Garner's early 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 form an interesting point of comparison for his more mature works, such as The Owl Service with its plain style and somber vision.

Elidor, a fantasy about a family of children from industrial Manchester, is a transitional work that arrives at a tragic conclusion.

Red Shift is a less successful experimental novel that intertwines three stories from different periods in the history of Cheshire. The modern protagonist, Tom compulsively ruins everything he believes in. Tom's story has flashes of humor, but the two other narratives woven into the text are grim.

Garner's account of a brutal seventeenth-century massacre during the English Civil War and his violent depiction of the end of the Roman occupation of Cheshire are not clearly...