The Land Where Stories End — David Foster

'The Land Where Stories End' is a unique and stimulating post-modern fable which tellingly explores male sexuality, myth, alchemy and the hermetic tradition. Its captivating narrative swings between rough comedy and sparkling vision, and the writing is comic and bloody, colloquial and erudite, prolix and single-minded. Set in Ireland at a time when the Fairyland of the pagan Celt was being supplanted by the Heaven of the Saints, and when the oak-worshipping druids converted, en masse, to Christianity, it follows a woodcutter on his quest. The King has locked his daughter in a round tower and has offered a reward for finding the key: the princess's hand in marriage and the future throne to the kingdom. But what use is a new wife for a man who already has one, as well as twelve children? And without his axe, of which he has been dispossessed, how will he defend himself against the witches and ogres who inhabit the forest, let alone all the other rogues, villains, thieves and liars in the kingdom?