Joshua's dream - Michael Lamb

In this thought-provoking and intriguing fantasy, set in a parallel world to our own, the reader must accompany the quasi-biblical figure of Joshua, as he slips easily and compellingly between different time-perspectives and across various continents. In so doing it becomes apparent that the wayfarer has embarked upon a strange, almost surreal odyssey, one in which he is challenged both existentially and spiritually.

In encounters with a colourful spectrum of characters the protagonist is repeatedly obliged to defend not only his faith in God, but also his personal hopes that a life after death be both justified and congruent with reality. At times his journey is illumined, at other times made fraught, by the possibilities and limitations alike of friendship and love. Moreover, he is obliged to encounter a variety of individuals who confront him with their own locales and ways of life: not least, an alien people for whom his personal philosophy of life is neither apt nor necessary. Ageing all the while, he experiences dimensions akin to our own, whether it be a busy metropolis, a rural backwater, or, for that matter, an old people's home.

Reading occasionally like an allegory or parable, this is a story which will interest all who are dissatisfied with secularity and who search for a deeper meaning to complement and make more purposeful their lives. It is a work to which the reader may return to engage with favourite episodes, or again with the protagonist's journey taken as a whole.