This is one of my favourite books! Ever! Just thought I'd better put this to give you a quick idea of the rest of the review.

The main story of this book is one which may offend the more religious reader, so if you are a religious person please bear this warning in mind before reading this book. The main story concerns Karl Glogauer, born in 1940, the son of an Jewish Austrian immigrant to England. By means of a time machine built by a physicist friend he travels back to Palestine during the Roman occupation to learn the truth of the existence of Jesus. In this task he meets John the Baptist, Joseph, Mary and Jesus himself.

Intertwined with this main tale troughout the book are little incidents from differing periods throughout Glogauer's life told in a continuously jumping manner not dissimliar to Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse-5. We learn of his childhood, his first sexual encounters and the shaping of him in his adult life including many insights into the lead characters neuroses. These events in the modern era provide a wonderful contrast with the main tale in the desert area around Palestine two thousand years earlier.

This in my opinion is the best writing Moorcock did during his early years as an author. And it is a novel that compares superbly with all other great SF novels. The only thing to be wary of is the subject matter, if you are not likely to take offense at using biblical events in fiction then please read this book. This book was recently re-issued as part of the SF Masterworks series published in the UK by Millenium, part of the Orion Publishing Group; by including this title in the series they have shown they know what they are doing in compiling this list of SF greats.