Reviews: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detive Agency, The Magician

Note: These are two separate books. I finished one last weekend and started and finished the other book the next day.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

I’m sure many of you have heard of Douglas Adams from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe.” The same witty yet humor fills this book as well as the insights into character and commentary on the way we live our lives.

It’s hard to etch out a rough plot synopsis, but I’ll attempt it. Okay, never mind, I tried to in my head and failed. The main character is Richard though you don’t get to him until chapter 4. There are many interconnected characters including a miserable ghost, a time-traveler, a cellist, an electric monk, and, of course, the detective, Dirk Gently who seeks to uncover the interconnectedness of all things as he works through a case. There is a plot, I swear, but it is hard to explain. Ever the book cover doesn’t actually attempt to explain the plot, it just says that the book is a “ghost-horror-detective-time travel-romantic comedy epic,” which makes some sort of sense, and then goes on to describe Dirk, who doesn’t show up for the initial fifth of the book or so.

All that being said, it’s a terrific book. You have to enjoy the type of humor that shows up in his other series, that is to say a very intelligent humor sometimes discussing scientific things such as Schrodinger’s Cat, to name an example. It’s the type of humor where you laugh because you weren’t really expecting it to happen. And the characters themselves all have little oddities that make them both familiar to us and endearing.

The narration is that of a 3^rd person omniscient and, because it switches from one person to the next it takes several chapters for the reader to understand the interconnectedness of it all, but once you do, it’s worth it.

This book is probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and, if my descriptions sound good to you, then you probably will too.

The Magician by Michael Scott

I reviewed a little while the first book of this series, The Alchemist.

This book picks up right where the last book ended in Paris. Why? How? You’ll have to read the first book. This book, like the last, attempts to bring the many mythologies of the world into one and also includes many famous people from history as players in a modern tale where the main characters, Josh and Sophie Newman, seemingly the twins of Legend, are being led around by Nicholas Flamel to be trained even while their many enemies seek to capture or destroy them. New historical or mythological characters included in this book include Niccolò Macchiavelli, Comte Saint-Germain, Joan of Arc, the Valkyrie, Nidhogg, and Mars.

It may seem like a stretch to bring all these characters together in one cohesive plot, but so far Michael Scott has done it. This book, I would say, seemed stronger than the first, perhaps because at this point in time as a reader I have a better understanding of how the world that Michael Scott has created works, and especially the magic. When it appears that the writer doesn’t have to follow any laws, the story becomes weaker in my opinion. There are still many things in a series like this where I have to suspend my disbelief that, but slowly it is at least becoming apparent that there are some rules that he is following even if we as readers don’t know them all.

Anyway, it’s a strong 2^nd novel in a 6 book series. When a book is in a series, I really have to recommend the series as a whole or not at all, but all the reviews I’ve read point to this being a strong series (and they’re all out). Anyway, so far the series is a recommend and I’ll keep anyone who wants to know posted as I read through the rest of them.