In Red Shift (1973), pattern is all-important. The prose is lean and meaning elusive: the outline of patterns delicately traced (as in the axehead that links the levels of the story) is what remains in the mind after reading the novel, together with many questions and puzzles. Time past and time present mingle, resonate, and finally coalesce. As in the previous books, the past is never lost: it may be overlaid perhaps, but, looking carefully, one can still distinguish the old lines, the old tracks, and here they lead to the sacred places, the centres of energy at which people worship: sacred mound and church stand close by one another in Red Shift.

The forces at work are transmuted and realised in different forms in the three strands of time: in each, a young man and young woman attempt to shape a loving relationship in a world of violent...