Tiny Time Machine

by John E. Stith, John E. Stith

★★★★★ "A new high-concept idea for time travel!" - Reader review

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All life on Earth will die of thirst unless a couple of loners on the run can use a strange time machine to stop a secret project! An action-packed short novel from a Nebula Award nominee.

Meg is an angry scientist's daughter. Her father is not a mad scientist, just really angry - so angry that he and Meg have rarely spoken since the death of her mother.

Meg has become a loner, obsessed with combatting polluters like the ones who triggered her mother's death. And her father has had a different obsession.

When Meg breaks into a paint company to expose their practices, she runs into Josh, another loner out to save the world.

When Meg and Josh suddenly find themselves on the run from the cops, Meg heads for the one man who should always take her in--her father.

But when Meg and Josh reach him, they find him dying. Just before he dies, he gives Meg a strange device that looks like a cellphone and tells her to use extreme caution.

When the invention proves to be the time machine that holds the key to humanity's future, Meg and Josh must find a way to do the impossible--to work as a team.

They are up against the cops, a powerful billionaire, a Russian profiteer, and a romantic rival.

Can they save the world, and save each other?

About Stith's prior

“Stith writes in the best hard-sf manner, dropping characters into a situation that can be solved only by thought and reason, but he also, more modernly, creates real and believable characters. He is becoming one of the most eloquent modern hard-sf practitioners.” — Booklist

Order your copy and join the quest for humanity's survival, today!

201 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 13, 2021

About the author

PUSHBACK , a mystery-suspense novel, was published in November 2018 and is a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, mainstream category.

PUSHBACK : At his ten-year high-school reunion, an investment counselor finds he doesn't know one person there, and soon realizes he must outwit an unknown antagonist who wants him dead.

"...unsettling Hitchcockian thriller...Judicious use of humor provides some relief from the dark plot line. Fans of Daniel Palmer-esque intelligent suspense will be pleased." -- Publishers Weekly

"Ordinary Hijacked by Extraordinary, With Comedy... what’s most captivating about PUSHBACK is that even with people like Dave Barlow—just an average guy doing average things—life can take a shocking turn for the worse. But the book reminds us that, also like Dave, we have the power to turn it right-side up again, with humor at the center of our inner strength." -- The Big Thrill, magazine of International Thriller Writers

Science-fiction author John E. Stith's works include REDSHIFT RENDEZVOUS (Nebula Award nominee from Ace Books), MANHATTAN TRANSFER (Hugo Award Honorable Mention from Tor Books), REUNION ON NEVEREND, and RECKONING INFINITY (on Science Fiction Chronicle's Best Science Fiction Novels list for its publication year, on the Nebula Award preliminary ballot).

His other novels are SCAPESCOPE, MEMORY BLANK, DEATH TOLLS, and DEEP QUARRY.

He's the author of ALL FOR NAUGHT, which collects "Naught for Hire," and "Naught Again" both first appearing in ANALOG. If you hear about "Naught for Hire" verbally, you might think the title is "Not for Hire" but it's not. Check out the Naught for Hire website for even more info on the upcoming webisode series starring Ben Browder.

Reviews

[Pam Withers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiny Time Machine is a trilogy of novellas (343 pages altogether) that cleverly mix time travel with high-action adventure. These page-turners are full of tense chase scenes, strong writing, imaginative science and intriguing characters.

They’re in the first-person point of view of 17-year-old Meg, who shares the adventures with her love-interest Josh and friend Olivia. There are well-drawn bad guys after them, and even a hologram/avatar companion who is vain, smug and sarcastic as it shape-shifts from one form to another to add comic relief.

Although the three main characters are 17 at the start of the trilogy, because they graduate from high school by the second installment, and because there’s mature subject matter (one sex scene and frequent other sexual material), it feels more like a new-adult book for twenty-somethings.

I like the way it includes humor, and the time-travel material is laudably original, if occasionally so high-tech it’s hard to follow. Certainly, the chase scenes and tension are first class.

Sadly, it is brought down by several weaknesses, all of which force one to question if the author is out of touch with today’s young people.

First, there’s constant sexualizing of the women and situations, likely to offend any gender in this day and age.

Then there’s frequent reference to dated movies and other pop culture, to which today’s teens are unlikely to relate (Howdy Doody, Butch Cassidy, Men in Black, MacGyver).

There’s inappropriate use of words like Eskimo and powwow (dated and culturally inappropriate).
And finally, there’s a romantic triangle that feels forced, overblown and over-milked (for two of the three books) focusing on Meg feeling constantly obsessed by and intimidated by Olivia’s physical looks, a shallow theme perhaps more acceptable to readers a few decades ago.

But don’t take my word for it. The author seriously uses the word “cleavage” four times:
• The gun pushed into her cleavage.
• Josh’s gaze periodically came to rest on Olivia’s legs and cleavage.
• Josh had been momentarily distracted by Olivia's cleavage.
• The future could be really conservative. They might even outlaw cleavage, for instance.

And then there’s the sexual harassment and male characters’ supposed inability to keep their minds off sexual matters. Legit for one or two instances, but so frequent it feels out of date and over the top and… icky.

• Another security guard appeared right in front of me and I was boxed in. He gave me an arrogant smile and said, “Hey, Sweetie. How’s it going?”… They grabbed me, more roughly than they needed to. And a lot more intimately than they needed to. Bastards.
• “Trust me. You will like this a lot less if I have to search you while you sit there.” He sounded almost hopeful that I would be stubborn….
• [Josh] wasn't far away… He was in the living room. With a stunningly beautiful woman [the hologram]. And she wore nothing but a bikini. And not one of those burka-like bikinis. One of the bikinis that seemed to have been designed and fabricated during a severe cloth shortage.
• “Quit looking at her butt.”
• The guy seemed focused on my chest as I ran. This time I felt less flattered and more irritated.
• I could see why Josh and Mr. Hyatt would both be attracted to her curvier body.
• Today, Valex [hologram] looked like a barely dressed fashion model, so Dad's ability to focus was even more impressive.
• Zeke's mother had been a beautiful woman who took advantage of her looks to manipulate the multiple men in her life to indulge her every whim. Zeke had wound up with a deep-seated aversion to beautiful women…
• Very short skirts seemed to be in again. The women must have been chilly, unless you could now take a pill to alter your metabolism, but I was sure Josh would be happy.
As for the supposed love triangle that gets tiring and is way over-focused on physical looks…
• Olivia… turned to Josh. “I’ll do anything you want.” I felt a sudden flash of irritation at being neglected. And annoyed that this gorgeous female was focusing herself on Josh. Josh gave her a sly grin. “Anything?” “Darn it!” I said. “Keep it in your—”
• Her top was cut really low. The old phrase, “When you've got it, flaunt it,” came to mind. And Josh had to be the only intended target.
• Tonight she wore a white sleeveless top and what could be a tennis skirt except it looked too tight for that.
• Whenever Olivia was around, I automatically felt less than, at least physically, and I don't know that it was good for Josh to contrast Olivia at her best with me at my worst.
• [Olivia] looked like she'd come directly from the beauty parlor. Her hair glistened under the lights. She wore another short skirt and a tight fuzzy sweater, the kind that makes acquaintances without boundaries say, “Oh, can I feel?”
• So this was what it felt like to be a duckling in the presence of the Queen Swan.
• Olivia: “I've been seeing someone off and on, but I'm not sure he's a keeper… and we've been having a few too many deadwood episodes…” I found it difficult to believe any man with Olivia would have that problem, but maybe she was as intimidating in bed as she could be out of bed.
• Olivia Teicher stretched her arms, slowly, first over her head and then reaching back. Josh did a pretty fair job of demonstrating that Olivia's provocative pose held no power over him.

Yes, there are attempts to portray intelligence as more important than looks, and to present the girls as courageous and Josh as thoughtful. But given the strange preponderance of the looks/sexuality obsession, it just feels out of touch and gross.

That said, I repeat that the plot and characters are otherwise well drawn, with the threesome saving the world from ecological disaster, then rescuing people by upgrading the time machine to perform impressive feats. The plot gets sidetracked at one point by political issues that don’t seem to fit, and one bad guy ends up admitting motivations that seem not to fit at all. But anyone who loves a time-travel tale laced with danger and action, and who can ignore the outdated sexual stuff, will enjoy this read.
Pam Withers is founder of https://yadudebooks.ca/

[Deborah Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll read anything by John E. Stith, but somehow I missed this charming short novel. The description says it’s “for young adults,” but I disagree. While teens are going to love it, and it’s a novel featuring young characters, it’s so full of buoyancy and hope that adults will gobble it up, too. Meg describes herself as the daughter of an angry scientist dad, so angry that he in fact turns a smartphone into a time machine that not only peeks into a not-too-distant future but allows people to jump into it. Alas, it’s not a future anyone would want to live in. The planet is dying, and humanity along with it. The oceans have turned into a stiff jelly, reminiscent of ice-9 in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Meg and her new friend Josh embark upon a quest to stop a billionaire technologist whose well-meaning attempts to clean up the ocean’s plastic garbage will lead to this bleak future. Soon they’re on the run from the police, as well.

One of the things I enjoy about Young Adult novels is how teens can have agency, not only in their own lives but in the world. Typically, parents are therefore absent or dead (in Meg’s case, both of them, her father recently so), and that frees the characters from supervision. In this story, not having a parent deprives Meg and Josh of the perspective and resources an adult ally could offer. They have internal challenges of growing up and learning to work together, deal with jealousy, and so forth, all within the limitations that minors face. This is while figuring out what happens in the future and how to stop it.

As a bonus, the book contains a piece of short fiction, “Redshift Runaway,” set in the same world as Redshift Rendezvous. When a sentient alien pet runs wild on a starship traveling a significant fraction of the speed of light, where the laws of ordinary physics no longer apply, chaos ensues, but also understanding. Nobody writes relativity-based science fiction better than Stith.

[Russell Martens · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is wonderful to see a new John E. Stith story, even if it is shorter than I’d like. I am being very deliberately vague about the story details, because I don’t want to spoil it. I want you to all go out and read it yourselves.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The ending was a bit abrupt. After finishing it, I read the authors note explaining it had originally been a screenplay and had been turned into a novella. That explained the ending. A movie has to end after the big climax and rarely deals with the fallout, whereas a novel can often have a (sometimes lengthy) epilogue dealing with the aftermath. It also talks about the hope of sequels, which would deal with my issues. That said, if a cinematic ending is the biggest problem a story has, things must still be pretty good.

And this story is VERY good. For me, a good story must be believable, given the initial conceit. This tale succeeds admirably. The two main characters are well developed and feel very real. They are presented with a number of mysteries to solve, one criminal, one technical, and one apocalyptic. All three tie up neatly, and leave plenty of room for future tales. I hope very much to read those future tales.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Howard Brazee]

Tiny Time Machine is in the process of being converted into an illustrated book. It has a few drawings with it. And two sequels are being planned. A teen is given what looks like a phone when her father dies after being shot and losing his arm. Everybody is after her and a young male friend as she finds that phone allows her to see and go to 31 years later where it appears the world is virtually destroyed.

Also, this book contains “Redshift Runaway”, a short work in the spaceship of "Redshift Rendevous". (read that novel first).