A Vast New Cosmic Saga Bends Mythopoeic Genre Rules And Breaks New Ground

What if a galaxy were alive and its communities wove imagination, dreams, visions, and solid reality into a seamless web of relationships?

ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, October 2, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Maureen B. Roberts’ recently published science fantasy epic An Era in Anddemar is an ambitious novel that doesn’t fit comfortably into any one genre. It’s science fiction, fantasy, romance, astronomy, spiritual vision, shamanism and Grail quest woven into one extraordinary vision.

Blue Reviews’ 5 Star Editorial Review notes that with An Era in Anddemar, the ‘boundaries between body, mind, dream, matter, and cosmos repeatedly become permeable. The result is a universe in which travelling through space can simultaneously feel like travelling through the psyche.’ They describe the novel as ‘an expansive, unconventional, deeply imaginative work of mythopoeic fiction. It is romantic without apology . . . and cosmic while remaining preoccupied with the profoundly human need to belong.' 

In contrast to traditional mythopoeic novels, in this new mythology there’s no ‘dark versus light’ conflict, no stereotypical villain, or hostile army. What threatens to destabilise the galactic ‘Great Dance’ is a bland Greyness more akin to a seeping stain, monotonous sound, or listless conformity. Standing against it is a colourful alliance that includes an exiled Shapemage, wormholes which channel music, shamans, knights, the Grail, and a marooned band of Earth scientists.

The myth unfolds like a tapestry with many threads, as unforgettable characters, bizarre modes of battle, Trickster antics and inversions of perspective, and a romantic love like no other interweave into events unfolding during one ‘Era’. One of the book’s many fascinating features is English Romantic poet John Keats - the subject of Roberts’ PhD thesis - appearing as a young knight whose poetry is used to repel the invading Greyness.

This is not a book for readers looking for a minimalist, tightly compressed science fiction narrative. The story unfolds at a contemplative pace, inviting readers to spend time within relationships, journeys, conversations and vividly realised settings, rather than simply rushing from one scene to the next. In an era when speculative fiction sometimes leans heavily toward dystopia, cynicism, violence, or technological anxiety, An Era in Anddemar makes an unapologetic case for the full spectrum of imagination itself. Its landscapes, celestial vistas, musical themes, colour, and spiritual symbolism are not ornamental extras. Beauty is part of the novel's argument. Thomas Anderson, Editor in Chief for Literary Titan writes that ‘An Era in Anddemar turns an entire galaxy into a love song for the wild, radiant soul of life.’

As well as unashamedly embracing full-blown Romanticism, in Anddemar the normal vertical top-down power structure is replaced by a horizontal, communal web of equals. People are no more valuable than plants, stars, glaciers and crystals. Godlike Guardian Powers are no more important than farmers, merchants and midwives. The greater a character’s power, the greater their responsibility to care for and safeguard the entire galactic community.

To retain full creative control, Roberts has published An Era in Anddemar under her own Imprint, Vandrassian Press. A much shorter offshoot of this epic, Soul Among the Stars - scheduled for publication in 2027 by Collective Ink Books [London] - is a series of vividly detailed ‘Messages’ from the ‘Ancient Starseeders’, conveyed through Roberts as an Oracle. The Messages invite readers into the Cosmos as an intimate family network and shared home, a vibrant community and ‘new myth’ permeated with ’the Mystery of love’.

With a Foreword by Dutch theoretical physicist Dr Herbert van Erkelens, Soul Among the Stars, though at times playful, is neither light reading, nor tarnished with New Age fuzziness and sentimentality. Roberts fearlessly tackles enigmas such as dark energy, dark matter, the nature of light, and the fifth dimension, braiding them all into an intricate mythology. This is a substantial, densely layered, poetically articulated vision that presents a new paradigm grounded in empathy, unity and relatedness, instead of on impersonal objectivity, compartmentalised knowledge, and cold analysis.

While An Era in Anddemar defies genre limitations and stylistic conventions, Soul Among the Stars is a more devotional text that nonetheless embodies its parent epic’s imaginative scope, Romantic prose style, and soulful depth. Together the two books unfold a ‘what if’ scenario that explores how a living galactic network might function if instead of evolving technologically, it instead developed consciousness to a point where the Cosmos is known and experienced as a network of beings and communities working as one, living in harmony with Nature, and supporting one another in times of crisis.

As Dr van Erkelens concludes in his Foreword to Soul Among the Stars: ’We have witnessed what the love of power can inflict upon our world. We need to replace that destructiveness with the power of love.’

Dr Maureen B. Roberts
Vandrassian Press
drdark@optusnet.com.au
Visit us on social media:
Facebook