The Dancers at the End of Time (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

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Carnelian hits a snag when he discovers that he actually is in love with Mrs. Amelia Underwood and he is sure she is in love with him. However, she refuses to say as much, because he has no sense of "virtue." Carnelian makes it his mission to understand being virtuous, so he can win the declared affection of Mrs. Amelia Underwood. The last woman to give birth on Earth, the Iron Orchid is Jherek's mother. Surprised that she had a child, she delights in her son, and encourages his creativity and endeavors. She is fond of Jherek's company, often having picnics with him.

Madness may be said to be a tendency to simplify, into easily grasped metaphors, the nature of the world. In your own case, you have plainly been confounded by unexpected complexities, therefore you are inclined to retreat into simplification — this talk of Damnation and Hell, for instance — to create a world whose values are unambivalent, unequivocal." Into this crazy, quaint, immoral World, stumbles Mrs Amelia Underwood, a prim and proper, 'virtuous' lady from 19th century England. Caitlin R. Kiernan's 1995 short story "Giants in the Earth", a prequel to An Alien Heat, relates the societal debut of a 7-year-old Jherek Carnelian to the residents of the End of Time. White Stars: after discovering that he had inadvertently destroyed one of Lord Shark the Unknown's experiments with lichen, the Duke of Queens offers to duel with him to rid himself of his guilt.Dressed in various shades of light brown, the Iron Orchid and her son sat upon a cream-coloured beach of crushed bone. Some distance off a white sea sparkled and whispered. It was the afternoon. " Werther de Goethe is named for the main character of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther and for Goethe himself, and is likewise angst ridden. He features as the main character in the short story "Pale Roses". Werther is the only other character from the end of time who was born, rather than created through the use of power rings.

A denizen of 19th century Bromley, she arrives at a party hosted by the Duke of Queens under mysterious circumstances after she is kidnapped from her own age. She is married to the stuffy Mr. Underwood, who becomes a comic presence in the second and third books. She is a lovely young woman and, although her Victorian upbringing has made a strict moralist of her, she gradually begins to thaw under Jherek's influence. In her childhood, she travelled with her father, a missionary, into exotic locations: these experiences planted the seeds of tolerance. The Duke of Queens is known throughout the End of Time for his outrageous creations. His first appearance is in An Alien Heat. After having adjusted the geography where the Iron Orchid and Jherek lunched and turning the sea into a deep pink, described as almost cerise, he is shown to be once more experimenting with artificial wings, to the chagrin of Iron Orchid, who wonders why he insists that they are a success. As to the exact science behind all this, no explanations are forthcoming, not even close. This is soft SF with a vengeance.

The trilogy is comic like Oscar Wilde, a Victorian association maintained by the character of Underwood. The primary setting, however, is the very far distant future when our remaining descendants are virtually immortal and omnipotent as well as, by any previous standards, immoral. The crux of the story and of its humor is the decision of one of these descendants to woo a very Victorian time-traveller. Having completed finished An Alien Heat I'm confident in saying it was the right decision. I'm currently struggling with the possibility that I enjoyed it more than the whole of the "Cornelius Tetralogy." Chronicling the transformation of Miss Mavis Ming and the parts played by Doctor Volospion, his fellow residents at the End of Time, and Mr Emmanuel Bloom, also known as The Fireclown. The ending originally involved a scene where the main character, Mavis Ming, was whipped into submission by Bloom. This was later rewritten by the author. [7] The novel has also been published, with differences, under the titles A Messiah at the End of Time and Constant Fire.