Spotlight & Excerpt: Someone in Time + Giveaway

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This is my post during the blog tour for Someone in Time. Someone in Time is a science fiction time travel romance anthology.

This blog tour is organized by Lola’s Blog Tours and runs from 17 till 30 May. You can see the tour schedule here.

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Someone in Time
Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Including stories by: Alix E. Harrow, Zen Cho, Seanan McGuire, Sarah Gailey, Jeffrey Ford, Nina Allan, Elizabeth Hand, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Catherynne M. Valente, Sam J. Miller, Rowan Coleman, Margo Lanagan, Sameem Siddiqui, Theodora Goss, Carrie Vaughn and Ellen Klages
Genre: Science Fiction Romance/ Time Travel Romance
Age category: Adult
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing
Release Date: 10 May 2022

Even time travel can’t unravel love

Time-travel is a way for writers to play with history and imagine different futures – for better, or worse.

When romance is thrown into the mix, time-travel becomes a passionate tool, or heart-breaking weapon. A time agent in the 22nd century puts their whole mission at risk when they fall in love with the wrong person. No matter which part of history a man visits, he cannot not escape his ex. A woman is desperately in love with the time-space continuum, but it doesn’t love her back. As time passes and falls apart, a time-traveller must say goodbye to their soulmate.

With stories from best-selling and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Alix E. Harrow and Nina Allan, this anthology gives a taste for the rich treasure trove of stories we can imagine with love, loss and reunion across time and space.

Links:
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Rebellion Publishing


Excerpt:

ROADSIDE ATTRACTION
Alix E. Harrow

THE DAY AFTER Candace Stillwater broke his heart, Floyd Butler decided—with the reckless haste of a twenty- one-year-old who knows they must act quickly, before good sense intervenes—to go time traveling.

It wasn’t a difficult proposition: you simply took Exit 52 off I-70, halfway between Junction City and WaKeeney, and followed the signs for The World’s One and Only Time Machine. You bought a ticket from the amiable drunk at the front booth and waited while he unlocked the gate, and then you walked through a grove of cottonwoods until you came to the time machine, which isn’t really a machine at all. It’s a rough pillar of sandstone weathered into a shape not unlike an hourglass, carved all over with names and initials and faded hearts.

There was a lot of fuss when it was first discovered—minor wars, international espionage, secret government agencies with a bewildering array of acronyms—but when the stone failed to provide either profit or power, the land was quietly sold to a private entity. The Ticket Through Time Theme Park opened in the early ’70s, boasting a Chronological Museum, an overpriced supply shop full of pocket dictionaries and period clothing, and an extensive system of waivers. It lasted four or five years, when it became clear that the number of people willing to pay exorbitant prices in order to fling themselves like deranged darts through space and time, with no guarantee of return, survival, or even a good time, was sadly limited.

So the private entity sold the acreage to another, smaller entity, which eventually sold it to a Mr. Anthony Barton, who found that there were just enough cultists, conspiracy theorists, true believers, historical re- enactors, and desperate escapists to cover the salary of one full-time employee and send Mr. Barton to the Bahamas every January.

If Mr. Barton had been there the day Floyd Butler paid for his ticket, he would have put him without hesitation in the ‘desperate escapist’ category, and he would have been half-right: Floyd was running away from plenty of things (his next shift at the QuikTrip 24-Hour gas station; the deadly flat of the Kansas horizon; Candace Stillwater’s blue, blue eyes when she broke up with him; and the dizzy sense that he’d lost the plot of his own life) but he was also running toward something. He just wasn’t sure what it was.

He thought of it as an apple hanging just out of reach, perfectly ripe, gold-limned in the light of some new dawn. If he’d ever spoken of it to anyone, which he had not, he might have called it his destiny.

Floyd had to tap the glass of the front booth to wake the ticket seller, who squinted at Floyd’s bright blue backpack—stuffed with all the necessities a person might need on a journey through time or, more accurately, all the non-perishable food that was available in his mother’s kitchen before dawn this morning, when the idea had occurred to him—tore an orange ticket from a large roll, and said “Good luck” in a tone suggesting he would need it.

Floyd was undeterred. He walked through the gate with a swelling, billowing sensation in his chest, as if he were finally reaching out for that red, ripe apple. He would have touched the stone without breaking stride, without a second’s hesitation, if it hadn’t been for the man standing in the way.

He was a little older than Floyd, somewhere in that nebulous range between early-twenties and old, which were Floyd’s only categories. Floyd thought he might have been handsome, in a tensile, whippet kind of way, if he shaved those embarrassing sideburns and wore 21st-century clothing. His outfit looked as if it had been stolen from the cover of one of Floyd’s mother’s romance novels: high-waisted pants, a collared shirt, and a stiff red vest that Floyd suspected was called a waistcoat or a cravat, or possibly a cummerbund.

Floyd knew some time travelers chose to dress in period clothing, but this man’s costume had a geographical and chronological specificity that struck Floyd as thoroughly silly.

If he’d heard Floyd’s approach, he made no sign of it. He stood before the stone, staring at it with a strange, lost expression, as if he didn’t know why he’d come or what he ought to do next.

Floyd waited a polite minute before saying “Morning” in the same soothing tone he used to greet stray cats.

The man startled so violently he tripped over his own feet and very nearly fell against the stone. Floyd caught one flailing wrist—so slim and sharp it was like catching a tossed butter knife—and stood him gently back upright.

The man blinked several times, panting and rubbing his wrist. “Thank you.” He had a nasally BBC accent that made Floyd suspect he’d traveled much further than three counties to be here.

“No problem.” Floyd nodded at the stone. “I’ll give you some privacy, if you’re going first.”

“Going…?” The man looked at the stone, then back at Floyd, squinting as if Floyd were standing in much brighter sunlight than he actually was. “No, I wasn’t—that is, I’m just the, uh, groundskeeper.” He nodded vaguely at the trees, which seemed to be keeping themselves perfectly well. “You go ahead.”

But he looked so pale and alarmed, his pupils dark beneath the long fringe of his eyelashes, that Floyd found himself lingering. He extended the travel mug he’d stolen from his mother an hour earlier. “Coffee?”

The man took the mug with long fingers, sipped cautiously, gagged, and said “How kind” in a slightly hoarse voice. He must have been the sort of person with a Starbucks order and a French press; Floyd generally just microwaved yesterday’s leftovers and stirred in so much powdered creamer it left a pleasant chemical film on his tongue.

“You keep it,” he said magnanimously. “I’d better be heading out.” Floyd tightened the straps on his backpack, hoping he looked like a dashing explorer rather than a Boy Scout.

“Where are you going?”
For some reason—because the man’s eyelashes were really quite long and he was looking at Floyd with such a pleasingly wistful expression, or because Floyd was filled with the ebullience of someone who has a feeling he will not be in Kansas for much longer—Floyd told him the truth.
He shrugged, smiling, and said, “To find my destiny.”
He touched the stone and disappeared.


Giveaway
There is a tour wide giveaway for the blog tour of Someone in Time. 5 winners win a paperback copy of Someone in Time. And 5 winners win an ecopy of Someone in Time. Open International.

For a chance to win, enter the rafflecopter below:
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Spotlight & Excerpt: Under Fortunate Stars + Giveaway

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This is my post during the blog tour for Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings. Under Fortunate Stars is a timey wimey space opera for lovers of Star Trek and Firefly.

This blog tour is organized by Lola’s Blog Tours and the tour runs from 10 till 23 May. You can see the tour schedule here.

Under Fortunate Stars book cover

Under Fortunate Stars
By Ren Hutchings
Age category: Adult
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing
Release Date: 10 May 2022

Blurb:
Two Ships. One Chance To Save The Future.

Fleeing the final days of the generations-long war with the alien Felen, smuggler Jereth Keeven’s freighter the Jonah breaks down in a strange rift in deep space, with little chance of rescue—until they encounter the research vessel Gallion, which claims to be from 152 years in the future.

The Gallion’s chief engineer Uma Ozakka has always been fascinated with the past, especially the tale of the Fortunate Five, who ended the war with the Felen. When the Gallion rescues a run-down junk freighter, Ozakka is shocked to recognize the Five’s legendary ship—and the Five’s famed leader, Eldric Leesongronski, among the crew.

But nothing else about Leesongronski and his crewmates seems to match up with the historical record. With their ships running out of power in the rift, more than the lives of both crews may be at stake…

Links:
Goodreads
Bookbub
Amazon
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Waterstones
Bookshop
Rebellion Publishing


Excerpt:

UMA
Engineering Deck, ZeyCorp Gallion

Despite all the empty seats around the Engineering pit, Uma stood next to the captain as the rest of the crew filed in. With everyone assembled in one place, there was no denying just how tiny the Gallion’s turnover crew was.
The captain, two directors, eight engineers, Shaan, and Zel. Thirteen people and one android, that was everyone on board.
No. Fifteen people, Uma corrected herself. The Ambassador and the Voiced interpreter remained oblivious in their guest apartment. Uma couldn’t imagine how anyone was going to tell the diplomatic contingent about this.
She looked around at the crew. Wazar, the equipment team lead, was clutching a steaming hot beverage to her chest like some kind of elixir, her shock of blue-grey hair in disarray. The Cordero siblings, both of them engine techs, looked dazed and bleary-eyed after hours of repeated engine core resets. Even Zel was out of sorts, hovering anxiously at the edge of the pit. His usually-perfect coif was flat on one side, as if he’d slept on it.
By the time Director Barnabyn appeared—dressed in his formal blazer, just like the captain—the crew was abuzz with speculative conversation. Outside of a drill, Captain Fransk had never invoked an emergency Full Staff Assembly.
“Crew of the Gallion,” Fransk began. He drew in a long, laboured breath. “It’s been many hours since the event that knocked out our engines, and we haven’t yet restored our  connection to the network. We don’t know if our signals relaying our position have reached anyone. We have no idea where we are.” He paused. “We have a long list of serious problems. But none of those are the reason I called this assembly.”
Fransk’s gaze lingered on Uma for a moment, and she gave him a small, encouraging nod.
“The Gallion has picked up another ship’s distress call,” Fransk continued. “Dean alerted me and the directors. But… as our current crew is so small, I want to share what we know
with all of you before we make any decisions.”
A confused whisper rustled through the room.
“The transmission we received is of human origin, albeit using an antiquated comms protocol. It is the only external signal of any kind that we’ve received since our ship entered  the energy field.” Fransk turned to the android. “Dean? Show us the ship scan.”
Dean tapped two smooth fingers together to call up a projection. As it unfolded above the android’s hand, the image slowly resolved and enhanced, and the outline of a ship  appeared.
An unsettlingly familiar ship. The back of Uma’s neck prickled again.
“I’ve isolated the source of the signal and located the ship, eighty klicks away,” the android said. “You will note that this image quality is unusually poor. That is due in part to the interference from the energy field, but the ship also has two scan-jamming devices mounted on its cargo bay. The devices are of an extremely old make and quite inefficient, so this  hasn’t prevented us from mapping their hull.”
The image zoomed in and rotated. “It appears to be a small civilian ship,” Dean continued. “The hull profile suggests a short-haul freighter, 00Y class—a common war-era vessel. The best-known ship of this type is undoubtedly the one that carried the Fortunate Five to Etraxas at the end of the war. The Jonah.”
Uma thought of the small, silvery model of the Jonah that sat on the shelf in her apartment, and a chill squirmed down her spine.
“Of course, the Jonah was a very ordinary ship for its time. There were thousands made exactly like it.” The android paused. “Most of them would be long out of service by now, but a few may still be spaceworthy if they were well-maintained. This could also be a modern replica of the Jonah.”
“Replay the transmission, Dean,” Fransk said.
The android’s head bobbed, and the crackling recording began to play.
“Calling all channels, we have an emergency! This is the civilian cargo hauler Jonah. Is anybody out there? We’ve had a complete systems failure… ran into some type of… unusual  energy field… no power. If anyone’s receiving this, we need immediate assistance. This is an emergency. I repeat, this is Eldric Leesongronski of the Jonah, requesting assistance.”


Ren Hutchings

About the Author:
Ren Hutchings is a speculative fiction writer, writing mentor, and history grad. She spent most of the past decade working in game dev while also plotting twisty space novels. She loves pop science, unexplained mysteries, 90s music, collecting outdated electronics, and pondering about alternate universes. Ren always drafts out of order, and almost everything she writes ends up involving a dash of time travel.

Author links:
Website
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Giveaway
There is a tour wide giveaway for the blog tour of Under Fortunate Stars. One winner wins a paperback copy of Under Fortunate Stars. Open International.

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