From Award Winning Author
Elizabeth Crowens
Elizabeth Crowens
When timelines clash
beyond the logic of science,
and the key to the future lies
in clues from the past...
SILENT MERIDIAN
Elizabeth Crowens
Series: The Time Traveler Professor Book 1
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Gaslight Fantasy, Alternative History
Publisher: MX Publishing
Publication Date: May 15, 2016
Genre: Speculative Fiction, Gaslight Fantasy, Alternative History
Publisher: MX Publishing
Publication Date: May 15, 2016
A 19th century "X" Files meets H.G. Wells's "Time Machine" featuring Arthur Conan Doyle and partner
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is obsessed with a legendary red book. Its peculiar stories have come to life, and rumors claim that it has rewritten its own endings. Convinced that possessing this book will help him write his ever-popular Sherlock Holmes stories, he takes on an unlikely partner, John Patrick Scott, known to most as a concert musician and paranormal investigator. Although in his humble opinion, Scott considers himself more of an ethereal archeologist and a time traveler professor.
Together they explore lost worlds and excavate realms beyond the knowledge of historians when they go back in time to find it. But everything backfires, and their friendship is tested to the limits. Both discover that karmic ties and unconscionable crimes have followed them like ghosts from the past, wreaking havoc on the present and possibly the future.
SILENT MERIDIAN reveals the alternate histories of Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Houdini, Jung and other luminaries in the secret diaries of a new kind of Doctor Watson, John Patrick Scott, in an X Files for the 19th century. Stay tuned for A Pocketful of Lodestones; book two in the Time Traveler Professor series by Elizabeth Crowens.
An impressive debut novel full of surprises and unexpected adventures between a time traveling music professor and a number of well-known Victorians
- Trina King, Amazon Reviewer
- Trina King, Amazon Reviewer
Purchase Links
Read the First Three Chapters
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Excerpt
Excerpt
Future Perfect
“How’s my friend, the mad scientist?” Wendell asked after greeting me with a firm manly slap on the back so hard it almost knocked the wind out of me.
He sank into my thinking chair throwing his coat on top of my worktable. Several displaced pages of sheet music slid on to the floor.
“Some kind of fire or explosion created a commotion nearby. Rumors seemed to fly with the wind,” he explained trying to catch his breath, coughing and breathing heavily. “I was walking by Spittal Street Lane on the way over to your place, and it looked like it was happening near your friend, Whit’s flat. Whatever occurred created a crowd on the street eager to watch the spectacle. Didn’t think I’d ever make it over here in time to squeeze in one of your excursions before my next class. So, John, show me this time machine you built.”
I could barely hear our conversation over the racket I was making assembling all the components for his trip. He was eager to see if my device would successfully work on him and that I wasn’t just playing him for a fool.
Wendell preened his feathers in my mirror while I took out a tool kit and began tightening a few screws.
“Wendell, backwards or forwards? Your choice.”
“Come again?”
“Do you want to explore the past or the future?” I explained, forgetting he wasn’t used to time travel phraseology.
“The future, of course. How could one resist discovering what lies ahead and that which has never been recorded in any way, shape or form?”
“The future it is, then. However, Wendell, I must give you a fair warning. So far, every time I’ve traveled into the future I’ve turned into a woman.”
“Ha! A lady! You must be pulling my leg!”
“C’est vrai mon ami. You might not even speak the same language any more. This could be quite a shock.”
“John, I started out in medical school. After handling corpses and performing plenty of surgeries, there’s very little that can rattle my nerves.”
“I’ll take your word on that.”
He loosened his tie. “John, let’s get started. I can’t wait to see whom I’m going to wind up as in the future. For the life of me, I fail to comprehend why we cannot stay the same.”
“Don’t be upset if you look in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back at you. I’m still learning this process and can’t guarantee results. For all I know, you might wind up back in the past, instead. Promise me, that whatever you encounter, you won’t blame me for it.”
“Very well,” Wendell sighed as I began securing the leather straps to his head while he wrinkled his brow with suspicion. “Is there any chance you could also hook yourself up to this device so we can travel through time together? I’d hate to venture into any strange, unknown land without my best friend by my side.”
I laughed, “You’ve traveled the world more than I have. The farthest I’ve gotten out of Scotland is to London. I’ve never even once had the chance to cross the Channel.”
“Yes, but I’ve never gone back or forth in time,” he replied with concern.
“Golly, I don’t own two of them. I’ve been working on a spare but haven’t finished yet. Let me think of something.”
If the two of us traveled together, then we could keep an eye on each other to make sure neither one of us got into trouble, so that sounded like a good idea. Thus, I pulled up a second chair beside him and applied final touches to assure his apparatus was secure. My connecting wires took several attempts before they stayed put. Next, I started hand-cranking the gears and dropping my mystery mineral pellets into that special steam canister. Quickly, I sat down and strapped on my headgear from a spare I had constructed, causing enough sparks to fly to fear being electrocuted.
Once everything was under control, I grabbed my decanter of port and took a swig. I put a soothing record on my gramophone to drown out the barking dog outside, adjusted the leather straps on my time travel device and eased back into my chair so we could get underway. At first, the whirring of the gears and the hissing of the steam was distracting, and I could see that Wendell must have had an itch in his pants by the way he squirmed in his chair.
“Take this, my friend,” I whispered as I passed him the wine and insisted that he drink, like I did, straight from the bottle.
After gulping at least five times without taking a breath, Wendell wiped his hand on his jacket sleeve.
“Much better,” he said, “Promise me, John, we won’t encounter Morlocks.” He was referring to the creatures in Wells’ The Time Machine and was apprehensive.
“Sorry, brother, I cannot promise anything. Get ready for the ride!”
Steam began to fill the room making it look like a foggy dawn. Wendell gave my hand a firm squeeze for one final goodbye. Between the two of us consuming almost all of the wine, we finally floated into a new realm of reality as smoothly as a tightly fitting glove and as simply as changing one’s socks.
* * *
This is a true roller coaster ride. For people who love Sherlock Holmes, or for people who love time travel, or for people who just enjoy not knowing what's going to come next.
- Susan Breen, Amazon Reviewer
- Susan Breen, Amazon Reviewer
Giveaway
WIN
Prizes up for grabs:
$10 Amazon Gift Card
5 x Copies of Silent Meridian (US - print, International - eBook)
$10 Amazon Gift Card
5 x Copies of Silent Meridian (US - print, International - eBook)
Contest runs from May 18 - 31, 2017.
About Elizabeth Crowens
Elizabeth Crowens is the pen name author of SILENT MERIDIAN, an alternate history/ 19th century "X Files" alternate history novel published by MX Publishing in London. Recently she won First Prize in Chanticleer Review's Goethe Award for Turn-of-the-Century Historical Fiction, is on the short list of finalists for Chanticleer's 2016 Cygnus Awards for Speculative Fiction, Paranormal and the Ozma Award for Fantasy Fiction and received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train's fiction short story contest for Emerging Writers. She has also published a variety of non-fiction articles and is currently writing a column called The Poison Apple in the World Fantasy and Alfie Award-winning publication, BlackGate.com.
Recently, she participated on panels at The World Fantasy Convention, MidAmericon II/Worldcon, Lunacon, Heliosphere, the Writer's Digest Conference, Queens Book Festival, Philcon and was also interviewed for the radio show, Hour of the Wolf. A Pocketful of Lodestones, the sequel to Silent Meridian is awaiting a publication date. Current work-in-progress is Killer Between My Sheets, a psychological/domestic suspense novel/series.
A 15-year veteran of the film industry in Hollywood, she's also an alumnus of Algonkian workshops and the Gotham Writer's Workshop and a member of the Horror Writers Association, Historical Writers of America and Mystery Writers of America. An active Sherlockian, she's lectured on Arthur Conan Doyle, belongs to several Sherlockian scions, and is an independent scholar on Eastern and Western mysticism and Jungian psychology. A blackbelt in martial arts, she's lived in Japan. Currently, she lives in New York City.
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