Limbo
Subtitle
By Andy Secombe 

     Tor has long been known as a publisher of only the best SF and fantasy fiction, and now the UK has its own Tor imprint, courtesy of Macmillan. Launched this March, here is a new title by a new UK talent. Limbo is a fantastic place where things don’t usually stay where you expect to find them and you can wake up in a different part of the house than the one you went to bed in. Take a king, a wizard, a baby who is prophesied to the The One, the king’s villainous brothers and several books of prophecy and you have the Limbo side of the story, but meanwhile strange things are afoot in modern Brighton. What does quiet newsagent and fantasy fan Rex Boggs have in common with a sadistic policeman, an American astronaut from the future and lots of clams raining down on the beach have to do with each other, and more importantly, what on earth can they have to do with Limbo?

     Comedy is hard to write, and the sub genre of comic fantasy has quite a few Indians, but very few chiefs. Here, though, it seems Tor UK has managed to find one of the chiefs, as this is actually a wonderfully clever and witty book that is a joy to read--and I don’t even like comic fantasy as a rule so this is high praise indeed. Perhaps part of his secret is that instead of a mere sequence of slapstick and wordplay there is an actual plot, and quite a complex one that manages to weave in lots of jokes about modern life, together with the fantasy and the adventure of which there is an abundance. No, it isn’t anything like Terry Pratchett, nor any other current fantasy writer, although perhaps I might venture that this is (in my humble opinion anyway) the sort of book that Tom Holt probably wishes he had written. It all dovetails together as neatly as a well-made box and manages to be funny instead of merely silly. If this is a sample of Andy Secombe’s work, then I hope there will be more, and soon. Highly recommended