TINY TIME Machine
The Complete Trilogy
By John E. Stith
An Amazing Selects Edition
486 pgs
Every now and then a
science fiction book comes along that is simply fun to read. Most of these are science fantasies or space
operas and not what is labelled Hard Science. It is rare that one finds a
rollicking, fun sf adventure under the Hard Science umbrella. This is clearly
one of those treasures.
Meg Vauntage’s
mother died when she was a young teenager. Now, a rebellious young woman, she’s
constantly butting heads with her widowed father who rarely pays her any
attention. What Meg doesn’t realize is that her father is obsessed with
inventing a time machine that will allow him to go back in time and save Meg’s
mother.
As the book opens,
Meg, and a young man named Josh, are wanted by the San Francisco police for
misdemeanor crimes against corporations who poison the environment. Fleeing to
her father’s lab, they arrive to find him dying of a gunshot wound. With his
last breath, he tells Meg to guard his cell-phone. Confused by this cryptic
order, Meg, with Josh’s help, examines the phone and discovers it is a
functioning time-machine that will allow them to travel to the future.
“Tiny Time Machine,”
was first written as three novellas. Now they have been collected in this
omnibus edition. The first tale has Meg and Josh discovering a devastating end
of the world scenario in the future and are challenged to prevent it. In the
second tale, they, with the help of a futuristic AI entity, manage to travel
backwards into the past, their goal, to save Meg’s father. And finally, with
the third chapter, Meg explores the possibility of being able to save her
mother.
The action, from page one, is nonstop. Meg and Josh, and the supporting cast are beautiful realized and a joy to accompany in their wild escapades. “Tiny Time Machine” is a gem by a truly gifted writer. Pick it up, we think you’ll love it.
