Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #628256 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
There's a sardonic edge to Tom Holt's novel title Nothing But Blue Skies, since the master of comic conspiracy theories here reveals just why British weather consists of a wide variety of rain. Rather than his usual scapegoat the Milk Marketing Board, the culprits are--of course!--Chinese water dragons.

Young heroine Karen is herself a dragon, but for love's sake has taken on the almost human form of an estate agent. Alas, she's hopeless at romance--unfortunate for Britain, since as the hereditary Dragon Marshall of Bank Holidays she causes rainy side effects of up to 2,000,000,000,000 litres/second/square kilometre whenever angry or upset ...

No wonder rebellious TV weathermen, enraged by sabotaged predictions of sunny days, have kidnapped Karen's father and trapped him in the third shape available to dragons: a goldfish. But the kidnappers fall foul of imperialist conspirators who reckon Britain's weather made it great, inspiring us to go out and conquer all those hot places. Behind this outfit are the even more megalomaniac schemes of an Aussie media baron who for excellent legal reasons isn't called Murdoch.

We also learn about Britain's real state religion, featuring human sacrifices to the Queen, and the North Welsh cult which believes "that when we die, we'll be reunited on the other side with all the used paper hankies we've discarded over the years." Better not to mention the potshots at Microsoft Windows.

Full of comic invention and crazy set-pieces, it's guaranteed to cheer up a rainy day. --David Langford

Review
Praise for Tom Holt: 'Uniquely twisted ... cracking gags' Rob Grant, THE GUARDIAN, 'Frantically wacky and wilfully confusing ... gratifyingly clever and very amusing' MAIL ON SUNDAY, 'Frothy, fast and funny' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY, 'Dazzling' TIME OUT, 'Wildly imaginative' NEW SCIENTIST

From the Publisher
There are many reasons why British summers are either non–existent or, alternatively, held on a Thursday. Many of these reasons are either scientific, mad, or both — but all of them are wrong, especially the scientific ones. The real reason why it rains perpetually from January 1st to December 31st (incl.) is, of course, irritable Chinese Water Dragons. Karen is one such legendary creature. Ancient, noble, nearly indestructible and, for a number of wildly improbable reasons, working as a real estate agent, Karen is irritable quite a lot of the time. But now things have changed, and Karen’s no longer irritable. She’s furious.

Customer Reviews

Not for me
Recommended by friends who know my affection for Robert Rankin books I was expecting something similar, if a little less surreal. I was disappointed. Very put-able down-able, sporadically funny but not enough to make up for the lack of flow, I got the impression the author wrote this when he had nothing better to do. Maybe I picked the wrong book for my first Tom Holt, as were it more consistent in its humour, it would have been far more enjoyable.