Voyage of the Basset

If merit were judged by sheer size, this massive illustrated book would win a heavyweight championship. But this ambitious fantasy-a Pagemaster-esque tale of a 19th-century professor and his family's magical journey into the world of legend-seems unduly slick. The pedestrian prose by St. James (A Journey of the Imagination) and Foster (who has written novelizations of Star Trek and Aliens) is frequently breathless with its own wisdom: ""Legends offer mystery and romance and beauty and adventure to anyone who cares to find about them. To lose the old stories... I cannot bear to think of a world without them."" While Christensen's abundant illustrations are often richly detailed and atmospheric, many of them are simply overwrought. And, in the mythical world of manticores, gryphons, harpies and trolls, the faeries, mermaids, dryads and their ilk all look suspiciously like Daryl Hannah. Line art, too, punctuates these pages, with semi-pretentious profiles of the fantastic creatures met on the voyage. Credendo vides, or ""Believing is seeing,"" is the motto of the good ship Basset, and it serves readers as well. Those who believe children deserve books with more heart will pass this entry by. Ages 8-up. BOMC selection. (Oct.)