Leena is immediately captured by a party of jaguar men, bestial yet sentient and humanoid. Hauled away like a trussed pig, she is rescued by two wayfarers: a human named Hieronymous Bonaventure and another jaguar man named Balam. Hieronymous—or Hero—soon explains everything to Leena. Just as once happened to Hero, she has been transported across unknown dimensions to the world of Paragaea, an old, old planet with enigmatic connections to Earth. Here the husks of ancient superscience and magical empires litter the globe, while the youthful civilizations of the animal men flourish, with humans being the least-favored upstarts.

At first reluctant to believe, Leena is forced to accept her new situation. But she bears one goal firmly in mind: Somehow she will find another glowing tunnel back to her native time and place. She convinces Hero and Balam to help her, and the trio are off on a quest that will take them from fabled cities through swamps, deserts, mountains and jungles and across dangerous seas. They will pick up companions along the way: Benu, an immortal android; Spatha Sekundus, a warrior woman; and Kakere, a fish man. Facing hostile forces and unnatural phenomena, Leena and her pals soon learn that the ultimate answer awaits them only with any remaining wizards at the burned-out heart of the Black Sun Empire—wizards who once torched a whole continent to win a war.

A pulp pastiche with heart and soul and wit

Roberson's book is subtitled "a planetary romance" and seems part of a recent mini-surge of such revitalized retro-fictions, notably by such writers as Al Sarrontonio and R. Garcia y Robertson. Prior to this new generation of writers seeking to mine the musty but potent tropes of the pre-Campbell era, old hands like Michael Moorcock and Philip Jose Farmer were the prime upholders and perpetrators of such romps. Roberson has certainly learned a lot from his literary ancestors, and he manages to hit all the high notes perfectly.

First off, his story economically establishes Leena and her mundane milieu with a solid matrix of historical and personal details. Then, just as we've accepted her entirely, he rips her out of context and plunges her into strangeness. All within the first 15 pages of the novel.

Once on the world of Paragaea, he propels the action at a similar torrid pace, never letting up the stimuli, both sensory and ideational. His world has the glorious coloration of a Blue Book cover, and the crazy-quilt panache of anything by Ray Cummings, Jack Williamson, A. Merritt, Edmond Hamilton or Leigh Brackett. The swarming crowds of animal people, the swordplay, the various modes of exotic transport (balloon, ship, beast caravans), the hints of backstory—all come together to make an authentic landscape and culture.

Roberson's protagonists are all firmly limned. Leena is a tough gal whose harsh past has left her duty-bound but not insensitive. Hero is no mere John Carter of Mars clone, but rather a fellow of surprising moods. Balam, as exiled royalty, exhibits injured dignity but also coarse humor and a chef's flair. The lesser characters encountered come off equally vividly.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, Roberson keeps us convinced we're truly on another world. Only once in a while does he slip. I just don't buy Kakere, a fish man whose mentality is supposed to be truly alien, saying, "That tree really did a number on me." But such idiomatic faux pas are rare, and the illusion of being cast away in some exotic realm that combines the best elements of Jack Vance, The Arabian Nights and a hundred other glorious pulp adventures will linger in the lucky reader's mind throughout the tale, and long after.