AustLit

This is the climax of the FirstWorld Saga. Is Simon Redhead ready to confront Gadiel at the End of Time? It would appear that he still has work to do to arrive at the full understanding of his role as Everlasting Hero. On that journey he will meet the Gods of Chaos and be forced to serve one of them. He will be forced to do something similar for the Gods of Law. He will destroy gods and be cursed by them. He will strive to create a future for the failing dwarves as he has already done for the elves. Simon and Jhamed will take one final journey together that will take them out of normal time and space and ultimately take them to the Conjunction that marks the end of Time and the rebirth of the Cosmos. When Simon and Gadiel eventually meet, Simon will finally understand where Seytan is coming from and realise that they not so different. Will Simon aid Gadiel in his plans or will he choose another path? Will his actions be governed by preordained fate or does he have the free will to make his own choice? And will that choice mean the end of everything or is there still a chance to save his family and find happiness?

Source: Author's Blurb

'Three years have passed since the events of Aftermath of Armageddon. FirstWorld is at relative peace. The Balance is as close to balance as it has been for millennia. Everyone in Melasurej, except Simon and Julie, is bored to tears. Then Simon receives a summons from Gadiel to visit Tartarus, Gadiel’s ancient prison in First Delve. The visit sets up a chain of events that destroys the fellowship they have enjoyed and sends Simon off on a personal quest to find his father and change the past. Simon and Jhamed's journey takes them to three more wonders of the world, before Simon finds the key that will take him to the past. He abandons everything he holds dear in a misguided attempt to change the past, put everything right, and avoid the terrible killing he has perpetrated as the Everlasting Hero. Locked in a repeating time loop, while Gadiel continues his domination of the rest of the multiverse, Simon receives aid from an unexpected quarter to finally break free and be returned to FirstWorld by the seventh wonder. He finds his son, Alexander, taken by the Great Old Ones, his wife, Julie, comatose in a sort of locked-in syndrome, and his new baby daughter, Leonora, without a mother. He is torn as to what he should do. Unable to save Alexander, and taking a selfless approach, he decides to give Ceridwen the help she needs to rescue her kochari, Cambyses, from the torment he and his few remaining elven comrades have endured for many millennia in a dimension ruled by Law. It will take a surprising alliance of characters, and the seventh wonder, to return Ceridwen’s kochari. But what hope does Simon have of rescuing his kochari from the self-imposed prison Julie finds herself in? And will the deal he must do with Gadiel compromise his future and the fate of the entire multiverse?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Weylyn the Wolf has been defeated and Elannort saved. Simon Redhead has found his sword and begun to learn how to use it to become the Everlasting Hero. Like Queen Ceridwen of the Elves, he is incomplete. They are both missing their kochari. Cambyses is lost in a far dimension. Julie is held prisoner by Dring in Simon's post-apocalyptic dimension. Meanwhile, Gadiel's forces threaten to attack on several fronts. Simon is under Ceridwen's enchantment, but is she driven by her responsibility for her people, her personal desires, or by some darker force? Everyone needs the Hero. Which way will Simon turn, and will he make the ultimate bond with Kin Slayer to become a major incarnation of the Everlasting Hero? Along the way, he will learn much about himself and his enemies. He will make a deal with the Devil to give the elves a future, putting his own future, or maybe his past, at great risk.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The story opens in Melbourne in the mid 21st Century, as the world is on the brink of a calamitous nuclear conflict. Our hero, Simon Redhead, is a young university student who is unaware that his genetic make-up has conspired to make him a manifestation of the 'Everlasting Hero'. Simon is saved from the forces of evil that are also looking for him and taken to FirstWorld, where he learns about its history and the eternal battle between Law and Chaos into which he is to be thrust. FirstWorld is at the centre of the multiverse – perhaps an infinite number of dimensions that reflect the various probabilities of existence. Originally, there was a single universe and time was linear. We discover that Simon and another manifestation of the Everlasting Hero were responsible for the Sundering, which caused the formation of the multiverse. We are confronted with the possibility that Fate controls everything we do in life and that we have no control over our own actions.'

'Simon finds a group of friends and colleagues to help him in his great quest. There’s a wizard (one of the last of the wise, created by the Great Old Ones to maintain the Balance), an elf, a dwarf, a human warrior, a being of currently uncertain parentage who is the Hero’s companion, and a strange fellow who is perhaps a bard and could be either a friend or a foe. There are possible friends and potential enemies around every turn.

Source: Publisher's blurb.