"A man lies half-drowned on a Cornish beach at dawn in the furthest days of this century. The old woman discovers him, once a famous concert violinist, is close to death herself - or a new kind of life she can barely contemplate. Does death really exist at all, or has it finally been obiliterated? And who is this strange man she found - is he a figure returned from her past, a new messiah, or an empty vessel? Is he God, or the Devil? Filled with love and music, death and life, mind-stretching ideas and sheer, simple humanity, spanning the world from the suburbs of Birmingham to the streets of a new-Renaissance Paris via the ruins of post-apacalyptic India, Song of Time tells the story of this century through the eyes of a great musician as she unravels the mysteries of her past, and contemplates making the ultimate leap into life beyond the body."--[p. 304].