Rescued from the dimension-hopping death squad that "erased" his biological family, Pete is now in a sort of cross-continuum witness protection program. Uncle Si gives him a new home in a peaceful neighborhood, a new life in the blissful postwar period, a new, affluent family that cares about him, and a new identity: Ike Jaeger, on an alternate path to a future that was impossible from Pete Bedauern's native decade and circumstances.

But even at these idyllic time-space coordinates, there are challenges. Acquiring a girlfriend is a lot easier than keeping a girlfriend, for instance. A strong arm for throwing footballs is not as important as the leadership required to be a great quarterback. No matter how pleasant the environment, there will always be bullies. You have to lose some fights while learning to be a winner. And one little coding error in a warp interface's software can transport you to a future even worse than the leftist hellhole you escaped from.

Paradox is much more than a time-traveling rags-to-riches adventure. It's an odyssey into manhood for a hard-luck boy who is reborn with the chance to re-write his own destiny. In Rebooting Fate, that boy becomes a young man blazing a trail toward ambitions he never dared entertain before.