The Tennis Shoes saga reaches new heights!
In a world where the great patriarchs of the Bible still reign, Rebecca and Joshua Plimpton face a terrible struggle to save not only themselves but a small baby from a power-hungry king, a mighty hunter of the souls of men—Nimrod. Meanwhile, Harry and Steffanie Hawkins must face the warriors of Shinar—and another villain whose objectives are the most chilling of all.
Come ride the whirlwind of adventure as the next generation of Tennis Shoes heroes tests the limits of courage across the spectrum of time!
Tropes:
- Artifact of Doom: As before, the silver sword is this, seeming to attract enemies and danger you would otherwise not encounter.
- Big Bad: Nimrod
- Back from the Dead: [[spoiler: Harry successfully alters the timeline and prevents Gid from being killed during the climax of Book 7.
- Competition Freak: Steffanie, which comes up when she challenges the prince to some contests.
- Contrived Coincidence: Soon after arriving in the desert, Mary and the kids find a massacred caravan, bare except for a single baby that needs to be cared for. That baby? The future Abraham.
- Downer Beginning: Mary and the kids'. They jumped into the portal too late at the end of the last book and didn't make it back to their own time. On top of that, the seerstone was taken from them as they jumped, which means they no longer have a powerful source of revelation about how to get home. And they're in the middle of a desolate desert with no resources.
- Evil Empire: The empire of Shinar is one, enslaving, raiding, and dominating heartlessly.
- The Evil Prince: Prince Marduk.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: After the first few chapters, the story follows three threads - Mary, Becky, and Joshua in the desert, Harry on his rescue mission, and Steffanie in her imprisonment. However, it mixes things up a little by having Joshua and Mary take turns narrating.
- Historical Domain Character: This entry has the series record, with 30+ characters from the biblical Book of Genesis, as well as the Mormon Book of Moses and Abraham.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: Mary, Josh, and Becky take the sword with them for this reason. The sword will likely wanna hurt them anyhow, but if they have it with them at least they'll know who it's influencing.
- Put on a Bus: The ancient Americas plot with Apollus, Megan, Ryan and Moroni does not appear in this book, although the epilogue is set there.
- Really 700 Years Old: Going off the early book of Genesis's tendency to have Long-Lived people, a lot of characters in the time of Shinar are much older than they look. The Evil Prince is 52 but looks like a 20-something model. One general is four hundred but looks 50. And one character is near 500 and looks 60. Harry and Steffanie discuss this, and conclude that maybe God stopped granting long life because it gives people too much time to go crazy and evil. Sadly, Nimrod and his cronies only support this thesis.
- Seers: Harry is able to see the future and receive spiritual messages using the seerstone.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Harry gets along very well with the falcon Rafa, and theorizes that it's because the Gift of Tongues includes this.
- Would Hurt a Child: Mary and the kids meet plenty.
