God's Dice

From the back cover of the DAW first edition: A magical obsession - Psychologist Richard Brandon has never completely freed himself from the trauma of the childhood accident which changed the course of his life - nor has he ever entirely escaped from the visions which first began to obsess him during that time, visions of a fantasy realm called Midland. Unable to forget the images of Midland and its castle city of Quingue, Brandon has begun doing research into past life regression, experimenting on himself. What he doesn't realize is that his experiments are opening gateways between alternate worlds, worlds close to but not quite his own, places where he is: a down and out cop named Rocky; a small-time crook with big ideas called Richie; Richard, a professor and poet; and Rick, who is desperately trying to keep his newspaper afloat. The one thing all these men have in common is their dreams of Midland. But Midland itself has fallen on dark times as one of its five gods has become the Adversary and is wreaking a devastating campaign of magic-fueled destruction upon the land. Drawn to Midland by the power of the remaining gods, Rocky, Richie, Richard and Rick have no choice but to join forces in a quest for the four relics of power: the Ring, the Sword, the Crown and the Shield - for only if they gain all four do they have any chance of defeating the Adversary...