This is cross-posted from Attempts's new home on substack. If you are reading this, you should go subscribe to the substack! New updates will be mostly there, and new essays & other substantive material will be exclusively there. We now return you to your regular post, already in progress:
I am debuting a new project—a big project—one I've been working on
for a few years and which I have been gathering ideas for for longer
than that. And I am hoping that you will give the first installment a try.
What is this project? you ask. Why, say I, I am glad you asked that.
Well,
you remember that last week I put forward the term "mosaic stories" to
refer to the general form of stories where small, to-some-degree
self-contained stories make up a larger one? It so so happens, in an
astonishing coincidence, that that's precisely the form of the story
I've been working on.
The story's name is Retcon.
It
will be a large story composed of twenty-seven smaller ones, divided
into three sections, or "movements" as I've decided to call them. The smaller stories are (prose) short stories, averaging about 15,000 words each.
The stories are going to be released
as ebooks (to begin with), although I have plans for print collections too. I am planning to
release them on a monthly schedule, with a break between movements, so
there will be one a month for nine months, and then a break, and then
another movement will begin.
And the first one is available now. It's called "Zero Second"
You can buy the ebook! It’s only $0.99.
As for where to buy it, there are lots of options.
• If you want to buy it at Amazon (for Kindle), which is where the majority of ebooks are sold, you can do so at this link.
• Or, if you’d prefer, you can buy it directly from me at my web site.
• Or you could buy it from another ebook vendor; it is available at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. (So far Apple is being difficult, but I hope to get it up there too before too long).
•
Or, if you are willing to commit to the whole narrative (and/or are
interested in supporting the series, and this substack in the bargin), you can pre-order the entire series in advance, and I will send them to you as they are released. Note that this offer is exclusive to my web site.
As
I mentioned a few weeks ago, a number of people have offered to support my Substack, for which I was very grateful. Well, if you are
interested in supporting this Substack, the best way to do it would be
to support me, and the best way to do that would be to support my series. So please: go buy it, and read it!
And, just as important: if you like it, please tell people! Reviews (on Amazon or elsewehere) are really helpful. Even better: tell a friend that you think might like it, and get them to read it. Word of mouth is how this series will find its audience, if it does.
So… go! Now! Read! Enjoy!
A fair question!
I
wrote a blurb for the series, which I will share in a moment. But while
it fairly represents the whole series, it is something of a spoiler for
parts of the first story. So before you read any further, you should go
buy or listen to “Zero Second”!
All right, everyone back? Or at least not too spoiler-phobic?
Here’s what the story is about:
In
1951, a pair of scientists at Cornell discovered time-travel. With the
specter of the atomic bomb in the immediate background, they decide not
to replicate Einstein's mistake of drawing the attention of the
political authorities to what might be a weapon. Instead, they decide to
set up a clandestine research program to investigate the phenomenon,
swearing all those who work on it to keep the secret.
Then,
in 1991, a time traveler returns from 2031 with a disturbing message:
no traveler and no message has ever come farther back from the moment in
time when he left; beyond that instant—dubbed "zero second"—is
unreachable. No one knows why. All people know is that something happens
on April 4, 2031, to prevent any news of the future.
This
is the story of what happens next... if "next" is the right word for a
narrative which, in the way of things, is necessarily non-linear.
I
hope you will all go read the story; and then go and
tell a friend, or three. This is the work of my heart, which I have been
pouring myself into, “the heart’s reflections, writ in tears”, as the
poet said.8 I hope you’ll give it a try.