To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife-and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. But otherwise, this is a colorful, imaginative spin into SF by the prolific, wide-ranging writer.Ī fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit. And it is not always easy to keep all the multiple Earths and versions of people straight. For all the other scary things there are across the multiverse, including genocidal robots marching up the Pacific Coast Highway, none is more frightening than the neo-fascist enforcers now operating back home on "Earth Prime." As heavy-handed as Koontz is in nailing down this timely theme, it's disappointing to see him pull back from its broader implications and invest his villainy in a rather predictable sociopathic bad guy who will do anything to lay his hands on the special device. However, re-connecting with Mom, who walked out on her family seven years ago, saying she felt "empty," proves problematic: In this parallel world, Jeffy and Amity were both run over by a car-seven years ago. But Amity is in no rush to return to normalcy after Googling her long-missing mother and determining she is alive and well on Earth 1.13. Danger greets them in the form of a nasty creature that is half boy and half chimp, and there are other threats. But when Amity's pet mouse strolls across its controls, the device activates, whisking father and daughter-and mouse-off to an alternate Earth. The inventor, on the run from dark government forces, instructs Coltrane to put this $76 billion "key to everything" into safekeeping and never use it. California man Jeffy Coltrane and his 11-year-old daughter, Amity, discover the wonders and horrors of multiverse travel after an inventor entrusts them with a special device.
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