England, 1967: ruled by the power of the Catholic Church, as it has been since the failure of the Protestant Reformation. In this England there are steam trains, but no internal combustion engine; rifles but no electricity; heresy but no democracy.

And in this England, magic works.

England, 1967: young Tobias Oakley, out on an illicit nighttime expedition, meets an elven woman - and is chosen for initiation into the secrets of necromancy. Tobias has a powerful talent and his injudicious use of it brings him to the attention of the Church - whose Thaumaturgical Division soon recruits him.

And so Tobias enters the Church, beginning his career amid the brothels and taverns of the teeming slums of the diocese of Southwark. From there, his progress, if not steady - there is something about Tobias that arouses unease in his superiors - is generally upwards. As a curate, as a priest, as a soldier in the bloody war against heresy and finally as an eminent expert on diabolism, Tobias becomes a power in the English Catholic Church.

And as he does so, he pursues his second career: as liar, drug smuggler, rakehell, mass murderer, betrayer, vicious libertine and consorter with demons. For the elf legacy that has shaped his life has robbed him of something vital. And when Tobias, in an effort finally to discover some meaning in life, embarks on a fantastic and periolus quest through supernatural realms he finds himself at the last confronting a savage irony.

A Dangerous Energy, winner of the BBC Radio 4 Bookshelf's Programme/Gollancz First Fantasy Novel Competition, is an extraordinary portrait of an England that is like yet unlike our own. It is filled with life and atmosphere, with magic, danger and violence - and at its centre is a remarkable anti-hero, a man fascinating in his wickedness. This is the debut of an exciting and original writer.

First volume of the Continuum series.

Victor Gollancz

Hardback 1992
ISBN 0 575 05355 0
£14.99

Paperback 1993
ISBN ) 575 05576 6
£4.99