Helpful Score: 1
Some stories better then others, but generally a lot of fun. This is a collection of short stories orginally printed in magazines in the 40s and 50s and then in a couple of collections. The "hero" is a young psychologist who uses symbolic logic to travel through epic poems. Lots of wry humor, most emjoyable if you have some knowledge of the Ring Cycle, the Fairie Queen etc.
Helpful Score: 1
It was a difficult and ultimately boring read. Far too much psychoanalysis as a plot device (which is entirely understandable because the main character and some minor characters are all "classically trained" psychologists from the early nineteen hundreds). These books were written in the 1940s and '50s and it very definitely shows. This was not a classic book that demands to be re-read anytime soon, if ever.
hardbound excellent condition
The Bean paperback copy is actually books 1 - 5 of the adventures of Harold Shae. The first of these pre-Tolkien tales was first published in Unknown magazine in 1940. Harold Shae and his co-workers from an Ohio psychiatric institute devise a scientific theory for traveling into mythological realms where they use their knowledge of science, literature and mythology to learn the magic laws of various lands they visit. Enjoyable reading if Pulp Fantasy is your thing.
