My novel The Necklace of Time is now available on Amazon (Kindle and print editions). It is set in my Snapshot universe, in a chain of snow globe shaped artificial realities, each of which started out as an exact living replica (Snapshot) of an Earth continent at some point in time (Africa near the end of the dinosaur era, Europe in 1942, North America during the Korean war, etc.). Life on the replicas continues and evolves, making for what amounts to single-continent alternate histories.
The artificial universes are connected like a chain of pearls by gates high over their oceans, which means that people in the Snapshot universe can fly to alternate realities that are much like alternate histories or in some cases like a trip back in time (thus the title-The Necklace of Time).
In any case, in the Necklace of Time, a sort of modern replica of North America (copied in late 2014), encounters another version of North America, this one isolated since 1953. The two copies don't exactly hate each other, but they are wary of one another and very different. North America 1953 is still in the 1960s in terms of computer and phone tech. No personal computer revolution, no Internet revolution, no smartphone revolution. They've still in the age of room-sized computers and black phones from Ma Bell. But they have better drugs, both legal and illegal.
Both Snapshots view the other North America as a mix of fun-house mirror version of themselves, with an element of cautionary tale--don't do this or we'll end up like them--mixed in. Both versions also have things that the other wants very badly.
The novel is a murder mystery solvable only by combining clues from the two North America Snapshots. Simon Royale is a famous writer of horror novels in the 2014 Snapshot, but he is obsessed to the point of insanity with the solving the mysterious decades old disappearance of his sister. Simon hopes to finally solve that disappearance with the help of North America-1953's Simon Royale.
Three problems with that: (1) The two Simons are embroiled in a lawsuit over use of the Simon Royale name to sell books (2) They both have the same taste in wives, and (3) A killer is still out there, trying to stay undetected.
This is (in my biased opinion) a fun book. I worked hard to create the alternate US in a realistic way and to figure out how the two versions would interact--smartphones, Amazon, Star Wars, rap music, break dancing and the Internet suddenly arriving in a country much like we were in the mid to late 1960s and the modern US encountering a version of the US that has spent the last sixties years exploring and colonizing a seemingly endless frontier--there is always another Snapshot on the other side of any Snapshot they find--some with no humans or only primitive ones, others with formidable rivals like Nazis that rule over their version of Europe, descendants of the conquistadors and Aztecs or a surviving Tsarist Russia.
While the versions of the US share a lot of attitudes and even some older people, they are very different in attitudes, technology and views of the universe. The clashes are a lot of fun to explore.
In any case, the Amazon link is:
https://www.amazon.com/Snapshot-II-Necklace-Dale-Cozort-ebook/dp/B07VN676BS/
It's available through Kindle Unlimited if you are a member of that.
The artificial universes are connected like a chain of pearls by gates high over their oceans, which means that people in the Snapshot universe can fly to alternate realities that are much like alternate histories or in some cases like a trip back in time (thus the title-The Necklace of Time).
In any case, in the Necklace of Time, a sort of modern replica of North America (copied in late 2014), encounters another version of North America, this one isolated since 1953. The two copies don't exactly hate each other, but they are wary of one another and very different. North America 1953 is still in the 1960s in terms of computer and phone tech. No personal computer revolution, no Internet revolution, no smartphone revolution. They've still in the age of room-sized computers and black phones from Ma Bell. But they have better drugs, both legal and illegal.
Both Snapshots view the other North America as a mix of fun-house mirror version of themselves, with an element of cautionary tale--don't do this or we'll end up like them--mixed in. Both versions also have things that the other wants very badly.
The novel is a murder mystery solvable only by combining clues from the two North America Snapshots. Simon Royale is a famous writer of horror novels in the 2014 Snapshot, but he is obsessed to the point of insanity with the solving the mysterious decades old disappearance of his sister. Simon hopes to finally solve that disappearance with the help of North America-1953's Simon Royale.
Three problems with that: (1) The two Simons are embroiled in a lawsuit over use of the Simon Royale name to sell books (2) They both have the same taste in wives, and (3) A killer is still out there, trying to stay undetected.
This is (in my biased opinion) a fun book. I worked hard to create the alternate US in a realistic way and to figure out how the two versions would interact--smartphones, Amazon, Star Wars, rap music, break dancing and the Internet suddenly arriving in a country much like we were in the mid to late 1960s and the modern US encountering a version of the US that has spent the last sixties years exploring and colonizing a seemingly endless frontier--there is always another Snapshot on the other side of any Snapshot they find--some with no humans or only primitive ones, others with formidable rivals like Nazis that rule over their version of Europe, descendants of the conquistadors and Aztecs or a surviving Tsarist Russia.
While the versions of the US share a lot of attitudes and even some older people, they are very different in attitudes, technology and views of the universe. The clashes are a lot of fun to explore.
In any case, the Amazon link is:
https://www.amazon.com/Snapshot-II-Necklace-Dale-Cozort-ebook/dp/B07VN676BS/
It's available through Kindle Unlimited if you are a member of that.