When Peter’s mother, Catherine, dies, he is sent to live with his grandmother, Hannah, in Anglesea. She gives him his father’s old bedroom, a veritable time capsule that ultimately helps him unlock the secrets of his father’s past. He reads his old diaries and picks up on the significance of the books and mementos still in the room.

His father also told him about his tree house and the two friends he had while growing up there: an old man called Ali and a black cat named Rhubarb. Hannah always thought they were figments of her son’s imagination because of all the wild stories he told her. But when Peter meets his friends, he discovers they are Genies and the details of their adventures together are well within the realms of possibility.

Enter Peter’s new world of dedicated Australian sci-fi, complete with a centuries-old Time Lord, his companion and time machine, in these first five stories in the Rhubarb series.