Tom Holt (Thomas Charles Louis Holt; born 13 September 1961) is a British novelist.

He was born in London, the son of novelist Hazel Holt, and was educated at Westminster School, Wadham College, Oxford, and The College of Law, London.

Holt's works include mythopoeic novels which parody or take as their theme various aspects of mythology, history or literature and develop them in new and often humorous ways. He has also produced a number of "straight" historical novels writing as Thomas Holt. Steve Nallon collaborated with Holt to write I, Margaret, an unauthorised biography of Margaret Thatcher published in 1989.

Bibliography[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Novels[link]

Humorous fantasy[link]

• Expecting Someone Taller (1987), based on the mythology of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.
• Who's Afraid of Beowulf? (1988), based on Norse mythology and history.
• Flying Dutch (1991), based on the story of the Flying Dutchman.
• Ye Gods! (1992), based on elements of Greek mythology including a parody of Heracles.
• Overtime (1993), based on the legend of Blondel combined with time travel.
• Here Comes the Sun (1993), based loosely on the Celestial Bureaucracy reinterpreted along the lines of the British civil service.
• Grailblazers (1994), based on Arthurian romance and the quest for the Holy Grail.
• Faust Among Equals (1994), an imagined continuation of the story of Faust.
• Odds & Gods (1995), which features assorted pantheons and their adventures after "retirement".
• Djinn Rummy (1995), based on the antics of various bottle-trapped djinn along the lines of a modern Aladdin.
• My Hero (1996), in which literary characters can move between fiction and the real world. One of the main characters is Hamlet.
• Paint Your Dragon (1996), based on the adventures of statues carved to portray the legend of St George slaying the dragon.
• Open Sesame (1997), based on characters from the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
• Wish You Were Here (1998), in which a lake spirit grants four people their heart's desire whether they like it or not.
• Only Human (1999), in which four human souls are switched respectively with a machine, a painting, a lemming and a demon.
• Snow White and the Seven Samurai (1999), based on fairy tales (Brothers Grimm and others) making a world within a computer simulation.
• Valhalla (2000), based on ideas from Norse mythology and the notion of tailoring an afterlife to suit the client.
• Nothing But Blue Skies (2001), which features Chinese dragons which cause rain, and the problems caused when one of them falls in love with a human.
• Falling Sideways (2002), which features human cloning and interference from a race of powerful alien frogs.
• Little People (2002), in which a boy sees elves, and discovers they are being shrunk, imprisoned and enslaved.
• Featuring J.W. Wells & Co., the magic firm from The Sorcerer by Gilbert & Sullivan:
  • The Portable Door (2003), which features office politics with a magical twist.
  • In Your Dreams (2004), in which the Fey use people's dreams to try to invade the world of humans.
  • Earth, Air, Fire, and Custard (2005).
  • You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps (2006).
  • The Better Mousetrap (2008).
  • May Contain Traces of Magic (2009).
  • Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages (2011)
• Barking (2007), based on the mythology of vampires and werewolves transposed into modern day legal firms.
• Blonde Bombshell (2010)

Historical[link]

Using Thomas Holt as author name.

• The Walled Orchard (1997), which was originally published in two parts as Goatsong (1989) and The Walled Orchard (1990)
• Alexander At The World's End (1999)
• Olympiad (2000)
• Song for Nero (2003)
• Meadowland (2005)

Other[link]

• Poems by Tom Holt (1974) (Collection of early poems)
• continuations of E. F. Benson's "Lucia" series set in Tilling
  • Lucia In Wartime (1985) fiction
  • Lucia Triumphant (1986) fiction
• I, Margaret (1989) (satirical biography of Margaret Thatcher, with Steve Nallon)
• Bitter lemmings (1997) (Songbook)
• Holt Who Goes There? (2002) (short stories)
• Someone Like Me (2006).

Short fiction[link]

• "They'd like to come and meet us, but they're only CGI". Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 45: 77–100. 2010. 

Parodies of musical works[link]

• "Impractical Man" – a parody of the song "Practical Man" by Pete Atkin and Clive James.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tom Holt

• official site – official website run by Holt's publisher
• Interview at SFFWorld.com
• Tom Holt at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

John Lindsay Bryan (26 May 1896 – 23 April 1985), was a cricketer who played for Cambridge University and Kent.

Jack Bryan was a left-handed opening batsman and an occasional bowler of highly-spun leg breaks and googlies. He played for Kent's second eleven before the First World War, and then again in 1919, before he went to Cambridge. So strong was the Cambridge side of 1920 that he was not picked for any first-class matches. But he scored a century for Kent after the term ended, and in 1921, his most successful year, he scored more than 900 runs for the university and won a Blue. In the season as a whole he finished with 1,858 runs at an average of more than 50, with five centuries. This record led to him being selected as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the 1922 edition of the almanack.

1921 proved, though, to be the only full season of first-class cricket that Bryan played. Becoming a schoolmaster at St Andrew's School in Eastbourne, he was able to play for Kent only in the second half of each season from 1922, though he occasionally played earlier matches in the Gentlemen v Players series. He never reached 1,000 runs in a season again, but he continued through the 1920s to make centuries and to average, in several seasons, around 35 runs per innings. He was very strong playing in front of the wicket, and tended to build his innings cautiously at first, though he could score very fast later in longer innings.

Bryan's nearest approach to Test cricket came when he was picked for the 1924-25 MCC tour to Australia, taking leave of absence from his teaching job. But with Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe in the side, plus other opening batsmen available, he was not selected for any of the Test matches.

Bryan faded from the first-class cricket scene in the early 1930s, making his final appearance for Kent in 1932 and playing his last first-class match the following year. In all, he scored more than 8,000 first-class runs at an average of 36 runs per innings.

His brothers Ronald and Godfrey also played for Kent: all three Bryans played in the match against Lancashire at Dover in August 1925, with Jack captaining the Kent side.

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