Alfred Bester was one of the pioneers of science fiction, a leading light back when it was the new literature of ideas and imagination. He died in 1987, with Psychoshop half-finished; Roger Zelazny, another hyper-literate and experimental SF writer, was asked to complete what Bester started. Zelazny himself died in 1995, but not before completing Psychoshop, the story of a fast-talking lifestyle reporter who stumbles into the assistant managership of a time-traveling spiritual pawnshop in the outskirts of Rome, where you can trade any aspect of your soul for something new and, hopefully, better. As novels go, it's fun, thought-provoking, and challenging. Chock full of mythological references, historical debates, and literary allusions, Psychoshop is obviously the work of writers who expect their readers to have either a decent education or a healthy curiosity. As a collaboration, it isn't exactly seamless; Bester's playful and riff-filled writing sometimes conflicts with Zelazny's dry but no less witty style. Still, the story is themetically uniform, not to mention brilliant reading. Psychoshop is top-notch science fiction, an important footnote to the lives and careers of two singular writers.