Tagged: steve poling
Giveaway: Finding Time by Steve Poling
Like time travel? Science fiction with actual science in it? Great characters? Then have I ever got a book for you! Steve Poling graciously agreed to do a giveaway with me so we have two copies of Finding Time up for grabs in Kindle format only. For my fellow Luddites all that means is you will have to download and read it through Amazon on your computer.
RULES:
1. You must answer one or both of the questions provided.
2. Your answer can be as serious/funny as you like. There really is no wrong answer.
3. You may enter only once.
PRIZES:
1. Two Kindle versions of Finding Time.
One thing we’re doing differently this time is that Steve Poling will be picking his favourite answer, but we will also be using Random.org to randomly pick a winner. So even if your answer is not Steve’s favourite, you have a chance at being chosen randomly based on the order of your comment because I will be using the random number generator. Now here are the two questions:
1. If you had a time machine, what would you rescue?
2. If you could talk with just one historical figure (without all the nasty time travel related consequences) who would it be and why?
Today is November 20 and I will be closing the giveaway on November 27 November 30 (Update at 11:55am 21/11/12). I will be announcing winners at 12:01am on December 1. Make sure you have a valid email address attached to your account because I will be giving them to Steve Poling. If he does not receive a reply from the winner(s) within seven days, the prizes will be going to someone else.
My Interview with Steve Poling
1. Where did the idea for Finding Time come from? Have you always been interested in science fiction?
I was a kid watching TV when they were launching rockets for the Gemini and Apollo projects. That was so cool I started reading any book I could find that had a rocket on the cover. I devoured everything in the school and small-town libraries I had access to. It didn’t hurt that I was good at science and math.
I read Brenda Clough’s story /May Be Some Time/–that she expanded it into a novel here. (You should read it.) Her premise is that polar explorer Titus Oates of the doomed Scott Expedition to the South Pole is rescued by time travelers. He is brought to the near future and adventure ensues.
I loved her story so much that it captured my imagination when I latched onto a historical tidbit: The Nazis set up clandestine radio broadcasting stations in Greenland to spoof the radio navigation systems of aircraft being ferried across the Atlantic. This resulted in at least one lost squadron. I told her about this, but she didn’t want to write the story.
So I did. “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” turned out pretty good. I liked the time travelers, Sid & Nell–and how they bickered. This got me thinking about the knowledge lost when the Library of Alexandria was destroyed, so I wrote “Book of Life and Book of Glory. ” After that I was hooked. Anything I found in history that I wanted to rescue had me writing a Sid & Nell story. I loved creating the love-hate relationship between them. Continue reading
Finding Time by Steve Poling
(Cover picture courtesy of The Independent Author Network Blog.)
Rescue the past to build the future. In 2280 EarthGov is desperate when aliens destroy their first colony. They’ll even comb through the wreckage of the aliens’ UFO that crashed in 1947—where one man claims he’s found a time machine. Now the race is on to scour history for the treasures and talents EarthGov needs.
Sid Feynman just wants a government grant. His hopes for a quiet academic life are dashed when EarthGov thrusts the beautiful historian Nell Playfair upon him and expects Sid to actually use the time machine.
Soon Sid and Nell are rocketing across light-years of interstellar space and millennia of history—seeking that which is lost and finding time.
[Full disclosure: Steve Poling gave me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
Well, that certainly wasn’t what I expected.
That’s a compliment, by the way. Finding Time is a book with many different viewpoints, but Steve Poling handled each of them so well that it was never confusing. The first chapter seems completely unrelated to the rest of the book until later, but when the reason behind the event was revealed it made perfect sense. That’s what made Finding Time so interesting for me: the different narrative threads intertwining perfectly, especially toward the end. I live when things are tied together in a way that makes sense and that is especially important in a time travel story.
I won’t even begin to pretend I understand half of the science behind time travel in this book. Science was never my strong point, but hard science fiction fans will love this book for it. I would have liked the explanations to be “dumbed-down”, but I am not the audience Steve Poling was writing for. Each to their own, really. I’m sure most people will have a better appreciation for his attention to detail than I do.
However, I did appreciate the characters. Nell and Sid were the two main characters and they definitely stood out. Their bickering is priceless, but you can tell that they become good friends by the end. No, they don’t fall in love with each other. Gasp! A male and female lead that don’t fall in love! Call the press! As Steve Poling put it in his initial email to me: “there’s no cussin’, smokin’, or gettin’ nekkid.”
See? It is possible to write a good novel without any of those things! YA writers take note.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
*Only available through Amazon in Kindle format.