In Your Dreams (novel)

First edition (publ. Orion Books)
Cover artist Tamsyn Berryman

In Your Dreams is a comic fantasy novel by the British novelist Tom Holt. ^[1] It is the second book by Hot featuring the J. W. Wells magic firm and was published in 2004. J. W. Wells is inspired by the title character in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer , which describes the firm of J. W. Wells & Co, "family sorcerers".

Background

In Your Dreams follows Holt's novel The Portable Door (2003, which was made into a film in 2023), set in the same fantasy world about the J. W. Wells magic firm and with the same protagonist, Paul Carpenter. ^{[2] [3]}

Plot

Paul Carpenter works as a junior clerk with the firm J. W. Wells & Co in the City of London (JWW), without knowing what the firm actually does. He is shocked to learn that JWW are one of the top six firms of family and commercial magicians in the UK, specialising in the entertainment and media, mining and mineral resources, construction, dispute resolution, applied sorcery and pest-control sectors. He immediately tries to resign, but the firm does not allow him to do so: his parents financed their early retirement to Florida in the US by selling him to the partners of JWW, who wanted him because of the magical talent in family. He briefly finds true love with Sophie, the other junior clerk, shortly before she is abducted by Contessa Judy di Castel Bianco, the firm's entertainments and PR partner and hereditary Queen of the Fey, who permanently erases Sophie's feelings for Paul from her mind

He learns to scry for mineral deposits from Mr Tanner, who is half-goblin on his mother's side, and studies heroism and dragonslaying with Ricky Wurmtoter, the pest-control partner. He also picks up a little applied sorcery from the younger Mr Wells (before the elder Mr Wells turns him into a photocopier). Paul begins learning spatio-temporal displacement theory with Theodorus Van Spee, former professor of classical witchcraft at the University of Leiden and inventor of the portable folding parking-space. Paul dies twice (the second time in an accident) is put on deposit for a while in the firm's account at the Bank of the Dead.

Reaction

In The Guardian , Jon Courtenay Grimwood called the book: "Classic Holt, if not quite up there with his best, but punching all the right buttons and displaying an increasingly dark sense of the absurd." ^[4] A reviewer wrote in SFRevu: "There is a good storyline, enjoyable characters and some twists and turns that left me amused and often bemused [but] this tale does not flow, the humour is average and the pace is somewhere between slow and steady". ^[2]

References

1. "Authors : Holt, Tom : SFE : Science Fiction Encyclopedia" . Retrieved 19 October 2015.
2. Wagman, Antony. "In Your Dreams by Tom Holt", SFRevu, 1 July 2004
3. Pamap, Maddie. "The Portable Door: Release Window, Trailer, Cast & Everything We Know", Collider, 18 February 2023
4. Grimwood, Jon Courtenay. "Strange Worlds", The Guardian, 14 January 2005