Bagdad: Book One of the Prince of Stars in the Cavern of Time

Margaret Turner was Professor of English Literature at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

In Bagdad, Dennis plays off against the literary conventions of The Arabian Nights and of contemporary metafiction as he incorporates elements of mystery and adventure with humour and, above all, fantasy. Tales are layered upon tales in the tradition of Scheherezade and Italo Calvino, within the context of a political coup and the pursuit down the River Tigris of the Court Party by the Ripe Fruit Party. As the novel follows the often fast and complicated action, it also works against its own conventions of character: three identical Caliphs rule alternately and so similarly that no one can tell who is the original, and who are the two invented to relieve him of his responsibilities. The romance also works against plot, as the action is repeatedly lost in the unraveling of yet another tale; but within another tradition as it ends with the promise that the sequel will reveal what the first volume does not.

The author sees a mythical ancient world through a contemporary eye, which results in a mixture of complexity and literary self-consciousness. His deliberate suggestion of his literary models, however, invites comparisons which emphasize the weaknesses of this first publication; the book is a better introduction to the author’s imaginative potential than it is to the genre.