In 1951, a pair of scientists at Cornell University discovered time-travel. With the specter of the atomic bomb in the immediate background, they decided not to replicate Einstein’s mistake of informing the political authorities about something that might turn out to enable a terrible weapon to be built. Instead, they decided to set up a clandestine research program, investigating the phenomenon, while swearing all those who came to work on it to utter secrecy.
Forty years later, in 1991, a time traveler returns from forty years further into the future 2031 with some disturbing news: no traveler and no message has ever come from any later point in time than the moment at which that time traveler themself left: April 4, 2031, at 3:56 in the afternoon. No one knows why. All they know is that something must have happened to prevent anyone from traveling or messaging further back beyond that point—a point they come to refer to as “zero second”.
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.
Retcon is a mosaic narrative, a story composed out of other stories, with recurring characters and overlapping plots all forming a larger picture. (It’s a form you’re probably most familiar with from tv shows, although it’s been used in prose fiction before, too.) Each movement will be composed of nine stories of approximately 15,000 words. They will be released on a monthly schedule starting March 9, 2023 (with a brief break between movements).
And they will be available, to begin with as ebooks (plans for paper publication are to wait until each movement is complete and publish those as proper paper volumes.) To learn more about the ebooks, click here (or just keep reading).
The Retcon Ebooks
All the stories are being published as ebooks. You can buy them right here on this web site:
- Zero Second
- Years Scattered Like Fallen Leaves
- Xu Ming’s Second Time Down
- While Unbeknownst to the Rest the Woman in the Yellow Dress Was Also a Time Traveler
- Very Soon And Yet Still Very Far Away
- Unless Another Escape to Tell Thee
- Thus in Time Are We all Devoured
- Screaming in Circles
- Retcon (forthcoming May 9, 2024)
Here (and only here) you can also order the entire series in advance: published stories will be sent within 24 hours, and the future stories will be sent on publication date.
Of course you can also buy the stories at all the various standard ebook stores:
Or to find links to the individual stories, scroll down.
1.8 Screaming in Circles
Three women go back in time, and witness their own death-at a time they had already lived through. Now they are scrambling to try to keep themselves from dying while still completing the mission that brought them back in the first place.
“Screaming in Circles” is the seventh story in the Retcon story mosaic, each of which can be read on their own, but which, seen together, tell a larger story as well.
Order “Screaming in Circles”:
1.7 Thus in Time Are We All Devoured
A young woman receives a letter from her father, 13 years in the future. After proving that he is who he says he is, he makes a startling request of her—starting with an urgent request not to tell his past self that he is writing to her.
Order “Thus in Time Are We All Devoured”:
1.6 Unless Another Escapes to Tell Thee
At first Mona thought that Noam, her counterpart as the head of the second lab in the secret time travel research group at Cornell, was simply a creep. But over time she begins to think he knows a secret she doesn’t—a secret that will change her life forever.
Order “Unless Another Escapes to Tell Thee”:
1.5 Very Soon and Yet Still Very Far Away
The secret time travel research group finally receives a message from a once-unreachable future. They scramble to save their work before the impending disaster whose nature they have just begun to glimpse. But is the messenger all that he seems to be?
Order “Very Soon and Yet Still Very Far Away”:
1.4 While Unbeknownst to the Rest, the Woman in the Yellow Dress Was Also a Time Traveler
In 1979, a group goes out to dinner at a Chinese Restaurant in Ithaca, New York. Some of them are time travelers. Actually, there is one more time traveler there than anyone expects. Mind the fortune cookies.
Order “While Unbeknownst to the Rest, the Woman in the Yellow Dress Was Also a Time Traveler”:
1.3 Xu Ming’s Second Time Down
A time-traveler who has gone back forty years to re-live the same period over again, struggles with the inevitability of history in a bleak time and gets into conflicts with his younger self.
Order “Xu Ming’s Second Time Down”:
1.2 Years Scattered Like Fallen Leaves
A woman is fated to go back in time to die, and falls in love with a man known to be about to vanish into an unknown future.
Order “Years Scattered Like Fallen Leaves”:
1.1 Zero Second
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. 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.
More Soon
Keep watching this space (or this space) for updates & new releases!