Castle Dreams

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Again the mystery, again the enigma of Castle Perilous, presented once more in a highly colorful tale of adventure, written by “John DeChancie,” the purported author of all the Castle romances, who, unless this investigator has completely botched the job of ferreting him out, does not exist in any known world, i.e. in any of the worlds accessible via the castle.

Readers of previous books in this series will by now need no introduction to the castle, its residents, or its mysteries. However, as series books are sometimes read out of sequence, perhaps a capsule summary of the complex setting in which these stories are laid will serve as a pocket travel guide, as it were, to the world — and the myriad universes — of Castle Perilous.

Castle Perilous is a fortress atop a citadel bestriding the Plains of Baranthe, situated in a region known as the Western Pale, in a world bleak and drear. Nothing definite may be said of the castle’s size — save that it is vast; nor of its structure — save that it beggars description. It is no ordinary castle. Its external aspects shift and slide and rearrange, as do its labyrinthine interior spaces. It is the ultimate maze, one sometimes as terrifyingly dangerous as it is confounding. But this indeterminate aspect of its nature is not the only peculiarity; for beyond almost every door and window, through almost every portal within the castle’s tumultuous enclosures, lies another world. And through these portals come creatures of every description — fanged and furred they come; scaled and scrofulous they slither forth; beings fantastic and outré, some more horrific than the phantoms haunting the sweatiest nightmare.

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