William Mayne's Earthfasts, which puts him triumphantly among that small group who have shown such an audacious and original grasp of the possibilities of time fantasy, [lures us into a kind of magic]. It is one which, rather miraculously for a fantasy, manages to absorb into itself and to interlace throughout the book, not only legend and folklore, but the kind of dry, witnessing, factual exchanges one would expect to hear at an ESP conference, as well as observations of the author's, through his own words and through the words and thoughts of his boy protagonists, very often phrased in the language of science. At times, indeed, one is almost inclined to say to oneself that this is not fantasy at all but the story of a psychic phenomenon in which the whole countryside has been caught up. And yet, in the end, when Keith enters the cave...