What began as a dream decades ago grew into a sweeping tale of Guardians, knights, shamans, living stars, and a threat that feeds on dullness and conformity.
ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, July 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Australian author Maureen B. Roberts has released her debut novel, “An Era in Anddemar,” an epic science fantasy set across a living galaxy under siege by a soulless force known as the Greyness.
In the spiral galaxy Anddemar, imagination, dreams, and solid reality interweave into a single, seamless web. What threatens it is unlike the typical fantasy villain. There is no malevolent overlord, or invading army. The Greyness is subtle, spreading through soulless control and its undermining of sacred traditions, nature’s balance, and communal harmony. It shows up in bland, aspiring tyrants, dimming stars that once gave life, and solid, destructive visions able to devastate entire landscapes.
AN UNLIKELY ALLIANCE
Standing against the Greyness is a colourful alliance: an exiled Shapemage, wormholes that channel poetry and music, shamans, knights, the Grail, and a marooned band of Earth scientists. What follows is less a war of armies than a struggle to safeguard the galaxy’s ‘Great Dance’ of dark and light. Woven through it all is the love between ‘the foremost of Anddemar’s knights’ and the Vidar Quain of the Dreaming, and at the heart of the myth is what Roberts names the ‘Mystery of Love’ – as the heart and soul of the Cosmos.
MYTH GROUNDED IN REAL SCIENCE
The book carries astronomical grounding beneath its myth. Roberts, who studied astronomy as part of a university science degree, gives Anddemar its own mode of stellar classification, matching Anddemar’s stars with Earth astronomy’s stellar spectral types. The story is woven with a musical architecture as well, its chapters moving like themes of a score, from overture, to adagio, to night song.
A STORY THAT BEGAN AS A DREAM
The novel’s roots reach back decades, to what the author describes as a ‘big dream’ in which she was a goddess at the heart of a galaxy, guiding lost children across broken glass. More visions followed, inspiring images of Swords of Light, three radiant Pillars, and a Chessboard of Moving Forms. Only later did Roberts discover that these images had parallels in Celtic myth, from the Claidheamh Soluis, or ‘sword of light’, to the Three Awen Rays of the Druids. She wrote the first draft before encountering the work of Carl Jung, whose insight would go on to shape her life and career.
A POET AMONG THE STARS
In one of the book’s more bizarre turns, English Romantic poet John Keats appears as a young knight whose poetry is used to repel the Greyness. Keats was the subject of Roberts’ doctoral thesis on English Romanticism, tying her scholarly work to the mythology of Anddemar.
A MYTH FOR OUR TIME
Roberts describes “An Era in Anddemar” as ‘a myth for our time’, a richly detailed portrayal of the communal network of a galaxy, its allies, its soulless enemy, and its ability to protect its sacred life. Though singular in its vision, the book draws on a lineage of classic mythopoeic authors, including E. R. Eddison, Lord Dunsany, Charles Williams, Marion Zimmer Bradley, David Lindsay, Mervyn Peake, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien, with homages to all of these scattered throughout.
‘I knew a traditional publishing editor would probably slash a lot of the descriptive detail, as well as modify the elevated prose style,’ Dr Maureen Roberts says. ‘I needed to stay true to the vision, rather than pander to publishing norms regarding tone, language, and narrative pacing. Anddemar bucks pretty well every current literary trend, simply because the vision demanded it.’
A NONFICTION COMPANION ON THE WAY
Roberts’ forthcoming nonfiction book, “StarDreaming: Letters from a Mystic to a Science Fiction Author,” will be published by Collective Ink in September 2026. Whereas “An Era in Anddemar” is fiction that grew from her dreams and visions, the focus of “StarDreaming” is actual letters she wrote (between 1994-96) to award-winning science fiction author Damien Broderick – who coined the term ‘virtual reality’.
PRAISE FOR “AN ERA IN ANDDEMAR”
“A soaring epic that reads like a myth newly dreamed into being . . . Fans of richly layered storytelling, elevated prose, and visionary worldbuilding will find themselves utterly transported.”— K. C. Finn, Readers’ Favorite
BOOK DETAILS AND AVAILABILITY
Title: “An Era in Anddemar”
Author: Maureen B. Roberts
Publisher: Vandrassian Press
ISBN: 978-1-923512-88-7
Genre: Epic Science Fantasy
Format: eBook and Paperback
Cover Art: ‘The Seynlight Falls into Anddemar’ by Lee Matthews
Availability: The paperback is available at Barnes & Noble, and both the eBook and paperback are available on Amazon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maureen B. Roberts is a two-time university literary Prize winner who holds a PhD in English Romanticism and studied astronomy as part of a university Science degree. For three decades she ran a private practice as a depth and shamanic psychotherapist, supporting sufferers of acute psychospiritual crises. From 2000 to 2011 she ran Australia’s Schizophrenia Drug-free Crisis Centre. An initiated Celtic shaman, she has guided spiritual retreats and vision quests, hosted her own radio show, and spoken at conferences for organizations including the Mythopoeic Literature Society of Australia and the C. G. Jung Society of South Australia. She has retired from private practice to focus on fiction and nonfiction writing, and lives in a cottage near the sea, on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula.
Learn more about the author and her work at https://maureenbroberts.com and https://psychiatrywithsoul.com
MEDIA CONTACT
Dr Maureen B. Roberts
Vandrassian Press
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