The Unicorn Girl

This rather delightful book was first published in 1969, and you can tell.It stars the author, his friends, and others, and one of its various parts is set in the world of Lord Darcy: a fictional world created by [a:Randall Garrett 5169382 Randall Garrett https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1332463416p2/5169382.jpg], another friend of Kurland's.It's technically science fiction although it feels more like fantasy, and consists of a madcap adventure story in which the characters (who have their own touches of eccentricity) are pulled from one world to another by something outside their control.It's not so much a novel as a magical mystery tour, but it's amusing and good fun and I'm fond of it. It does actually have a plot of sorts, and a genuine ending.Being a fan of Lord Darcy, I have a few quibbles about that part of the book.1. The representatives of the Angevin Empire should have been speaking Anglo-French, a language that evolved differently from our English over the course of centuries, so there should have been considerable communication problems with Americans from our world. But, OK, that would have been no fun and would have slowed down the story.2. Sir Thomas Leseaux is well documented as having no Talent, so he shouldn't be capable of doing magic. He should have summoned a sorcerer to do it for him, which would have been easy enough. Kurland later wrote a couple of full-blown Lord Darcy novels himself, by which time he'd studied the scenario better and didn't make that kind of mistake.3. Sir Thomas's little demonstration of magic seems oddly like something out of Harry Potter, although of course the Potter books were written much later. In the Lord Darcy stories, the words of spells are never quoted.But these are just minor quibbles. Overall, this is a nice book about nice people, and I find it both entertaining and comforting. The sort of book I can read to cheer me up when I'm feeling low. Thank you, Michael Kurland.