Flying Dutch - Hardcover

Holt, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312069758 ISBN 13: 9780312069759

Publisher: St Martins Prrss, 1992

Synopsis

One swig from an oddly-shaped bottle turns Cornelius Vanderdecker, an ordinary Dutch sea captain, into an unhappy immortal, drifting around the world from port to port

About this title

About the Author:

Tom Holt has been a full-time writer since 1995 and has produced some of the most popular comic fantasy of the last decade including Little People, Falling Sideways and Nothing But Blue Skies.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Another British-accented comedy-fantasy inspired by Wagner (Expecting Someone Taller, 1988, based on the Ring Cycle), here centering on the Flying Dutchman legend. Wagner, of course, got it all wrong: Julius Vanderdecker, a.k.a. the Flying Dutchman, accidentally drank an immortality elixir back in the 16th century, along with the entire crew of his ship--only to discover that he and his men smelled so awful that they were forced to return to sea. Since then, only for one month every seven years has the stench subsided enough for Vanderdecker to take shore leave. Now, however, thanks to an insurance policy that Vanderdecker took out before he became immortal, the stability of the entire global economic system depends on his continuing survival--so discovers accountant Jane Doland; luckily, Jane has a very poor sense of smell. Meanwhile, Professor Montalban, the elixir's inventor, has spent the last four centuries directing the planet's economic and scientific progress in a single-minded effort to find a cure for the stench--a cure that finally arrives in the form of an exploding nuclear reactor. The Flying Dutchman's problem is tedium, and it shows: mechanical plotting, predictable doings, and humor too obvious and trite to raise even a glimmer of a smile. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Prrss
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0312069758
• ISBN 13: 9780312069759
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 252