I have read SF, starting with the classic Jules Verne, since I was a young teenager. Soon I discovered Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Ellison, Zelazny, Dick, all of whom lit up my mind with wondrous and sometimes dangerous visions of possible futures. During the COVID shutdown period, when our university went to online instruction, my wife convinced me to try my hand at writing in my favorite genre. Previously I had written a textbook, How Films Tell Stories (listed here at Shepherd), but never any fiction, so I wrote Temporal Gambit, a time-travel adventure combined with themes of first contact, artificial intelligence, and alternate history. I then followed it with a sequel. I hope you enjoy.
One of the best SF novels I’ve read in the last 25 years.
The story takes you on a journey through multiple, shifting realities as different time travelers compete to change history to their advantage without wiping out everything and everyone they know and love.
Unlike so many books these days, this one never drags or bores with unnecessary background details but keeps moving from one catastrophic change to another. Highly recommended.
When Nigel Walden is fourteen, the UNHAPPENINGS begin. His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice.
Several years later, when Nigel is visited by two people from his future, he hopes they can explain why the past keeps rewriting itself around him. But the enigmatic young guide shares very little, and the haggard, incoherent, elderly version of himself is even less reliable. His search for answers takes him fifty-two years forward in time, where he finds himself stranded and…
Several other lists mention this classic, but I had to as well, being one of my all-time favorites.
This is Asimov at his best, even better (IMHO) than the great Foundation series. What would it be like to control the timeline? What changes would you make in history for the betterment of humanity? If you had the power, would you risk it all to protect someone you love?
A spellbinding novel set in the universe of Isaac Asimov’s classic Galactic Empire series and Foundation series
Due to circumstances within our control . . . tomorrow will be canceled.
The Eternals, the ruling class of the Future, had the power of life and death not only over every human being but over the very centuries into which they were born. Past, Present, and Future could be created or destroyed at will.
You had to be special to become an Eternal. Andrew Harlan was special. Until he committed the one unforgivable sin—falling in love.
Bradbury remains my favorite author of all time, and this collection of short stories contains some of his best work, including my favorite time travel tale, “A Sound of Thunder.”
Imagine an avid hunter given the opportunity to stalk the king of prehistoric beasts, the monstrous T-Rex. Then imagine that things don’t go exactly as planned. The world will never be the same.
This clever novel takes the old premise, “What would happen if you went into the past and met yourself?” and magnifies it by multiple degrees.
Returning to the time of the great Chicago fire, the hero ends up meeting several past and/or future versions of himself, each time making his situation more complicated. A quick, enjoyable read.
If you could go back and change something about your life, would you?
The hero of this story inadvertently finds himself returning to his past time and again, each instance trying to follow a different path to success or happiness. But just as he finds what he thought he wanted, the cycle begins again.
At forty-three Jeff Winston is tired of his low-paid, unrewarding job, tired of the long silences at the breakfast table with his wife, saddened by the thought of no children to comfort his old age. But he hopes for better things, for happiness, maybe tomorrow ...
But a sudden, fatal heart attack puts paid to that. Until Jeff wakes up in his eighteen-year-old body, all his memories of the next twenty-five years intact. If he applies those memories, he can be rich in this new chance at life and can become one of the most powerful men in America.
Playing with Time can have dangerous consequences.
Martin Chamberlain joined the secret Chronos Project to research some of history’s intriguing mysteries. At first, his journeys through time go smoothly. Then something goes wrong.
When an alien race tampers with earth history, their interference ripples through time. Martin no longer recognizes his present. He must travel to the ancient past to save his planet. But he finds himself playing a game without rules.
Can Martin counter his opponents' moves before they eliminate the world he knows?
About myself: As a novelist I’m crazy for detail. I believe it’s the odd and unexpected aspects of life that bring both characters and story worlds to life. This means that I try to be an observer at all times, keeping alert and using all five – and maybe six – senses. My perfect writing morning begins with a dog walk in the woods or on a beach, say, while keeping my senses sharp to the world around me and listening out for the first whisper of what the day’s writing will bring.
This book is a literary historical novel. It is set in Britain immediately after World War II, when people – gay, straight, young, and old - are struggling to get back on track with their lives, including their love lives. Because of the turmoil of the times, the number of losses, and the dangerous and peculiar circumstances people find themselves in, sexual mores have become shaken and stirred.
But what happened after the war, in the time of healing and settling down? This novel examines the emotional, romantic, and sexual lives of three characters searching for a way to proceed.
Love never dies in this novel by “a writer of addictive emotional thrillers” (The Independent).
Told from three perspectives A Particular Man is about love, truth and the unpredictable consequences of loss.
When Edgar dies in a Far East prisoner-of-war camp it breaks the heart of fellow prisoner Starling. In Edgar’s final moments, Starling makes him a promise. When, after the war, he visits Edgar’s family, to fulfil this promise, Edgar's mother Clementine mistakes him for another man.
Her mistake allows him access to Edgar’s home and to those who loved him, stirring powerful and disorientating emotions, and embroiling him…
