Valhalla - Tom Holt
So you think that being the god in charge of the ultimate destination for Viking warriors is a piece of cake? Not if you’re Odin, it isn’t! Though he seems happy (in a twisted sort of way) to try and grant all his incoming souls their ultimate desires, what they have dreaming of all their - living - lives.
Now that they’re dead, Valhalla promises them endless gratification. For the Vikings, it’s permanent fighting, drinking and wenching with a reset button every night if you happen to have ‘died’ in battle; for Atilla the Hun, it starts off as watching paint dry on a wall half a mile away in an auditorium that seats hundreds of thousands of similarly blessed souls; for Carol Kortright, it begins with doing the same job as in her living existence as a cocktail waitress (despite the fact that she got a First at Cambridge) in the Vikings’ hall, but ends up running a strike for better hours.
Her father, the ultimate agent - even to the gods - finds himself dead and in Valhalla; his wish, if that’s what it is, is granted. He attempts to win the audition for a part as himself - and fails over and over again. Still, he was the agent that got Odin the job in the first place, so they should get on like a house on fire, right? Wrong! It turns out that Odin hates the job…..
And then there’s Vinnie the escapologist (who watches all die around him while he keeps escaping and living); he doesn’t seem to realise he’s actually dead. And the final body is Howard - and body is the right word - a wimpish type who went to ‘Medieval Nights’ and re-enactments in full gear just because he thought the girls might fancy him more; or at all. In Valhalla, he becomes a lean, mean, fighting machine - but there aren’t any women around other than the Valkyries. Not his cup of tea at all.
Like most of the Tom Holt books I’ve read (and that is most of them), this one doesn’t disappoint. You can see what sort of book it is from the description, but I suppose it must be comic fantasy. And I enjoyed it immensely - again!
Orbit Book, 2001. Copies are available from Alibris.co.uk and Abebooks