Welcome to another guest post for OWS CycCon’t Worldbuilding blog hop! Today I have for you an author of Steampunk Fairytales, and they will be talking about their process creating their fantastical worlds. You can also find a full list of authors and topics on the OWS Cycon website.
Hullo to all and welcome to another stop in OWS Cycon’s spiffy Blog Hop! Here we are highlighting awesome Sci Fi tech for other indie authors. Find a full list of participating authors and topics for this hop on the OWS Cycon website.
Greetings Matthew!
Before you tell us about your gadget, what is Turning the Hourglass about?
The novel is set in the 23rd
Century after a world war that has killed billions and wiped out entire
countries, cultures, and historical records. New time-travelling technology now
means historians can visit the past to research and record ancient events,
trying to rebuild records and restore a clearer picture of the world’s history.
Dyrne Samson – one of these historians – is the protagonist and it soon becomes
clear he’s using his time-travelling privileges for ulterior motives.
So what sorts of goodly mechanical machinations will you be telling our readers about today?
The ‘pods’ in my novel are the machines that allow
the historians to visit the past. They’re spheres that people can step inside while
images from the past are projected onto the interior walls or shell. The
historians aren’t technically ‘travelling’ anywhere. The pods use giant
telescopes to beam scenes from the past into the pods. The historians can then
‘walk’ around almost like they’re in a giant spherical treadmill, letting them
explore the images they’re seeing. However, there’s an inexplicable two-way
effect to the pods. This side effect means that sometimes images of the
historians are beamed back into the past. So people hundreds of years ago end
up seeing blurry silhouettes and figures. This is what ghosts really are.
‘Dyrne
stepped toward the pod. A section of railing had unlocked itself, and the neat door slid open, inviting him in.
He climbed the stone stairs to the platform and crossed the threshold, stepping
inside the enveloping orb. It supported his weight without budging. He touched
its pearly smoothness with both hands.
[…] The sheath door glided into place behind him. Click. The
pod chamber sounds beyond the sphere
became muted as if he’d been submerged underwater. Static shivered in his ears.
Then the familiar shuddering overhead. The groan and whirr of gargantuan
machinery shifting, compressing all its power into this little egg. He
swallowed a throatful of sand. The rosiness of the surrounding shell began to
swirl and melt, like ink dropped in
water. The pink twirled into brown, black, navy, green, lime. Then the
smoothness of the concave pod morphed and melded into angular shapes and lines
and edges. Objects. Furniture. Walls. Shelves. A flat ceiling. Carpet. The
light settled into mustard. Dyrne stepped
forward and felt the now-invisible pod move under him. The surrounding images
of the dull room shifted with him.’
And where can people find out more about your stories?