The reader can expect to travel thousands of years between stories and even within stories, through a sort of science fiction cast in reverse. Thus we pass through Asturias's stunning tropical portico into a land of 'green valleys, green volcanoes, green forests, green hills, and green, green lakes lakes beneath an unblemished blue sky'; we enter the world of Lida Sal, restlessly dissatisfied with her present condition. gliding through the mirror of the shimmering lagoon which 'absently dreams her'; and from where we plunge down into the depths of Guatemala's still largely unknown past on an hallucinatory journey for which our only possible guide is twentieth-century Guatemala's most representative writer, Miguel Angel Asturias. Hold on tight and enjoy your ride!