CompleteMartialArts.com - The Portable Door
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $10.17
Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Little, Brown Book Group
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781841492087
ISBN: 1841492086
Label: Little, Brown Book Group
Manufacturer: Little, Brown Book Group
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: 2004-02-01
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Studio: Little, Brown Book Group
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Editorial Reviews:
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Starting a new job is always stressful, but when Paul Carpenter arrives at the office of H.W. Wells he has no idea what trouble lies in store. Because he is about to discover that the apparently respectable establishment now paying his salary is in fact a front for a deeply sinister organization that has a mighty peculiar agenda. It seems that half the time his bosses are away with the fairies. But they're not, of course. They're away with the goblins. Tom Holt, Master of the Comic Fantasy Novel, cordially invites you to join him in his world of madness by reading his next hilarious masterpiece.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great read
Comment: I really enjoyed this book. It's like a less slapstick Terry Pratchet novel. I suppose 'Good Omens' (Pratchet's collaboration with Neil Gaiman) would be a good comparison.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fun, witty, and laugh out loud funny.
Comment: Oh, what fun! A very British fantastical comedy. The fantasy part is woven in very slowly and very carefully, so you almost don't notice it's happening until you look around and everything is swords and sorcerers and epic duels instead of your dull office and the missing stapler and the photocopier that never seems to work. The brilliance of this book is how those things tie together. And god, so funny! I was laughing out loud all the way through. Well written, great characters, and a unique and interesting plot, full of surprises. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Portable Door - funny with mind-twisting supernatural situations.
Comment: The storytelling keeps you hooked, but the premise is so far-fetched that it detracts from the plot. Holt is a master at storytelling, setting up wacky situations and realistic tension between his characters. His dialogue is sparse, but accurate in conveying the crux of the plot, like when Paul forgets his date with Sophie and she detects something is wrong when there is a minute lapse in the conversation. She blew him off for the ceramics guy and you don't know how she feels. I liked Expecting_Someone_Taller maybe a little better, since the the supernatural was more of a frame for the story rather than the sci-fi trappings here. I liked the love-philtre scenes and think he achieved a very original and satisfying solution to the moral paradox of the love-potion/date-rape conundrum. The ending seemed to go off in a new, unresolved direction instead of explaining the rest of my questions, but you need to do that if you are planning to write sequels, don't you?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Escapism in the Cleverest Sense
Comment: What fun! Holt plays brilliantly off literary references both new and old (everything from Harry Potter to Shakespeare to Gilbert & Sulivan) and his dry British wit is right up my alley. An absolutely delightful read. Funny, adventuresome, and clever to boot!
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of his best
Comment: This is a book so hilarious that I have repeated bits of the jokes in two settings in the two days since I finished it (the bit about Chekov. And this one little joke made people laugh so hard that tears came to their eyes. And I can't tell jokes. And it was out of context.
That's how funny this is. Douglas Adams meets the Office.
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