David Lindsay, from the Scottish borders, inspired C.S. Lewis and Phillip Pullman and many others. Where I really enjoyed C.S. Lewis's Planet trilogy, I found this a lot harder to relate to.

Published in 1920!, this book was named a Masterwor of Fantasy. It is similar to Gulliver's Travels, and like that story, I suspect an annotated version would help to pick up the philosophies and politics behind this one. Instead of meeting curious peoples and deciding how to help them, Maskull meets individuals and usually has a detrimental effect on them.

The story was hard to read, with the point of view occasionally leaving Maskull. This happens at the end also, adding to the confusion of the conclusion. Women are discussed as weak, even though examples of the feminine within the story are usually quite strong. My trade paperback was not cursed with the typos and mispunctuation that other reviewers have complained of, so that's a blessing.

I have read that this book is thought provoking and gains something on a second reading. I just don't plan to undertake that anytime soon.

The requisite prolegomenon to a proper reading of Bloom's the Flight to Lucifer.

This is a fascinating book which is hard to describe in a few sentences. The short version is that a man (Maskull) is transported to a strange and fantastical world (the planet Tormance in orbit around the star Arcturus) where he has many strange adventures.

The book is very episodic - Maskull travels through many different landscapes and meets many different people, then moves on to another place and meets more people. There is nevertheless an unfolding spiritual quest that Maskull follows, though the conclusion it comes to, though highly memorable, is very unexpected.

I think I'm going to have a stern chat with whoever recommended this to me. I'm not sure I understood quite all of it, but what I did understand was ugly, and not in a good way. He occasionally touched on a true thought, but then he'd skip away again into drudgery and twisted philosophy and dullness. Not even making exceedingly vague Norse references could save the book. In some ways it was good for me to read a book I didn't like, because I had been reading so many truly great ones that I was about to take them for granted.

Tanıtım yazılarında beklentiyi çok yüksek tutan ama sürükleyicilikten uzak, yorucu bir kitap. Bilim kurgu klasikleri arasında sayılması da tuhaf ki sonsözde de bu konuya parmak basılmış. Kitap boyunca ben de "bunun neresi bilim kurgu?" diye düşünüp durdum.

I honestly don't even know what I just read, but I find myself pleased with the result nonetheless.

This is not Science fiction, this is fantasy on hallucinogens.

It is the psychedelic journey of a Gnostic.

This book is a journey through a sequence of intensely inventive locations made of mind bending composition. A journey interleaved with a sprinkling of morality and spirituality that confront's its hero - Maskull.

As Maskull progresses through a synesthetic world, the description of the world, although amazing, may get overburdening at times. Thankfully the vacillation of the hero, due to his human nature provides the much needed impetus for the reader to continue his reading journey.

True to Ralph Emerson's words - "Life is a journey, not a destination", this book is about the journey not the end.

Opaque and bizarre. The book begins as a light, pulpy sci fi piece, but soon veers into fantasy, philosophy, and preaching.

On a whim, a young man travels to a planet near the star of Arcturus and meets numerous people who all have different views on the meaning of life. There are pseudopods, third eyes, extra colors, flying dragons, and musical lakes. There is also a lot of violence, sexism, and walking. (No wonder Tolkien liked it!)

Oddly enough, this book most reminded me of "The Little Prince," but with significantly less charm. By the end, I was frustrated with the book's sermonizing and disagreed with its cosmology, at least as far as I understood it.