Nothing But Blue Skies

Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt

In Nothing But Blue Skies, British comic writer Tom Holt takes aim at one of Great Britain's least appealing qualities, the one that occupies the position of second worst, right behind its cuisine: its weather. Most of its residence attribute the oft inclement weather on natural meteorological patterns, but a few of the weathermen have suspected for a long time that there's a much more sinister cause behind it: Chinese weather dragons.

These dragons have the ability to control the weather with their moods and are the real culprit behind Britain's interminable dreariness. The weathermen  have become fed up with what they perceive as the dragons' sabotage of their sunny-weather forecasts in order to make them look foolish and they're ready to exact their revenge.

Their plan is to kidnap the Adjutant General to the Dragon King of the North West and hold him hostage in the dragon's most vulnerable form that it can take: that of a goldfish. Now try to stay with me for a minute because it doesn't get any simpler to explain. The dragon's daughter, who had taken human form prior to her father's kidnapping in order to pursue the man she's fallen in love with - the son of a wealthy newspaper tycoon who is himself trying to capture dragons so that he can harness the power of their third eye to telepathically deliver the news to millions of people worldwide without incurring the unnecessary expense of paper, ink, and delivery services, becomes its only hope for survival. Got all that?


The plot tends to get a little shallow in parts and none of the characters were that interesting for me, but Holt's humor redeemed the book as a whole for me and made it worth reading. I've enjoyed some of his other books more, most notably Falling Sideways and three of his more recent books that featured the company of J. W. Wells, but this one definitely had its moments.


★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆