom Holt kind of reminds me of) mentions Douglas Adams (who Tom Holt kind of reminds me of) because this book is in the same genre as Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with the difference being that Holt’s band of motley heroes don’t venture off into the galaxy (although they do visit other space-time dimensions). In other words, this is aggressively silly but smart stuff, and you either like this kind of stuff or you don’t. I do (like this kind of stuff).Why don’t I try to tell you what the book is about so you can see for yourself? Take a deep breath. Here goes.
My Attempt To Describe The Book’s Plot
The book starts with a sow working out some physics questions in order to determine where her piglets keep disappearing when they go inside a rather large trailer near the pig pen. When she finally makes her way inside, she seemingly vanishes into another dimension. (But more on that later. That is just the warm-up.)
The real start of the book is when we meet Polly, a lawyer at a construction firm who has had some rather odd things happening to her lately: disappearing coffee, work being done without her doing it, strange notes in her files. Plus she can’t seem to find the dry cleaners where she left her dress; it has seemingly vanished into thin air. When she talks to her brother Don about whether she might be going crazy, her fears are allayed by his explanations. That is, until Don picks up clothing at the missing dry cleaners and finds a mysterious pencil sharpener that apparently lets him perform magic—magic that includes accidentally disappearing his annoying upstairs neighbor as well as the ability to create minions out of his hair.
From there, things get a little weird. As Polly and Don try to figure out what is happening, we bounce around meeting other characters, including: the couple who work at the dry cleaners that moves to a new location every night (and don’t think about going in the downstairs bathroom around 10:30 in the morning); Mr. Huos (Polly’s boss) who has a rather unusual back story as well as the headache of having the properties he’s developed disappearing overnight; and Mr. Stan Gogerty, the only man who has a chance of unraveling all the things that are plaguing these poor people (but only if he can escape from a tube station that hasn’t been built until 10 years in the future). Oh, and did I mention that the key to figuring out what is going on comes down to determining which came first … the chicken or the egg?
So????
If reading the book description gave you headache or made you roll your eyes, this book isn’t for you. If, however, you found yourself saying “Yes! Yes! Yes! This sounds like the goofy, abusurdist kind of book I like but just can’t find enough of!“, this book is for you!
I loved this book—although it occasionally caused me a headache trying to keep up with who was doing what and where and when. It is best not to think too much, sit back and let it all come clear in the end. When you read a book like this, it is like getting on a roller coaster: you sit down, strap yourself in, and prepare to have a wild ride that doesn’t always make sense, has lots of twists and turns and craziness but is good, clean, mind-bending fun.
My only real complaint was that I often got confused about who was narrating. “Is this the chicken talking,” I’d think, “or is this the knight stuck in the time warp?” (Yeah … it is that kind of book.) It would have been helpful to have some clearer transitions (for example, a small heading saying “Don” if we are with Don). However, I did read the book in PDF format that I downloaded from NetGalley so it is entirely possible that the non-galley of the version of the book has this information. However, even with that minor quibble, I still very much enjoyed this book. In fact, I actually snorted with laughter a few times. Here are some of the passages that really made me giggle (although it is the kind of book where passage after passage is amusing).
Describing a rather special library: They called it a library, which was a bit like calling croquet on the vicarage lawn a fight to the death.
“Um,” he said, and then his voice stopped working, a failure so abrupt and total it was hard to believe Microsoft didn’t have anything to do with it.
The voice was very loud and when it spoke the ground shook under his feet, but he’d stood up to bigger bullies before. He’d used Windows Vista. He’d installed broadband. Incomprehensible and immensely powerful forces entirely beyond his control were all in a day’s work as far as he was concerned.
I really enjoyed this book and was thrilled to find out that Tom Holt has quite a few other books for me to explore. How did I not hear of this author until now???? Well, at least I’m in the know now. If you’re a Tom Holt fan, what would you recommend I read next?
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LibraryThing member irunsjh
I have to admit the first half of this book did not grab me like I had hoped it would. After putting the book down for a bit, and coming back I was sucked in immediately. Overall a very good book, with a very interesting premise. A recommendation from me for sure.
LibraryThing member ivydtruitt
A sow that has figured out how to achieve teleportation, a dry cleaners that magically moves lock, stock and barrel every forty-eight hours, a slice of medieval world within a loo, battling knights, chickens who believe they’re human, and disappearing housing estates. Just a typical day in the
I’m a big Tom Holt fan and was excited to see LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF SAUSAGES. It took me longer to get into this than any of my previous reads by Mr. Holt. There is a certain mindset required but even then it was hard to get into. For me it lacked the humor and fun that I’ve come to associate with Mr. Holt’s flights of fancy. There were too many tangents, too many characters, and not enough cohesion. The result was a tad confusing on occasion and the tie together at the end was less than satisfying. It’s worth the read, especially if you’re a fan, but I felt it fell short of Mr. Holt’s usual high standard.
I received this from Netgalley in return for my honest opinion.
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world Tom Holt has created in LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF SAUSAGES.I’m a big Tom Holt fan and was excited to see LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF SAUSAGES. It took me longer to get into this than any of my previous reads by Mr. Holt. There is a certain mindset required but even then it was hard to get into. For me it lacked the humor and fun that I’ve come to associate with Mr. Holt’s flights of fancy. There were too many tangents, too many characters, and not enough cohesion. The result was a tad confusing on occasion and the tie together at the end was less than satisfying. It’s worth the read, especially if you’re a fan, but I felt it fell short of Mr. Holt’s usual high standard.
I received this from Netgalley in return for my honest opinion.
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LibraryThing member lisapaul
I don't know why I keep expecting every novel since "Portable Door" to be sensible, easily followed, corporate urban fantasy. This is Tom Holt, after all. Sausages is most definitely in the pre-Portable vein, despite a few brief nods to the Professional Magic Trade, and its celebrities. The book
Oh, and I can't stop accidentally remembering the title as "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoked Sausages," though that's probably just me.
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doesn't always make sense, and it explicitly doesn't explain a central riddle. It's that last that's my only real complaint: I hope it's explained to another book that I've forgotten or haven't read yet.Oh, and I can't stop accidentally remembering the title as "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoked Sausages," though that's probably just me.
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LibraryThing member ImBookingIt
This book was an absolutely ridiculous, immensely fun (and funny) look at what happens when time and space go awry for some otherwise perfectly ordinary people. And a pig.The humor is similar in style to Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett-- no matter how bizarre the situation, the characters and the
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author continue to do their best to keep going. Whether it is cups of coffee that mysteriously empty, a dry cleaners that appears in a different spot each day, or a pig mentally debating cause, effect & quantum theory, the story just moves on.I did get a bit confused at times, but that was all in good fun. This isn't just mindless enjoyment-- the whole book is something of a 4 dimensional puzzle. I'm actually amazed at how well the plot tied up in the end. I'd really doubted there could be an even semi-rational explanation for everything, but at the final accounting there was only one piece I didn't quite buy, and I'm willing to let that one slide, given how much I smiled and even laughed while reading the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member grizzly.anderson
Normally I quite enjoy Tom Holt's books but this one just didn't do it for me. Perhaps the subtleties of his satire in Pursuit of Sausages are lost on the non-british reader. There is a rather large cast of characters of lawyers, musicians, magicians, real estate developers, knights, shop keepers,
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chickens, and pigs that seem to be rather haphazardly assembled and then discarded in order to fill out to full novel length an idea that probably would have worked fine as a short story or novella. Show Less
LibraryThing member SimoneA
This is the first Tom Holt book I read and tells a story about pigs, chickens, lawyers, dry cleaners and a lot of magic. I found this a funny book, with a few laugh out loud moments. It is definitely an absurd story, which I like, and it reminded me, like other reviewers, of Douglas Adams and Terry
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Pratchett. I will certainly look into other Tom Holt books! Show Less
LibraryThing member scuzzy
Loved it...and if you are a fan of 'Hitchhiker's Guide', 'Red Dwarf', or even love "Back to the Future' you are going to enjoy this.
Meet Polly, she is an in-house lawyer who starts noticing that someone is drinking her coffee, and writing 'HELP' on her notebook. And when she can't find her local
Getting her brother, Don, a muso (of course) to pick it up for her (to confirm of deny the drycleaner is where it is meant to be) he also finds it 'missing'...however, with the assistance of some strands of hair, a shape-changing pencil sharpener, and concentric universe methodology, he retrives the dress...and so starts a tale that requires more than just leteral thought processes.
This book snaps you right from the word go by providing us the inner-thoughts of a farmyard sow (yes, of the pig variety) who's command of thermo-nuclear physics but lack of opposable thumbs is priceless, and rarely does the book stop blowing your mind. But unlike a lot of books, it actually gets funnier and funnier, and when Stan Gogerty (a transcendental sleuth) is called in to assist with explaining it all, I nearly lost it. His explanation of concentric universes is riproarously funny and his self-thoguht processes are amusing.
And it all boils down to one thing...the most asked question there is; What came first? The chicken or the egg....and you will soon know the answer and be set free!
Meet Polly, she is an in-house lawyer who starts noticing that someone is drinking her coffee, and writing 'HELP' on her notebook. And when she can't find her local
Show More
drycleaners when she goes to pick up a dress, she has a slight suspicion something is amiss. Getting her brother, Don, a muso (of course) to pick it up for her (to confirm of deny the drycleaner is where it is meant to be) he also finds it 'missing'...however, with the assistance of some strands of hair, a shape-changing pencil sharpener, and concentric universe methodology, he retrives the dress...and so starts a tale that requires more than just leteral thought processes.
This book snaps you right from the word go by providing us the inner-thoughts of a farmyard sow (yes, of the pig variety) who's command of thermo-nuclear physics but lack of opposable thumbs is priceless, and rarely does the book stop blowing your mind. But unlike a lot of books, it actually gets funnier and funnier, and when Stan Gogerty (a transcendental sleuth) is called in to assist with explaining it all, I nearly lost it. His explanation of concentric universes is riproarously funny and his self-thoguht processes are amusing.
And it all boils down to one thing...the most asked question there is; What came first? The chicken or the egg....and you will soon know the answer and be set free!
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LibraryThing member JenneB
There were some amusing parts, but it just didn't ever coalesce into anything.
Even so, I wasn't totally against it until the always-enjoyable Career Women Are Scary B*tch*s cliche showed up. Sigh.
Even so, I wasn't totally against it until the always-enjoyable Career Women Are Scary B*tch*s cliche showed up. Sigh.
LibraryThing member ten_floors_up
I picked this up at a library thinking I ought to try something new in the British comic fantasy vein. The author I really had in mind to try was Robert Rankin, but I couldn't remember author names at the time, just a tendency for punning titles.
On the credit side, (keeping George RR Martin
I guess I like altiverses that just exist by themselves on their own terms, whereas here story and furniture rules cosied up together a bit too much for my personal preferences.
Three stars though for having enough narrative zip and sense of fun to keep me reading.
On the credit side, (keeping George RR Martin
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furniture rules in mind) the story moved forward steadily with enough going on to keep me reading to the end, and some of the humour tickled me. Thankfully it didn't descend into any gratuitous grotesqueries. I guess I like altiverses that just exist by themselves on their own terms, whereas here story and furniture rules cosied up together a bit too much for my personal preferences.
Three stars though for having enough narrative zip and sense of fun to keep me reading.
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LibraryThing member LisCarey
If you're familiar with Tom Holt, all I have to say is, Have fun! If not, I should say a bit more than that. For those who are new to Holt's work, be prepared for a wild ride.
Something odd is happening in the offices of Blue Remembered Hills Development, and Polly Mayer doesn't like it. Someone is
Something odd is happening at BRHD. Mr. Huos has lost his brass ring. And ever since the loss of the ring, clients and customers are starting to complain. Something about the land they bought being missing. Mr. Huos is also missing his past: He has no memory before he woke up on a mountainside in eastern Europe ten years ago, with the brass ring, steel earrings, and $100,000 in US currency. Oh, and the ability to understand any spoke language instantly. And to make deals that are not far off from turning sows' ears into silk purses.
Something odd is happening outside BRHD. Don Mayer, Polly's brother, found a brass pencil sharpener in the pocket of a suit he picked up from the dry cleaners' shortly before Polly discovered that that shop not only didn't exist anymore, it never had. Suddenly he can Make Things Happen, including the return of his sister's dress, and the disappearance of his annoying neighbor--whom he only wanted to go away, not cease existing.
Meanwhile, there are the hens who used to be lawyers, and Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the dry cleaners whose shop has been moving to new locations every couple of days for the last ten years.
And all of that is before things start getting weird.
If you're a Tom Holt fan, definitely pick up this one. If you've never heard of Tom Holt before, be adventurous and pick it up anyway! It's weird and wonderful and a lot of fun.
I received a free electronic galley of this book via NetGalley.
Something odd is happening in the offices of Blue Remembered Hills Development, and Polly Mayer doesn't like it. Someone is
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drinking her coffee. She's getting phone calls complaining about her failure to follow up on conversations she knows didn't happen. She's finding notes in her work diary that she didn't write, and work done in her files that she didn't do. Polly is not amused--and that's before she discovers that the dry cleaners where she dropped off her dress has disappeared. Not gone out of business--vanished as if it had never been there.Something odd is happening at BRHD. Mr. Huos has lost his brass ring. And ever since the loss of the ring, clients and customers are starting to complain. Something about the land they bought being missing. Mr. Huos is also missing his past: He has no memory before he woke up on a mountainside in eastern Europe ten years ago, with the brass ring, steel earrings, and $100,000 in US currency. Oh, and the ability to understand any spoke language instantly. And to make deals that are not far off from turning sows' ears into silk purses.
Something odd is happening outside BRHD. Don Mayer, Polly's brother, found a brass pencil sharpener in the pocket of a suit he picked up from the dry cleaners' shortly before Polly discovered that that shop not only didn't exist anymore, it never had. Suddenly he can Make Things Happen, including the return of his sister's dress, and the disappearance of his annoying neighbor--whom he only wanted to go away, not cease existing.
Meanwhile, there are the hens who used to be lawyers, and Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the dry cleaners whose shop has been moving to new locations every couple of days for the last ten years.
And all of that is before things start getting weird.
If you're a Tom Holt fan, definitely pick up this one. If you've never heard of Tom Holt before, be adventurous and pick it up anyway! It's weird and wonderful and a lot of fun.
I received a free electronic galley of this book via NetGalley.
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LibraryThing member tanaise
I think being in tom Holt's head would be a very scary place.
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2011
Physical description
368 p.; 7.72 inches
ISBN
1841495085 / 9781841495088