Robert Holdstock This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. The Edge Books - Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

   www.theedge.abelgratis.co.uk/b - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/25/2004   Last Visited: 6/25/2004

   Robert Holdstock
   ...
   In fact, Gate of Ivory, like the other Mythago books, embeds a number of other stories, some teasingly unfinished (‘But that is a story for another time and another people') that hint that Holdstock is far from finished with his explorations of the mythago realm. Conceivably, Holdstock could spin off further mythago stories for quite some time, picking up such unfinished tales, and those of secondary characters, although the distorted space-time of Ryhope Wood is already starting to show some very strange effects as characters start to encounter earlier or later incarnations of themselves along different timelines.
   
   Christian's part in the central quest of Gate of Ivory is ambiguous. He is both participant and catalyst, having been marked in boyhood as Kylhuk's slathan. Kylhuk's quest, which has been handed down as the price for the hand of the princess Olwen, takes on aspects of a number of epic tales, from the Tain to the labours of Hercules, and in which he has amassed an army, the Legion, whose sheer concentration of mythago forms can distort the fabric of the wood itself.
   ...
   I doubt, though, whether Holdstock is fully finished with Ryhope Wood, or it with him.