Garner's earlier fantasies, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, are generally cheerful adventure stories crowded with country scenery, wonderful characters, and thrilling events. They reveal how Garner's writing had changed by the time he wrote The Owl Service with its plain style and somber vision. Elidor,a fantasy of parallel worlds involving a family of children from industrial Manchester, is a transitional work that arrives at a tragic conclusion. If the story had continued for one more page, Garner said, its chief character would have gone mad with despair.

Red Shift is an experimental novel that intertwines three stories from different periods in the history of Cheshire. The modern protagonist, Tom, is a Garnerlike figure—clever, unstable, and saddled with unsuitable parents—who compulsively ruins everything he believes in. While Tom's story has flashes of humor, the two narratives woven in...