Amoeba

An assembly of creatures searches for the meaning of existence in this reality-twisting fantasy from New York Times–bestselling author Piers Anthony.

Before Tod Timmins meets the naked waif, the vampire, the wizard, and the others, he’s just a dull man engaged in manual labor. The job’s good for the body but a waste for the mind. Other than playing the ocarina, it’s the whole of Tod’s life — and it isn’t for him. When a trail appears out of the blue, gambling on fate, he follows it through the city, across the country, and into a realm of adventure and uncertainty.

Navigating the path, Tod encounters each new being one by one — human, nonhuman, and something else altogether. They come from alternate realities: periods in time that aren’t being clocked and places no one can prove are there. Who are these creatures, and why do they exist?

The answers are in the Amoeba, an entity neither intelligent nor conscious, yet as omnipresent as a god. In short order, it’s up to Tod to differentiate friends from foes, lust from love, and fantasy from reality to save and protect the one thing that connects them all.