BAGDAD: THE PRINCE OF STARS IN THE CAVERN OF TIME. Dennis, Ian. Toronto. Macmillan, c1985. 210pp, cloth, $17.95, ISBN 0-7715-9892-0. CIP Adult Reviewed by Clare A. Darby Volume 14 Number 5 1986 September In Bagdad, first-time author, Ian Dennis, has breathed new life into an old story-telling vehicle, the story-within-a-story. In fact, like Canterbury Tales and The Thousand and One Stories of The Arabian Nights, this unusual fantasy uses the main story, a rebellion against the Caliph, as an excuse to tell a variety of stories, including "The Tale of the Magical Golden Pipe," "The Story of Alladin and the Magic Warehouse." and "The Tale of the Three Caliphs." to name but a few. These stories are all integrated inio the main plot, and together, they contain both insight and humour. The humour, much of it sarcastic, is what holds the reader. For example, when one reads ihe opening line from the scholar's speech on "Why I think Salim bin Haubut should be hanged," "I think it is a very interesting and instructive thing to see any man hang, because of what it can teach about the human character," one is drawn on to examine ihe scholar's further reasoning. Moreover, one is reminded here, and elsewhere in the novel, of the sort of social and political salire found in Swifi, Johnson, Pope, and Dryden. Indeed, one is lead to believe that the Moderate Man, the Purple Man, the Grand Vizier, and even the rebellious Zardin al-Adigrab and his Ripe Fruit Party might be caricatures of real politicians. H owever, even if this is not a satire of contemporary political life, it is a darkly humorous view of the excesses of human kind, whenever they lived. It is also a fanciful fantasy that borders on parody. Clare A. Darby, Three Oaks S.H.S., Summerside, P.E.I.