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Elsewhen
Lije Grant, an astrophysicist, sits at a radar tracking station, tracking boring space junk. One night, he notices a satellite veering off course before disappearing into the darkness. Curious, he investigates and discovers a small black hole - and it's getting closer. The Earth has maybe two weeks before it is swallowed. Years before, Lije's life took a dark turn when Laura Bess Austin, the love of his life, was lost in a plane crash. Little does he know, but this seemingly random discovery in the night sky holds the key to a happiness he never dared to dream he could know again. After his shift, as he's grabbing a bite in a coffee shop, his lost love walks up and says hello. Laura Bess, it turns out, is alive-and living in an alternate reality. After Lije gets over his shock, Laura Bess explains that, using a skill she's had since childhood, she was able to step aside; from the crashing plane into one of the alternate universes she calls elsewhens - but she was trapped. In her new life, she finds work at a top-secret teleportation program, hoping to make her way back to Lije. When she is seen vanishing to connect with Lije, the authorities think that she has stolen the secret to teleportation. Now, Lije must rescue Laura from a sadistic security agent from her alternate universe. With the black hole closing in on his world, can they find a way to cross over to a third elsewhen before it's too late?
"Bullock’s intriguing story combines elements of science fiction, romance and suspense. …A focused, fast-paced journey between alternate universes." --Kirkus Indie Review
"Bullock’s intriguing story combines elements of science fiction, romance and suspense. …A focused, fast-paced journey between alternate universes." --Kirkus Indie Review
118 pages, Hardcover
First published May 29, 2012
19 people want to read
About the author
Gary Bullock
2 books26 followersOriginally from eastern Tennessee, Gary Bullock is an actor and writer. In past lives, he has been a software engineer, radar operator, Hollywood apartment manager, and DJ. One of his passions is building and flying model airplanes. He lives in western North Carolina with his soul mate, Mil Nicholson.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 12, 2015
Elsewhen is a story about star-crossed young lovers, a love story for science fiction fans. Conceived when author Gary Bullock was working at a radio astronomy site, Elsewhen follows the path of Elijah (‘Lije’) and Laura Bess, two child prodigies who fall head-over-heels in love before tragedy strikes and tears them apart. But for Lije and Laura, it seems that True Love might be able to thwart even fate…
Concepts from the more poetic end of theoretical physics are liberally peppered among the pages—musings on the directionality of time, for example—but this is by no means ‘hard’ science fiction. Scientific complexity level is about equivalent to the first Thor movie, so if you don’t know your bosons from your fermions, don’t despair.
Blending physics with a love story might seem like a difficult line to walk, but Bullock does a respectable job with his 118-page novella. Bullock’s career appears to have wended from screen writing to writing novels, and indeed, Elsewhen reads kind of like a screenplay—which I mean as both praise and as a critique.
On the side of praise, there is a good kind of inertia to the book. The plotline barrels along at a cracking pace, and given the length of the novella, it’s quite possible that you might read this cover to cover in a single night. But on the flip side, I wanted this novel to be longer. Several concepts and (particularly) characters were only loosely sketched out before the plotline whisked away to the next development.
The brevity led to my two main problems with the book. First of all, some key characters are bald rehashes of literary tropes. Some character development earlier in the novel could have, for example, fleshed out the villains in the story to make them more human and relatable.
Second, I craved more depth from the story. The many fantastical elements of the storyline open up the main characters in discussion of various concepts of philosophy and metaphysics, and I felt that more exposition here would have led to a more interesting read (and probably would have also helped with the character development problem). However, this may be less a critique of Elsewhen, and more a problem of my expectations going into this novel.
These issues aside, Elsewhen is a fun book with a clever premise. For the price of a cup of coffee, it’s easy enough to recommend for a light read.
Full disclosure: reviewed for Universe Today
Concepts from the more poetic end of theoretical physics are liberally peppered among the pages—musings on the directionality of time, for example—but this is by no means ‘hard’ science fiction. Scientific complexity level is about equivalent to the first Thor movie, so if you don’t know your bosons from your fermions, don’t despair.
Blending physics with a love story might seem like a difficult line to walk, but Bullock does a respectable job with his 118-page novella. Bullock’s career appears to have wended from screen writing to writing novels, and indeed, Elsewhen reads kind of like a screenplay—which I mean as both praise and as a critique.
On the side of praise, there is a good kind of inertia to the book. The plotline barrels along at a cracking pace, and given the length of the novella, it’s quite possible that you might read this cover to cover in a single night. But on the flip side, I wanted this novel to be longer. Several concepts and (particularly) characters were only loosely sketched out before the plotline whisked away to the next development.
The brevity led to my two main problems with the book. First of all, some key characters are bald rehashes of literary tropes. Some character development earlier in the novel could have, for example, fleshed out the villains in the story to make them more human and relatable.
Second, I craved more depth from the story. The many fantastical elements of the storyline open up the main characters in discussion of various concepts of philosophy and metaphysics, and I felt that more exposition here would have led to a more interesting read (and probably would have also helped with the character development problem). However, this may be less a critique of Elsewhen, and more a problem of my expectations going into this novel.
These issues aside, Elsewhen is a fun book with a clever premise. For the price of a cup of coffee, it’s easy enough to recommend for a light read.
Full disclosure: reviewed for Universe Today
July 12, 2015
This review can also be found at exzorders.com/reviews/elsewhen-gary-b...
A very 'romantic' tale of romance-cum-science fiction containing none of the filth and fluff that the modern day sci-fi books usually have. There is hardly much in terms of 'sexual content' and whatever I found here was rather tame by my standards. The book deals with the age-old theme of 'separation and reunion' of two sweethearts, Elijah and Laura; only here, the reunion comes with a strange twist. The main story and the emotional responses of the characters are quite realistic if you take the sci-fi elements out if them, although some of the dialogs could have been a little tauter. Like the author, I too believe in the concept of soul mates and that there is someone right out there somewhere, waiting for each one of us!
As a science fiction novella, the way this book tackles the alternate realities is unique. Highly recommend for anyone who is either into science fiction or romance genres; this is one book which is guaranteed to satisfy both groups! I hope there is a sequel to it coming up some day; I would wanna read that one too!
To read more of my reviews visit http://exzorders.com/reviews/
A very 'romantic' tale of romance-cum-science fiction containing none of the filth and fluff that the modern day sci-fi books usually have. There is hardly much in terms of 'sexual content' and whatever I found here was rather tame by my standards. The book deals with the age-old theme of 'separation and reunion' of two sweethearts, Elijah and Laura; only here, the reunion comes with a strange twist. The main story and the emotional responses of the characters are quite realistic if you take the sci-fi elements out if them, although some of the dialogs could have been a little tauter. Like the author, I too believe in the concept of soul mates and that there is someone right out there somewhere, waiting for each one of us!
As a science fiction novella, the way this book tackles the alternate realities is unique. Highly recommend for anyone who is either into science fiction or romance genres; this is one book which is guaranteed to satisfy both groups! I hope there is a sequel to it coming up some day; I would wanna read that one too!
To read more of my reviews visit http://exzorders.com/reviews/
January 12, 2015
Listening to this now and loving it!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews