The end of time | Review | Guardian Unlimited Books
Mary Hoffman finds the latest novel by Celia Ress - The Stone Testament - complex and engaging.
Rees doesn't usually do fantasy, apocalyptic or otherwise. She is well-known for her bestselling historical novels, such as Witch Child and Pirates!, and for another strain of fiction for young adults that combines 21st-century realism with a disturbing strand of psycho-horror. It is not surprising that, having taken this genre-plunge, a writer of Rees's calibre would go right in at the deep end. Because Mayan apocalypses are just the beginning. The book also covers shamanism, suicide cults, pterosaurs, evil Mesopotamian gods, busking on the tube, living rough and early 20th-century adventurers and scholars. In fact, it's like nothing so much as a cabinet of curiosities, stuffed full of fascinating artifacts and natural objects. While you're looking up close, it's hard to see the purpose behind the collection, but when you stand back, it's revealed in all its complexity...
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