The Gods of Pegana is one of my favorite books, and I usually read it once every year or two. But I had only read its sequel once, so I decided to tackle it again.

Time and the Gods begins with some of the same kind of short stories. The reader should be warned, however, that the invented mythos is somewhat altered from the first book. "Time" is no longer the "hound of Sish," as he was so memorably described, but is instead described as a more human-shaped figure, "with both hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from his fingers." Sish isn't mentioned at all. I've read people comment on the internet (which is sorely lacking in Dunsany interest, unfortunately) that the author's gradual alteration of his mythos to the point that Pegana is no longer mentioned is meant to reveal the collapse of religion over the ages. I don't buy it. The idea of a fantasy universe "canon," which is still a flawed concept today, was virtually nonexistent back in the first decade of the 1900s. Coupled with the fact that he only published his first drafts shows, to me at least, that Lord Dunsany was more focused on the developing the form of his prose rather than continuity between books. He was a young writer exploring his potential, learning as he went, and likely figured that he had said all there was to say regarding Pegana.

The second half of Time and the Gods gets bogged down by this exploration, as Dunsany delves into a longer, more ambitious tale that might as well be a separate novelette, "The Journey of the King." Though the beginning and the end of "The Journey of the King" are memorable, my attention started to drift in the middle. Dunsany is better with short forms than long forms (in fairness, I've never read his later work such as The King of Elfland's Daughter). I'm guessing that he learned this, too, as his next volume, The Book of Wonder, is entirely composed of shorter works.

4/5 stars. ( )

Time and the Gods is probably one of the most metal things I have ever read. If I make a prog rock concept album, I have my source material:

"Then Slid went backward growing and summoned together the waves of a whole sea and sent them singing full in Tintaggon's face. Then from Tintaggon's marble front the sea fell backwards crying on to a broken shore, and ripple by ripple straggled back to Slid saying: 'Tintaggon stands.'"
-The Coming of the Sea.

"And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him, and behind him slunk the night."
-The Legend of the Dawn

"There in Pegana lay the gods asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the gods alone on the floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words graven upon it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I should find it - four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of the opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of fishes, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge, Forgetting, and another word that not the gods themselves may ever guess."
-When the Gods Slept ( )