A Farce to Be Reckoned With

Azzie Elbub, the ever-resourceful, fox-faced demon last seen in Zelazny and Sheckley's If at Faust You Don't Succeed (1993), returns for more mischief in the never-ending cause of Bad against Good. Fresh from winning Hell's Evil Deed Award, Azzie quickly becomes bored and decides to stage a play--an immortality play, to be exact--and to use all of Renaissance Europe as a backdrop. Enlisting the aid of Italian playwright Pietro Aretino, Azzie offers to grant a wish to each member of a randomly selected cast and deviously prove thereby that sometimes people can get what they want without working for it. But with Azzie's old nemesis, the Archangel Michael, meddling in things, the play's course soon turns awry, and a Mongol horde from another timeline is poised to overrun Venice while the universe itself is on the verge of extinction. Zelazny and Sheckley's third visit to their anything-goes Hell-and-Heaven fantasy degenerates somewhat into unstructured silliness. Still, their humor remains intact, and fans looking for pure escapist fun will find nothing more satisfying than Azzie and company's misadventures. Carl Hays