Balthasar’s Star

The Second Book of

The Battle of the Trees

Gawain’s father has disappeared in highly mysterious circumstances.  And ever since, everyone from the President of the United States to his mother’s cleaning lady wants to know who he’s been talking to.  Gawain had always known his father was immensely respected as a scientist, but never before had he realised the full extent of his father’s fame.  Even though the constant surveillance is getting on his nerves, Gawain is not impressed when his mother decides to follow a secret agent’s advice to put him out of harm’s way.  He and his little sister, Angie, are bundled off to their aunt and uncle in outback Australia.  It may as well be the end of the earth, Gawain thinks.  Here be dragons and all that.  Gawain has never actually met his uncle – all he really knows about him is that he owns a cattle property and he is so brilliant and eccentric that his father always referred to him as ‘the Wizard of Oz’.

Balthasar’s Star is set twenty-five years after the events of Merlin’s Wood.  Reece and Holly have never forgotten their vow to rescue Tamizel from the Storm-Tree.  At long last, the time machine Reece always wanted to invent is nearly ready – all that remains to perfect on the tachyon decelerator is its morphing function.  But the power needed to operate a time machine isn’t just enormous, it’s staggering – the generation plant for it has to be spectacularly big and so does the cyclotron   Where on earth can you hide a cyclotron several kilometres wide so no one will notice?  Even if it can be concealed, the magnetic and gravitational anomalies it produces will give its position away.  Reece’s old enemy, Aanundus, is not just looking for him, he’s waiting patiently for the completion of the tachyon decelerator.  He has positioned his agents to seize them the moment it is perfected.  

Gawain, innocent and unknowing, is already marked as a target when he steps into this maelstrom of intrigue.   Only he and Angie suspect there might be even more going on that anyone else supposes. Who is the sharva and why is he secretly delivering mysterious clues about pineapples and playing cards, starmaps and medieval poetry? What do the clues mean, why are they so conflicting, and what is the significance of the code, ‘Balthasar’s Star’?  Is Tamizel still in the Storm-Tree and, if he isn’t, where is he?   And, perhaps even more importantly, exactly who is with him?

Read an excerpt