Roads

Rating:
Summary: the best christmas story since dickens's "carol"
Review: A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS STORY THAT EVERY ADULT NEEDS TO READ. THE WAY MR. QUINN WAS ABLE TO TIE TOGETHER THE FACTS CONCERNING JESUS AND THE LEGENDS OF SANTA ARE SIMPLY PHENOMENAL.

Rating:
Summary: the best christmas story since dickens's "carol"
Review: I first met Seabury Quinn through "Weird Tales" in the early 1930s and was lucky enough to meet and to know both him and his wife when I was stationed at the Pentagon during the Korean War. We stayed in touch and every year or so we got together at his apartment near Dupont Circle or in downtown Washington for drinks, good food and great conversation. I valued his friendship. We were both in the intelligence business, Seabury with the Air Force and I with the Army. I was saddened when the hostess at the Dupont Plaza where we often met for dinner called to tell me of my friend's death. I cherish his memory as I do the signed copy of "Roads" he gave my mother for Christmas when it was published. Many Christmas eves have come and gone since I first opened "Roads' and savored the tale and its completely fresh look at an old and well loved Yuletide legend. Dickens set the scene and Seabury Quinn came along to tell a story with a cast of characters to touch hearts young and old. Ebenezer Scrooge shows how we can keep Christmas well. Klaus, the man from the Northland who once saw a child in Egypt and years later watched the death of a mon on a hill called Golgotha shows why we keep it in our hearts today. From Amahl and his Night Visitors to that Other Wise Man the simple yet powerful story of "Roads" has already taken its place up there with the best.

Rating:
Summary: Divinely inspired, I consider it a classic seasonal work.
Review: The editor of the anthology in which I first read this story says that Quinn intended it as a Christmas card to his friends. I like to think that I might have been one. My copy burned on Christmas 1993. Since then, I have combed through numerous stacks trying to locate it. No matter what you have been raised to think, this story will change forever how you view the miracle of life, and the pagentry of the Christmas season.

Rating:
Summary: The best Christmas story since the original
Review: _Roads_ is the best Christmas story since the original one. Had I been the first reviewer, I would have only given clues toward the ending, where Klaus the Barbarian becomes Claus the good, because it is meant as a surprise ending. But this is a book I wish I could read in a church Christmas festival to show doubters how "Santa" - St Nicholas, who even if he wasn't real, should have been - is a symbol of Christ, and good; loving, giving and caring, not an anagram of "Satan".

Even if you cannot afford the Arkham edition, it was republished in a paperback collection of the _Best of Weird Tales_, and may be again someday. This story deserves the same kind of wide renown and affection as Richard Paul Evans' _The Christmas Box_ and O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi". Rankin-Bass's animation is cute, but this is the kind of fiction that ought to be true.... Santa SHOULD be real, and this SHOULD be his story.

Rating:
Summary: The best Christmas story since the original
Review: _Roads_ is the best Christmas story since the original one. Had I been the first reviewer, I would have only given clues toward the ending, where Klaus the Barbarian becomes Claus the good, because it is meant as a surprise ending. But this is a book I wish I could read in a church Christmas festival to show doubters how "Santa" - St Nicholas, who even if he wasn't real, should have been - is a symbol of Christ, and good; loving, giving and caring, not an anagram of "Satan".

Even if you cannot afford the Arkham edition, it was republished in a paperback collection of the _Best of Weird Tales_, and may be again someday. This story deserves the same kind of wide renown and affection as Richard Paul Evans' _The Christmas Box_ and O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi". Rankin-Bass's animation is cute, but this is the kind of fiction that ought to be true.... Santa SHOULD be real, and this SHOULD be his story.