The universe is Michael Moorcock's playground in this picaresque "autobiography" of his putative relation Rose von Bek. Rose, born in London in the mid-20th century to Sir Arthur and Lady Eleanor Moorcock, learns her love of wandering from the gypsies who gather near her father's estate. At 7 she decides on a career as a highwayman, at 17 she marries the not-entirely-respectable Count von Bek, and soon thereafter she meets her lover and companion-in-arms Sam Oakenhurst. Rose quickly discovers that she can enter the Second Ether and travel at will between the conventional world and a rollicking, quasi-infinite multiverse where the Chaos Engineers hold sway. At the same time, Sam's friend Jack Karaquazian and the beautiful Colinda Dovero conduct a romantic tragedy on a cosmic scale. It's Scaramouche meets Douglas Adams as Rose and her friends fight the War in Heaven against the Dark Angel Lucifer. This is the third book in the Second Ether Sequence – following after Blood: A Southern Fantasy and Fabulous Harbours.