These are two of the most memorable and creative tales I have ever read and I have been attempting to re-acquire the books ever since. The European brought out a pack of cards, shuffled and dealt five to the black Arab and five to himself. Badly damaged, it is sent to Paris for restoration, and there literary historian Hugo Pineau begins to read the startling 14th-century text.

Here we have an assemblage of curious knaves, not one realistic in any sense, but still fully fleshed out and deserving of our interest. Continuing, layering, deepening the first book 》Sainai Tapestry《we go a bit too far down the road of absurd and revolting as sublime. This, the second in the tetralogy, follows on from where Sinai Tapestry left off but it isn’t nearly as good. Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view.

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. The players are as exotic as the game: Cairo Martyr, a one-time African slave, now the Middle East’s chief supplier of aphrodisiac mummy dust; Joe O’Sullivan Beare, an Irish tradesman with a specialty in sacred phallic amulets; and Munk Szondi, an Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army colonel turned dedicated Zionist. Between 1977 and 1987, former CIA operative Edward Whittemore (1933-1995) wrote the Jerusalem Quartet, a surreal historical fantasy that won many plaudits but little renown for its author. He definitely isn't for everyone, and I'm actually surprised I like him as much as I have so far, since this fanciful, almost fairy tale type style isn't something I'm normally into. We still have the mystical elements embodied by Haj Harun and a host of other characters, along with the progeny of the Strongbow's and the Wallenstein.

He finances a vast network of spies dedicated to destroying the players, and his aim is to win complete power over Jerusalem. Of course he had to be always bluffing, but outsiders found it next to impossible to outguess a man who could honestly say he didn't know what he was holding.There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter.

Whittemore in 5 interconnected novels, three of which I have read (only Sinai tapestry reads poorly as a stand alone) presents his gonzo secret history of the 20th century. A few days ago he had arrived back in Jerusalem with the huge scarab, its hollow bowels stuffed with a secret shipment of arms for the Haganah. The black Arab was undoubtedly a Moslem and the Hungarian must be a Jew, the Star of David in his lapel showed that.Some days time goes too fast and some days it stands still and in the moments of joy time doesn’t exist.