~Title:     The Mask of Loki
By:        Roger Zelazny & Thomas T. Thomas
Publisher: TOR (December 1990)
Format:    pb, 340pp, $4.95
ISBN:      0-671-72021-X

   This is a bizarre, original and well-written fantasy novel with a
serious structural flaw.  The authors give us a gripping tale of
a mystical battle spanning centuries and lives, a conflict that pits a
line of near-immortal wizards against the agents of chaos unbound.
Unfortunately, although the plot resolves, the universe never does.
The revelation we've been set up to expect, the rules behind the logic
of this deadly intrigue, are never revealed; thus, the denoument and
everything that precedes it seems arbitrary, forced, unreal at the
end.  This is frustrating because this book was *almost* a
masterpiece; as it is, it's got Amberitis (see RR#92).  Too bad...