Ursula K. Le Guin's Threshold [published in the United States as The Beginning Place] makes its effect by a firm presentation of the world from which fantasy is an escape….

The appeal of Threshold is that the suburban world and its two characters are well realized, more convincingly realized in fact than the world on the other side. The time-warp enables them to make several visits to both, and Hugh and Irena take their characteristics with them into the magical. Hugh retains his plodding sincerity, Irena her jealousy and anger that her world has been discovered by this stranger. The people of the other side, it transpires, are in some kind of danger, and the story becomes a standard quest myth, although deference to contemporary feminism gives Irena a somewhat more positive role than is customary for women in quest-literature. Hugh slays the dragon, but by this time...