Owen's (the Mythworld series) clever story construction—which essentially starts with a twist ending and works backwards—allows for a lively hodgepodge of myth, legend and adventure story. On March 15 (à la Julius Caesar), 1917, a London professor is killed with a Roman spear, "of a make and composition that hasn't been forged in over a thousand years." His dying effort is to dispatch an arcane book to John, his student. The book turns out to be the Imaginarium Geographica
, containing "all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale." John and two companions, Jack and Charles, must flee from a group of cannibal beasts who will stop at nothing to obtain it, and end up aboard the 16th-century ship of the diminutive and mysterious Bert, who knew the professor and knows even more about the book. Their travels lead them through Arthurian legend, pre-Biblical flood tales, dragon lore and the works of Jules Verne—to name just a few—with hints of Narnia along the way. Their mission to defeat the Winter King is linked to the real-world events of the Great War. The conclusion—which may not come as much of a surprise to attentive readers—reveals the true identity of the three main characters, whose future books are populated with the things they've seen on their journey. Like some of M. Night Shyamalan's films, this book might be seen more as a parlor trick than as literature, but it certainly has its pleasures. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
