This book is a hefty, somewhat haphazard, collection of essays gathered under the theme of its title, Mesopotamian Medicine and Magic. Declaring itself the largest edited volume on the topic hitherto published, it presents a wide-rangeing menu of contributions reflecting M.J. Geller's catholic interests. The eclecticism, and length, of the book is also its primary weakness: the papers are presented in alphabetical order by first author. This gives the book a meandering quality: at one moment we are reading a literary history, next a detailed textual edition. Readers and contributors would have benefitted from a broadly thematic organization, especially from a volume that advertises itself as “thematically focused”. The editors themselves note that this variety presented them with some difficulties compiling the text index (p. 911), which suggests an awareness of the difficulties in maintaining the coherence of a vastly diverse volume. Nevertheless, the assembly of such a large collection of papers remains an achievement.

The papers can be roughly grouped under four major themes:

• • Sixteen text editions and publications of new tablets (Anor, Bácskay, Cohen, Farber, Finkel, Heeßel, Oshima and Van Buylaere, Ossendrijver, Schmidtchen, Simkó, Stadhouders and Johnson, Stadhouders and Panayotov, Steinert and Vacín, Verderame, Wagensonner, and Wiggermann).

• • Three interpretive studies of literary texts (Bach on the Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince, Bhayro and Rudolf on Budge's Syriac Book of Medicines, Gabbay on Marduk's Address to the Demons);

• • Nine papers dealing with a specific medical or magical topic (Couto-Ferreira on Kiṣir-Aššur the Assyrian mašmaššu-exorcist, Finke on skin blemishes, Frahm on the demon Pazuzu, Mirelman on the performance of magic, Scurlock on the aetiology of the rush, Stol on dentistry, two papers by Schreiber and by Wee on the Twenty-Square board game, Thomsen on incantations against animals).

• • Five comparative and interdisciplinary studies (Annus on the Biblical Seth and the Sutaeans, Choukassizian Eyyper on transmission between Mesopotamia and Ḫarappan India, Attia on literary links with the apocryphal ‘Book of Tobit’, Raggetti on transmission of Daniel into Arabic wisdom and divination, and Rumor on Mesopotamian botany and Theophrastus).

The collection is rounded out by a grammatical contribution by Abusch, foreword, the celebrant's bibliography, indices of divine, geographic, and personal names, and a text index.

Though the text editions and publications are all typically high quality, supplemented by monochrome photography and line drawings, they will be of interest primarily to Assyriological readers and specialists in ancient science. By contrast, the comparative papers will appeal to many readers of this Bulletin, bringing into scope both the familiar material of the Hebrew Bible, but also Arabic wisdom manuscripts and Ḫarappan technology, honouring Professor Geller's exhortation to “look beyond” (cited by Choukassizian Eyyper, p. 167).

Geller's syncretic methodology is further celebrated by the adventurous analyses presented by several authors, which are sure to be topics for further discussion. In particular, Bach introduces literary theory never before seen in Assyriology to his paper. He interprets the “Underworld Vision” as a piece of “Ancient science fiction” (pp. 83–8), mobilizing the ideas of Darko Suvin to explore the novel portrayal of Death as a knowable thing, before moving to consider ontology, a topic that has recently excited much interest from anthropology. These engagements and dialogues with ideas and disciplines beyond the traditional confines of Assyriology, the comparative papers reaching out towards other lands and later periods – these contributions portray an Assyriology with a broad outlook and wide relevance. This is an encouraging direction for the future of the discipline, and a sterling tribute to Geller's work.

Final mention must be made of Schreiber's and Wee's papers on an ancient Mesopotamian board-game. Known best as the Royal Game of Ur, the game is one of the earliest known examples of such systematized play. Wee's lavishly illustrated paper and detailed notes on the rules invite readers to indulge in the game themselves, bringing a slice of ancient Mesopotamia to life. Nevertheless, he concludes with an ancient omen which warns of dire consequences if one overindulges in play, and tells us to “beware of board game!” (p. 869).

Ultimately, a massive work spanning nearly a thousand pages is bound to contain multitudes, and although all of the papers are of high quality, the majority of the volume comprises newly published text editions following the standard Assyriological format. As a result, the volume is likely destined for the shelves of the library rather than the home, consulted when following up a reference from some other work. This is a shame, as ensconced within its voluminous pages are the kernels of an exciting approach to Assyriology that deserves more attention. Nevertheless, the editors succeed in their mission to produce the largest edited volume on Mesopotamian medicine and magic, and it is a solid celebration of Professor Geller's career.