Expecting Someone Taller
by Tom Holt
A book review by Mark L. Olson
Tom Holt is a remarkably funny man and these are his two funniest books.
Expecting Someone Taller is a riff on the Ring of the Nibelungen that Wagner wrote such long (and wonderful) operas about. It turns out that the all-powerful Ring has been hidden in England for a thousand years in the possession of Fafnir's brother who has used the Tarnhelm to hide as a badger. Malcolm, a nebbish, accidentally runs him over and inherits the Ring and the Tarnhelm and is thus Ruler of the World - or would be if Wotan (who now knows that the Ring has again been found and might be acquired) left him alone.
Fat chance.
Wotan can't approach him directly (and is somewhat dispirited, anyway, since the Valkyries have henpecked him for the last millennium) but his agents, the Rhine Maidens, and Alberich are all after Malcolm and the Ring.
Nicely done!
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