The Gathering, volume three of Virginia Hamilton's alluring but incohesive trilogy, is an innovative book; likely to engender a spate of analysis from Black Studies Departments, it is difficult to understand and not easy to read….

Justice, Thomas, Levi and Dorian (transformed in a time warp into "the unit") have returned to Dustland (a country akin to the dust storm-plagued mid-west prairies of the 1930s) in order to guide the decrepit three-legged Slaker mutants to freedom. But once there, they encounter, empathize with and decide to help the half-child leggens, smooth keeps and youngens who, grouped in "packens" of threes, are inching their way towards a Celestial City in the face of threats from other species of marauding mutants and the omnipotent Mal. They join forces and the vicissitudes of their progress to what proves to be a dystopian illusion provide straightforward adventure and the most intelligible section...