Recoil
by Bonnie Brunish
There is simply not enough far-future science fiction being written, and this novel, first in a series, is a new addition to the subgenre of what may happen to the future human race if we become a spacefaring people who discover some form of faster-than-light travel.
And, in Recoil, some forms of FTL are more equal than others.
After a spacefaring people visited his world, Sarl fell in love with one of the spacefarers, Barie. With no knowledge of her people’s FTL design, he laboriously builds a ship to reach her: a wholly new design. And during the years of scientific and metaphysical research it took to come up with his drive he discovered that he could tap into his own future for guidance, or at least comfort, as he moved toward the galactic empire he would someday rule whether he wanted to or not.
But Barie was death-bound to her ship, as were all the crews with the older drive. With new senses awakened as Sarl used his newer FTL drive he could see that she and her ship were twisted onto themselves in a most appalling fashion. She and her ship were doomed to die, perhaps in their next transit, unless he could untangle the dimensional mess. But how?
In trying to discover an answer Sarl finds himself twisted as well, and flung back and forth across millennia, with his only guide the assurance from his future self that he was on the right path. In each time, past and present, he has only limited time to set the stage for the next swing, when he gets swept up in the Recoil.
Recoil is a prequel that touches on other characters in Brunish’s Mindseas universe. There are three more books in the series and another one coming out in October 2015. Enjoy!
