"Ostensibly, Pyat's voyages from California to Casablanca and Cairo are those of any picaresque hero, plunging into adventure, danger and miraculous escape, without any purpose except the next step of the journey. But it is also a journey through the prejudices of the 1920s, from the subliminal racism of the British empire and the suppressed antisemitism of Hollywood to the dawning supermanship of fascism."
--Andro Linklater, Sunday Times (UK)

"There is a feast in store for those who have never been dazzled and disturbed by Michael Moorcock's eye for the absurd and gift for fantasy, and confirmation for those familiar with his work, that he is one of the most original authors of our time."
--Sunday Telegraph (UK)

"Moorcock's powers of description--especially when focused on the sights and smells of megalopoli--and his range of references are immense."
--Mark Sanderson, Times Literary Supplement

"Few novelists have risen above the orthodox categories of fiction to produce something as expansive and elaborate as this."
--Peter Ackroyd, Sunday Times (UK)

"New adventures both picaresque and grotesque take [Pyat] across bootlegging America, like a hobo, to Hollywood as actor, writer and set-designer; to Egypt with various film-making eccentrics, only to end up enacting scenes of lurid degradation for a powerful pervert... Such escapades are Hollywood and schoolboy fantasy seen through the eyes of a talented inventor who is also a bigoted racist, egoist and abuser of women. Moorcock shows us through this remarkable but odious bore that fascistic attitudes are not as far removed from some forms of popular fiction and fantasy as we might prefer to think."
--Robert O'Brien, Time Out London