The Rout of the Ollafubs is a collection of linked short stories, with a shared setting and a cast of recurring characters, but focussing on a different character for each story (apart from the first and last, which bring all the characters together). I read it once when I was much younger, and some of the ideas and moments have stuck with me, along with a recollection that there were other parts I found dull and skipped over. Re-reading it as an adult, there are some imaginative ideas and fun characters, but the stories are rambling and in the end I feel that the whole is somewhat less than the sum of the parts.

One of the things that made my experience of reading it now different from reading it back then is that now I'm able to recognise the influence of some of the other authors that preceded it; in particular, there were several points that reminded me strongly of George MacDonald's work in the genre, a comparison that tended to come out to Rout's detriment. With MacDonald, you can always tell that there's some underlying pattern or purpose even when the story's apparently being arbitrary; with this book, there were occasional moments where I got the sense that the author might have some idea of what the stories were driving at, but that idea never communicated itself to me (and the book ends with an explicit refusal to offer any explanations).

Of the individual stories, my favourites were the ones featuring the family of talking bears. There's something about making a bear cub with a West Country accent the hero of a fantasy story that ensures it won't be as straightforward as a story revolving around a generic human protagonist, and these stories include most of the bits that had remained with me from my first read.