In Your Dreams is very much a Tom Holt novel.

That probably sounds like an obvious thing to say, but if you’ve read Holt before you will know exactly what I mean. There are strange things happening. There are people who don’t entirely understand the strange things happening. There are ancient powers, magical complications, ordinary human beings trying to get on with their lives and situations that become steadily more complicated until the only sensible response is to sit back and accept that things are now considerably weirder than they were fifty pages ago.

And somewhere in the middle of all this is a very British sense of humour about the entire situation.

One of the things I really enjoy about the JW Wells & Co books is the way Holt approaches magic. There is none of the grandiose mysticism that sometimes accompanies fantasy. Magic is important, certainly, and potentially very dangerous, but it is also just another problem that somebody has to deal with.

There is something inherently funny about the idea that the supernatural might be genuinely world-changing and yet still have to coexist with offices, jobs, relationships and people who are mostly worried about whatever immediate problem happens to be in front of them.

In Your Dreams continues that tradition beautifully.

The title gives you a fairly good indication of where the book is heading, although as is usually the case with Holt, knowing the broad concept doesn’t necessarily prepare you for the route he takes to get there. Dreams are a wonderfully fertile subject for comic fantasy because they already operate according to their own strange internal logic. Things happen in dreams because they happen. People accept the bizarre without question. Doors lead somewhere completely different from where they should. The impossible feels perfectly normal until you wake up and start wondering what on earth you were thinking.

That makes dreams almost the perfect playground for Holt.

His writing has always had a fondness for taking an idea, following it to its logical conclusion and then continuing well past the point where most writers would probably have stopped. The result is a story that develops its own momentum. You start with something that feels vaguely odd, then it becomes stranger, then stranger still, and eventually you reach the point where you have stopped trying to predict what might happen next.

That is when Holt is at his best.

The characters remain an important part of that equation. Holt’s world is strange, but the people inhabiting it have to feel grounded enough that we can follow them through the madness. One of the things he does particularly well is make characters react to extraordinary events with just enough disbelief to remind us how ridiculous the situation is.

Nobody spends the entire book screaming in existential horror at the fact that reality appears to have broken.

That would probably be more realistic, but it would also be much less funny.

Instead, Holt’s characters often seem to have a remarkable ability to adapt to circumstances. Once something sufficiently impossible has happened, they simply add it to the list of things they apparently have to deal with. There is a very British quality to this. The universe may be collapsing, ancient magic may be interfering with reality and nothing is behaving as it should, but there is still a problem that needs sorting out and somebody really ought to get on with it.

That deadpan approach remains one of Holt’s greatest strengths.

The humour isn’t always about obvious punchlines. Often the comedy comes from the juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the ordinary. Something impossible happens, and somebody responds in a way that would be entirely appropriate if the problem were a delayed train or a badly written memo.

It is a style that works particularly well in the JW Wells & Co universe because the whole premise is built around the collision between magical fantasy and ordinary life. Magic is not confined to castles, enchanted forests and ancient battlefields. It is tangled up with modern life and all the petty frustrations that come with it.

This is where Holt’s comic fantasy really shines. The strange never entirely replaces the ordinary. Instead, the two are constantly rubbing up against one another, usually with increasingly ridiculous consequences. A magical problem is still a problem. An impossible situation still has to be dealt with. And no matter how extraordinary things become, somebody somewhere is probably going to be inconvenienced by the whole business.

The book isn’t afraid to become complicated either. Holt’s plots have a tendency to gather momentum as new ideas and complications are introduced, and before long you find yourself following a story that has wandered a considerable distance from where it began.

Fortunately, Holt makes the journey entertaining enough that you are willing to go with him.

There were certainly moments where I found myself thinking, “Right, I’m not entirely sure where this is going now.”

But that thought was generally followed by, “Let’s find out.”

Even when the story becomes gloriously convoluted, Holt has a knack for keeping the reader engaged. The various threads may occasionally feel as though they are heading in several directions at once, but there is enough humour and momentum to keep things moving.

The audiobook narration by Ray Sawyer once again adds a great deal to the experience. Sawyer does an excellent job of bringing the characters to life and making everything feel real, which is no small achievement when the story is built around situations that are often anything but real.

His narration has that important quality of allowing the humour to work without forcing it. He doesn’t need to wave a flag every time something funny happens. The absurdity is already there in Holt’s writing and Sawyer understands that the best approach is often simply to let the characters say their lines and allow the comedy to emerge naturally.

The various characters feel distinct without becoming cartoonish, and Sawyer manages to keep the increasingly complicated story clear. That is particularly useful with Holt, because there are moments where the plot is cheerfully heading off in several directions at once and a confident narrator can make the difference between entertaining chaos and complete confusion.

I do, however, appear to have found another pronunciation to add to my increasingly petty list of things that make my teeth itch. In The Portable Door it was “sci-fi”. Here, Sawyer has somehow managed to add “trompe l’oeil” to the collection. It is a tiny and entirely personal irritation, because Sawyer remains an excellent narrator throughout, but apparently there are certain pronunciations my brain simply refuses to let pass without complaint.

Despite that, the narration remains a major positive. Sawyer is well suited to Holt’s style. He understands the rhythm of the comedy and the importance of treating the ridiculous seriously enough that it remains funny. If everyone starts winking at the audience, the humour disappears. Sawyer avoids that problem completely.

That is particularly important in a book like this. The characters need to believe in the situation, or at least believe in it enough to react to it, even when the listener is fully aware of how absurd everything has become. Sawyer manages that balancing act very well. The humour lands because the characters aren’t constantly performing the joke.

Overall, In Your Dreams is another thoroughly enjoyable visit to Tom Holt’s strange corner of comic fantasy. It is clever, silly and occasionally gloriously convoluted. It isn’t always neat, and readers who like their plots to progress in a perfectly straight line may occasionally find themselves wondering precisely how they got from one point to another.

But for me, that is part of the appeal.

Holt’s books have a way of making the journey more important than the map. You may not always know exactly where you are going, but you can generally trust that the journey itself will be entertaining.

Returning to these books after so many years has been a genuine pleasure. They still have that distinctive quality that made them stand out when I first discovered Holt in the ’90s. They offer a peculiar mixture of fantasy and farce, populated by ordinary people dealing with increasingly extraordinary problems, and they are all the more enjoyable because Holt is never afraid to let the whole thing become a little bit ridiculous.

In Your Dreams continues that formula with confidence and plenty of humour. It may occasionally take the scenic route, but it remains entertaining throughout.

The audiobook is elevated by Ray Sawyer’s strong narration, even if my personal pronunciation demons have now expanded beyond “sci-fi” to include “trompe l’oeil”.

A small price to pay, really. Especially when the rest of the journey is this much fun.

Buy your copy here