Review:
When college professor Lou Meade is accosted by a talking owl - a familiar of the Greek deity Athena, "goddess of wisdom, the practical arts, and warfare, and the protectress of cities"* - it's the first moment in his new life phase, an era that will lead him further into the works of author C.S. Lewis and intellectual warfare against Eris, the wily Greek goddess of discord.
Burstein's writing is straightforward, episodic, smart and exciting in a dry-humored way, which serves this atypical, Lewisesque work well.
Readers of Lewis and gentler, clean cut-to-it readers of fantasy would do well to own this 70-page "neo-Pagan Fantasy" (as Burstein subtitles this intriguing work). Don't expect the epic bombast and graphic grimness of George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, but do expect to be entertained in a cerebral, sometimes phantasmagorical manner.
Worth owning, this. You can purchase it here.
[*The Free Dictionary.com]
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Burstein's earlier, much-shorter work - The crawfish boil - graced the Microstory A Week site on January 11, 2012. If you haven't read this story, check it out!
