Retcon: A Mosaic Narrative in Three Movements

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, published monthly as ebooks~~ (Update: the stories are trending longer as I go on, as is the time between publication. As of. now it’s more like somewhere between 15-30,000 words, published every 2-3 months.)

Movement one is now complete. All nine stories in movement one are now available(see below). There will be a collected edition, both as an ebook and as a paper book, forthcoming.

Movement two is currently in progress, with new installments published irregularly (aiming for bimonthly).

The Retcon Ebooks

All the stories are being published as ebooks. You can buy them right here on this web site:

Retcon Movement One: Necessity

Retcon Movement Two: Contingency

Quartet for the End of the Beginning of the End of Time
Paradigm Shift: Paradigm Slippage: Paradigm Boogie-Woogie
Ordinal Unknown
Nostalgia
9/11, 2020, 3:56 on 4/4/31, and Other Possibly Significant Numbers (forthcoming Spring, 2026)

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.

2.4 Nostalgia

Already having lived longer than the biblical quota of three score years and ten, Xu Ming is sent back in time by the secret Temporal Research Group on a mission to alter the past. When he returns, he finds the world is different than what it was. Which was the point, right? So everything’s good? In which case, why does he feel so uneasy in the new world he has had such a hand in creating

Order “Nostalgia”:

2.3 Ordinal Unknown

Two groups of time travelers return from missions to change the past, arriving at almost exactly the same time, and each returning from a world where what the other eliminated was present. How could this be? Surely one group or the other must have gone (if you’ll forgive the expression under the circumstances) first? So they, plus their boss, sit down to try and hash it out—and discuss the time and times they all come from, in the process. Coffee, tea and muffins will be served.

Order “Ordinal Unknown”:

2.2 Paradigm Shift: Paradigm Slippage: Paradigm Boogie-Woogie

It’s the same old story: Girl Meets Boy, Girl Looses Boy, Girl travels through time and meets herself, and Boy again, only it’s not quite the same Boy, and… er, try again: It’s the same old story: You’re trying to change the world, but it’s trying to change you, too, and it wins, and it’s you that’s changed and not the world, only you’re part of the world so it’s different, too, and watch the sexes of the Professor and Doctor because something fishy is going on there… er, take three: It’s as easy as ABC: A is for Beginnings, B is for Fallback Options, C is for Average. Things are changing, and it’s hard to find love and make the world better when standing on shifting sands. Same old story, right

Order “Paradigm Shift: Paradigm Slippage: Paradigm Boogie-Woogie”:

2.1 Quartet for the End of the Beginning of the End of Time

The secret research program at Cornell University has made a terrifying and powerful discovery, and the whole aim and focus of their work will change. In the course of negotiating this change, two older scientists studying time travel visit their younger selves, an archive is built, a robbery is attempted, and a historian and an historian are both hired. Things start to go wrong, of course, but with time travel, you always get another mulligan. Which is good, because this go around they’ll need it.

Order “Quartet for the End of the Beginning of the End of Time”:

1.9 Retcon

A young scientist, part of a secret research program into time travel and Cornell university, believes the program’s leader, her mentor, is wrong about a core conception of the science, and she sets out to prove it—whatever may happen as a result.

Order “Retcon” (the story):

At Fable (missing for some reason)

At Kobo

At Smashwords

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 eighth 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.