fantasy for Expecting Someone Taller(1987). Funny
fantasy was already quite popular in England at
the time thanks to Terry PRATCHETTand others
and was enjoying some success in the United
States as well, although within a few years inter-
est on that side of the Atlantic diminished
markedly. Holt’s fantasy debut chronicles the
comical adventures of a contemporary man who
acquires a magical ring that once belonged to the
Norse gods, who are determined to get it back. A
whole crowd of Vikings find themselves restored
to life in the present day in Who’s Afraid of Be-
owulf?(1988), and the intricacies of our modern
world are almost as much of a challenge as the
dark power they have been raised to battle.
Holt was now firmly committed to the form
and began turning out witty, amusing, and occa-
sionally brilliant whimsies quite regularly. An ac-
countant investigating a bank account that has
been active for more than a human lifetime dis-
covers a shipload of immortals in Flying Dutch
(1991), Hercules is reborn as an infant in contem-
porary suburbia in Ye Gods!(1992), and Faust
Among Equals(1994) has Faust escaping from hell,
which is subsequently turned into a theme park.
Holt quickly established himself as a reliable fan-
tasy humorist in a field that tends to take itself far
too seriously.
He has continued to produce one or two nov-
els a year ever since, occasionally using science fic-
tion plots but more frequently writing fantasy.
There are talking household appliances in Open
Sesame(1997) and a clever mixing of different fairy
tales in Snow White and the 7 Samurai (2000).
Nothing But Blues Skies(2001) is a wild farce about
a woman who is actually a weredragon responsible
for all of the bad weather in England and who has
to rescue her kidnapped father from a gang of
angry weather forecasters. In Falling Sideways
(2002) the protagonist discovers that human civi-
lization is actually being secretly shaped by frogs.
The best of Holt’s recent novels is Valhalla(2000),
in which a feisty waitress dies unexpectedly, finds
herself mistakenly sent to the Viking heaven, and
decides to reform the drunken carousers she finds
there. Recent renewed interest in Holt in the
United States suggests that his early work may
soon be more widely available.
“The Horla”Guy de Maupassant(1886)
Although this classic by the French writer de Mau-
passant is often identified as a vampire tale, the
creature is more properly an incubus, a spirit that
sucks energy from its victim at night. The narrator
is a young Frenchman who has recently moved
into a new house. He is happy with his life and his
surroundings until he begins to experience strange
dreams in which a dark figure hovers over him,
after each of which he finds himself peculiarly
lacking in energy. He begins to feel apprehensive
and consults physicians without feeling any im-
provement. When he leaves on a short holiday, the
dreams stop but start anew following his return.
Then one night he notices that the container of
water he left by his bed has been emptied, and by
experimenting he discovers that something is
drinking the water every night, even when the
container is sealed.
Panicking, he flees to Paris but predictably be-
gins to doubt the evidence of his own senses with
the passage of time and the restoration of his
health. After witnessing a demonstration of hypno-
tism, he becomes convinced that it is possible for
one intelligence to impose its will on another.
When he returns to his house he finds even more
convincing proof, because the sinister presence be-
gins to overpower his will, preventing him from
leaving the house. Even when he finally makes his
escape, he later succumbs and returns, virtually a
prisoner in his own body. A newspaper account de-
scribing a similar phenomenon, though on a larger
scale, in Brazil, discounted as mass hysteria, gives
him fresh hope, and he theorizes that some new
form of life has appeared in the world, invisible and
determined to replace us.
His tormentor’s grasp is not always tight, and
he finally conceives of a plan. He arranges a
method by which to trap the creature in his
room; since it has a physical body of some sort, it
cannot easily pass through a bolted door. When
the trap is sprung, he starts a fire and burns the
house to the ground, although he shortsightedly
forgets to warn his servants, who perish in the
blaze. Finally, concluding that his plan failed and
that the Horla will eventually find him again, he
decides to commit suicide. De Maupassant never
explains the Horla’s existence other than through166 “The Horla”