Eleven loosely interconnected tales, 196695--nine reprints and two originals, all featuring more-or-less familiar Moorcock characters--that form a bridge between Blood (1995) and a projected third volume. In this particular aspect of Moorcock's ``multiverse,'' ``jugador'' Jack Karaquazian retires from the Game of Time to run a casino, while the White Pirate, Captain Horace Quelch, pursues the enigmatic Count Manfred; in a rather elaborate joke, Manfred reveals that he's actually the Wandering Gentile--the so-called Wandering Jew stayed home and took it easy. Elsewhere, the albino prince of ruins, Elric, with his soul-eating sword, enters a country where demons rain from the sky. The Reverend Edwin Begg explains how, for preaching universal love, he was denounced as the Antichrist. Detective Sexton Begg investigates an ugly case of sadomasochism, vice, and corruption. In the desert, Albert Begg stumbles across lost temples and Egyptian gods. Jerry Cornelius pops up as a computer download. And at Glastonbury, Tommy Begg discovers the Holy Grail. Spellbinding, maybe, or rootless and irrelevant, depending on whether you buy Moorcock's anything-goes, game-playing scenario.
