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Doughnut (2013)

by Tom Holt(Favorite Author)

3.47 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0316226106 (ISBN13: 9780316226103)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Orbit

series

YouSpace

review 1: Tom Holt channels the late, great Douglas Adams (author all five books of the Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy) with a touch of Kurt Vonnegut for good measure in his quirky novel Doughnut. Part science fiction, part humor, Doughnut follows the adventures of a down-on-his-luck everyman, Theo Bernstein. Bernstein, a formerly renowned physicist, once lead the research team for the Very Very Large Hadron Collider (VVLHC). After an unfortunate math error with a decimal place (who hasn't made one of those) causes the VVLHC to explode, Bernstein finds himself working in a slaughterhouse (Hello, Vonnegut!). When news arrives that his former mentor Pieter van Goyen has died, Bernstein is dragged into completing his mentors work on "YouSpace" (trademark), a portal into ... morethe multi-verse masquerading as virtual reality entertainment. Bernstein has to navigate pushy investors, strange competitors and even mysterious characters from his own past to discover the truth about his mentor, van Goyen, and himself.I enjoyed aspects of this novel and would recommend it to anyone wanting a light, quick read. To me, though, this book falls short. Compared to the Hitchhicker's trilogy, for example, where the tone, plot and all of zany and unrealistic situations add together to make a story that is greater than the sum of the parts, Doughnuts seems mixed-and-matched. Adventures in the multi-verse are tedious and so silly that it is hard to focus when the author reaches his climatic reveal at the end of the novel.
review 2: Quirky interesting premise, reminiscent of Douglas Adams. I was psyched to read this book, and was not disappointed for the first 100 pages or so. Then everything unraveled and digressed, becoming less and less focused. I hope this was a shortcoming pertaining only to this novel, because Holt has an interesting writing style and I would definitely try another of his work before writing him off. less

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