SOJALS rating:

Very good (4/5)

I first read this in 1982 and most recently in April 2001

There's a road that runs through time and space, its exits leading to past and future worlds. If you have the ability or if someone shows you, you can travel this road visiting alternate realities from the beginning of time to the far future.

Red Dorakeen has been travelling on this road for a very long time, searching for a past reality that may no longer exist. Now some people are trying to kill him and he's not quite sure how to take this turn of events.

Randy has just left home to travel around a little but had never imagined being on a road like this, and with such strange travelling companions.

Timyin Tin, a buddhist monk, is regaining his lost memories and is no longer so certain that self-knowledge is good for the soul.

Mondamay, a intelligent and powerful warbot left by an alien civilisation, is commanded to turn upon his friend.

An excellent cast of characters, action, lazy contemplation, quick humour and the superb description of the fight between Timyin Tin and Archie Shellmann. Of course, as with most Zelazny books, you're dealing with superheroes, not normal people, but that's OK with me.