Gate of Ivory Book

In his 1984 fantasy novel Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock created a new seed-bed of myths. Ryhope Wood is a remnant of ancient British forest that's infinitely huger inside than out; a place where humanity's most deeply felt legends take on solid form. Gate of Ivory takes Christian Huxley (brother of Mythago Wood's narrator) into the haunted heartwoods, where he becomes entangled in the unfinished "Tale of Culhwch and Olwen" from the Welsh Mabinogion. This legend contains bizarre Monty Python-like tasks and trials whose humour Holdstock wryly acknowledges, while at the same time shaping them into a saga with a real sense of doom. The "Legion" undertaking the quest needs all its warriors, shamans and shapeshifters to stay ahead of the angry dead (and worse) pursuing them to the final mystical challenge at the gates of the underworld. En route, Christian brings together two lovers separated by the fact that they come from different versions, told many centuries apart, of the same forgotten myth. His final task is to enter the underworld like Orpheus and make an agonising choice of who to bring back. In Holdstock's hands, old archetypes fuse together with a raw mythic power. Compulsive storytelling. --David LangfordRead More