ISBN 0-312-86-402-7 (US hbk)

"" [jacket blurb, US hbk, 1997].

*note: I'll be adding the jacket blurb as soon as I have a copy.

"Abandoning the contemporary settings and time-travel trappings that gave Door Number Three a strong resonance with many readers, O'Leary here sets us down in a fairy-tale world of alchemists, demons, kings, nature spirits, and the unavoidable woodcutter's son -- all those wonderful things that, to my mind, make most fantasy novels worth closing on sight. And yet he drew me in, quickly and efficiently, through an intriguing frame-narrative, a set of genuinely ingratiating characters, and his own genuine and infectious passion for storytelling." --Gary K.Wolfe (in Locus , Issue 441, Vol.39, No.4, October 1997).

"The Gift is an unabashed, unashamed Fantasy, replete with wizards and witches, demons and dragons, kingdoms in peril, questing heroes, fabulous creatures, and an assortment of enchantments both beneficent and malign. In keeping with the spirit of this material, O'Leary has adopted a new and different storytelling voice that is clear and direct, but appropriately stylized and slightly more formal than the breezier contemporary diction that guided us through the labyrinth of Door Number Three . This time out, the result is reminiscent less of the shifting realities of Philip K.Dick than of the austere beauties of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea novels. And while O'Leary hasn't quite achieved LeGuin's level of mastery, he clearly understands the nature and requirements of the genre, and brings to it a personal committment and emotional weight that are entirely his own." --Bill Sheehan (in Nova Express , Volume 4, Number 4, Winter/Spring 1998).