Out of Time: A sci-fi adventure series across time and space!

Some of you ask: "Are you ever gonna do science fiction again, Brin?" Well, in fact, my 90% completed book on Artificial Intelligence (AI), while intense and deeply informative on that vital topic, certainly treads along boundaries of the fantastic! (And sometimes crosses over.) 

And yes, I've also been trying to shake some tactical sense into the good side of America's current culture war.

But sure, I'm also putting out sci fi!

My two biggest SF projects have been a pair of series for Young Adult (YA) novels that are stirring, innovative and great diversions for you grownups, too! They also enable me to do a little pay-it-forward, by nurturing bright new authors in the Out of time series... 

...and the entirely separate High Horizon series of novels that I'm writing myself with top young collaborators.

So, let's start with...

== Only teens from across history can save the future and win humanity the stars! ==

The Out of Time series appeals to the most basic wish fantasy. – shared by teens and adults alike – to be taken seriously. To have a shot at doing something epic and great… or at least something having real importance. 

So what's different about this series of science fiction adventures, across both space and time?  What lifts it above the normal fare that’s being offered today in YA fiction?

Nowadays, sci-fi for young adults and teens will typically feature some post-apocalypse premise, or tyrannical dystopia, replete with cartoonishly illogical villains for the heroine or hero to fight, accompanied by a requisite suite of doughty pals. It’s a lazy trope that almost writes itself… and one  that has likely contributed to a whole generation’s deep pessimism about the future.

The Out of Time series pulls a switcheroo on this dismal pattern. The 24^th Century is great! In fact, things were highly optimistic for humanity… until our descendants suddenly face a set of big challenges. 

Abruptly they need help! And so, via a very narrow kind of time travel, a youth from our own era gets pulled-forward and recruited to help save that bright tomorrow. 

Which leads to the inevitable question: “Why me?”

“Because history shows you will later on be one of the heroes who make things so much better,” comes the answer. “Only we can’t ask that adult version of you for help. It has to be a younger version. It has to be you!”

               == THE PREMISE ==

All our best efforts in the difficult 21^st century bore fruit, and in the 24^th century, people live amid the very opposite of a dystopia. Only now their near-utopia is in desperate peril.

 Suddenly, they need heroes with grit and determination, who can teach them how to face trouble and prevail. So, they reach back through time in order to fetch such heroes...

... but only teenagers can survive the journey from our present to the future! 

And likewise, only teens can voyage to the stars. 

Hence, the heroes they bring forward must be from eras teeming with troubled hope — from today and from even deeper in the past.  Youths who are "yanked" to an uncertain tomorrow, where only their courage and savvy innovation can save the day.

While there’s always a teen character (or two) from our early 21^st Century, you also get to meet young team members from the 24^th… along with (in various novels)…

…an Icelandic Viking girl…

…a cabin boy on Sir Francis Drake's ship…

…an escaped Brazilian slave…

…a severely autistic girl from 2035…

…an Olympic athlete from the time of Alexander the Great…

…a London street urchin who knows Will Shakespeare…

…a Javanese pearl diver destined to confront Krakatoa…

...Joan of Arc's page...

...The someday-future president of South Korea...

…a Choctaw field hockey player who understands worms…

…and other brave kids from across time, some of them remembered and some of them simply lights that shone briefly across the darkness that eventually led to…

…hope.

The Out of Time series had an earlier incarnation with novels by sci fi legends Nancy Kress, Sheila Finch and others – each author bringing a unique voice and perspective to this imaginative series that captivates readers of all ages. See the brief premises of each of them here.

Those first five have recently been re-published in e-versions by Open Road and in print by Amazing Selects. 

And now Amazing Selects is proud to champion five exciting new adventures in the Out of Time series, bringing these exceptional stories to a wider audience. 

The new series debuted with Boondoggle, penned by Tom Easton and Torion Oey.  And then Raising the Roof, by Richard Doyle. Or start at David Brin’s main page for the series.

== And now… the latest! ==

Amazing Stories Announces the Release of Snowdance: A Thrilling New Adventure in David Brin’s Out of Time Universe.

What happens when teenagers from three different centuries are yanked into the far future and sent to a frozen alien world where survival depends on more than strength—it also relies on compassion? Readers are about to find out in Snow Dance, the newest entry in David Brin’s acclaimed Out of Time series.

Snowdance was written by Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Allen Steele and acclaimed author Robin Orm Hansen. (With some input - of course - from David Brin.)

When 15-year-old Lee Jarrett from 1978, Patience Whately, a farm girl from 1676 Rhode Island, and Sondre Auverson, a snow-savvy 19th-century Norwegian, are recruited by Operation Hourglass, they expect adventure. What they find on the alien planet New Horizon is far more dangerous—and wondrous—than they could ever imagine. With a colony under siege and mysterious beings emerging from the snow, these time-yanked teens must learn to trust one another, bridge centuries of difference, and discover whether humanity’s future lies in conflict… or in connection.

See the 1 minute video trailer!  

 An exciting tale of time and space travel that calls for courage, grit, insight and ultimately… love. 

ADDENDA: 

While Boondoggle and other new Out of Time novels will appear via Amazing Stories, the five older, original novels in the same series -- by Nancy Kress, Sheila Finch, Roger Allen and others -- are coming out via Open Road Press. (With print only versions available from Amazon Selects.)

A veritable feast of great science fiction adventures across space and time for teen readers! Or those who fondly recall the morale boost (don’t we all need one?) that we got from those Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein tales of adventure and optimism! 

And also for teen readers - a third publisher… HISTRIA PRESS… is publishing David Brin’s other YA series. Written by him in collaboration with fine new talents!

The High Horizon series: aliens kidnap a California high school – and come to regret it!   The first installment won the Hal Clement Award for best SF novel for teen readers! Here's one happy reader's review. And his followup review of book #2 of the series. 

A feast awaits...

Science fiction - Reaching for the future

As the World Science Fiction Convention is about to stage and rage in Chicago, let's pause to glance at the genre of wonder, the literature that deals with the one 'eternal verity'... change.

First ... a look at how far science fiction has come in achieving respect at its high end. From The New Yorker: “Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality?" Kim Stanley Robinson’s novels envision the dire problems of the future—but also their solutions,” as in his latest release - The Ministry for the Future.

Harlan Ellison distilled the essential question. "Our duty is to make a world that's even just barely good enough that our kids do better. And theirs and theirs. Till super generations come who look back at us as monsters. Monsters who somehow rose above both their natures and their times....

“…even if barely enough."  Or as Roman Kznaric put it, more succinctly in his non-fiction book: The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking, our duty and task is... to be Good Ancestors.

Those of you reading my Out of Time series, about teens from varied eras yanked into a future utopia-in-peril, in order to save it with their ‘grit,’ know I borrowed the term from that movie, of course. But so did these neuroscience researchers: "Uncovering links between grit and cognitive function". Unless one of them is a fan who borrowed it from me!  

== Good Quick Reads ==

A series of quick-read hard-SF novellas by Laurence E. Dahners is worth a look. Lively  fun is the "Stasis" series where a young physicist makes a way to freeze time. Book 1: A Pause in Space Time. 

Sarina Dahlan's novel RESET offers a pretty unique take on how we might flush away the grudges that so often poison our lives.

Speaking of time... The “Out of Time” (or “Yanked!”) series: Only teens can teleport through time and space! Dollops of fun, adventure & optimism for young adults. Five Out of Time novels offer free first chapters… and five more are in the pipeline!

== YouTubes and Lists beyond the beyond ==

Tune in! Isaac Arthur has among the best sci-future podcasts - Science & Futurism - that explores in amazing detail the implications and ramifications of every permutation of the ‘alien’ you can think of… while poking as zones where we can’t! 

This episode cogently discusses what might happen if we head out there into the galaxy and find one or more less technologically advanced alien races. 

Are we behooved to act according to a Trekkian Prime Directive not to interfere? Can that even be enforced on all individuals who might disagree?  All of his riffs are detailed, logical and interesting… though this one features my books at 27 minutes in, offering big discounts for purchasing audio versions from Audible!

Just in case you never knew about this side of me... “Eight outstanding David Brin books sci-fi fans need to read,” from The Portalist.

From Mental Floss: “Twelve novels that won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards,” with a mention of Startide Rising..

And from The Washington Post: Let's talk about the beasts of Sci Fi and Horror: a look at fictional animals, from Clifford Simak's City to Stephen King's Cujo.

== SF & Hollywood ==

Caltech physicist Spiros Michalakis and Hollywood writer/producer Ed Solomon (co-creator of Bill & Ted) speak with Caltech science writer (and sci-fi fan) Whitney Clavin in this video about how they collaborate to make science shine in film.  

My original Salon article denouncing Star Wars was not my most hate mail-producing piece! It did lead later to a book: Star Wars on Trial. I was the 'prosecutor' and one of Lucas's novelizers the defense attorney. We called witnesses, cross-examined... huge fun! 

My later, upgraded case is one of the chapters in my recently released collection of essays on SF movies - Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.

And this article preceded the later proof that Yoda is (by sheer death count) decisively the most-evil character in the history of all human stories and mythologies, combined. So there.

See the trailer for the Tom Swift spin-off.  And Neil Gaiman discusses the trailer for The Sandman series, based on his Sandman graphic novels. The series has been released on Netflix.

== Dark visions ==

As the Ukrainian literary magazine Chytomo recently covered in a disturbing article, “Since 2009, Russia has been actively publishing books on war between Russia and Ukraine in the fantasy genre, as well as historical and nonfiction literature about the collapse of the Ukraine project and mocking the independence of the non-existent Ukrainian people and artificial Ukrainian language.”

This article discusses a rather scary sub-genre of sci-fi, based upon an earlier wave of “Spetznaz fantasies” featuring Russian super soldiers shooting down especially Americans like mown grass. To be clear, our own nutter right has relished similar masturbatory fiction-fetishes, all the way from the marginally mainstream Red Dawn to the outright treasonous/fascist Turner Diaries.  And it is a common trope in war-inciting propaganda going back all the way to the Iliad and Roman epics vilifying Carthage. Today, as we speak, there is a major genre of “wolf warrior” tales and movies promoted by a certain Rising Power in the east.

But we are now witnessing the kind of calamity that can happen in the real world, when such agitprop seizes the imaginations of resentful (often incel) males.

== And more... ==

Do you miss old-fashioned, “classic” sci fi? Startling Stories is aiming for a revival of the pulp magazine (of the same name) which ran from 1939 to 1955. The title kinda says it all!

With Forkpoints, Nebula Award winner Sheila Finch (Reading the Bones) delivers an impressive, career-spanning collection!  Stories like the wistful “The Old Man and C,” which imagines a world where Albert Einstein followed his talent for violin instead of physics. Fans of Finch’s Xenolinguist stories will enjoy encountering the author at her lyrical best in “Sequoia Dreams,” about alien visitors who have a profound ecological message to convey, and “Czerny at Midnight,” in which a marine biologist’s autistic son communicates with an octopus through music. 

In her new anthology, The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer, Janelle Monáe presents a collection (inspired by her album Dirty Computer) of vivid dystopian stories of the near future, of humanity and society adapting to changing technology.

Finally... Chicon, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention will be held from September 1 to 5 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, with Author Guests of Honor (and our dear friends) Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due. (Have fun!) And see their new graphic novel collaboration, The Keeper.

Awards will be announced for this year's Hugo Awards for best in SF&F (nominations listed here).

Are we Out of Time? Science Fiction at so many crossroads - in the sky and in the future.

First some Real Sci-Tech News that’s also totally sci fi and brings aviation full circle.

 The Wright Brothers’ original designs achieved controlled aerodynamics by warping the wings, the way a bird does, but Glenn Curtis showed that having separate flaps and ailerons just worked much better for heavy, human-carrying craft… that is, till now! 

“Instead of requiring separate movable surfaces such as ailerons to control the roll and pitch of the plane, as conventional wings do, NASA’s new assembly system makes it possible to deform the whole wing, or parts of it, by incorporating a mix of stiff and flexible components in its structure. …The result is a wing that is much lighter, and thus much more energy efficient, than those with conventional designs, whether made from metal or composites, the researchers say. Because the structure, comprising thousands of tiny triangles of matchstick-like struts, is composed mostly of empty space, it forms a mechanical “metamaterial” that combines the structural stiffness of a rubber-like polymer and the extreme lightness and low density of an aerogel.” 

Now add to that my longstanding prediction that 2023 will be the "year of the flying car"? (At least limited air-limo service for the rich and hobby kits for use in rural zones.)

What a way to being our monthly Science Fiction breakdown?

== Latest Brin News ==

Out of Time! The future needs heroes! Announcing two vivid new titles in the Out of Time series for YA readers: If the future asked for help would you go? 

A 24th century utopia has no war, disease, or crime... but no heroes with the grit to solve problems that are suddenly swarming over them! So they reach back in time for heroes... but only the young can survive the journey! 

Hot off the press: The Archimedes Gambit, by Patrick Freivald: youths time travel to stop a rogue AI on a killing spree.  Followed by another vivid tale of survival against all odds: Storm's Eye by October K. Santerelli, just released. And/or start with other great titles in this series written earlier by award winners like Nancy Kress and Sheila Finch.

Want another stocking stuffer for that adventure-minded teen? It’s on! 1000 teens never volunteered for this, when their high school got snatched and dropped onto an alien world - in Colony High - only now they’re busy exploring, discovering, fighting parasites, uncovering mysteries and - despite arguments and angst - doing better than their alien-kidnappers expected… or wanted. Find out how in the new episode: Castaways of New Mojave! (co-written with Jeff Carlson). Now in paper or on Kindle. 

And for more 'grownup" fare... for those with a more literary bent… the Best of David Brin - a collection of short stories I’d sure call “my best” - is now available both on Kindle and in a fine collectable hardcover. 

And giving equal time to the meatiest stuff... get my Uplift Storm Trilogy on Amazon or Nook. Find out what happens to the Five Galaxies and a bunch of refugee dolphins! (Oh, and the six refugee races of Jijo!) 

== Are you a POD person? ==

One of the better "Brinterviews" is this one on Mythaxis, challenging me but generally highlighting ways that I urge folks to be optimistic rebels.

For your weekend listening pleasure or edification. Singularity Radio - from Singularity University - offers my interview on The Value of History, Criticism and Science Fiction...themes I explore more deeply in Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.

And another themed podcast interview… What you can do to ensure a better future … David Brin on Conversations with Tom.

Oh, more listening pleasure? A nice series online offers <10min readings by three sci fi authors, each week. This time, following two very talented (!) young authors, I presented a just-written opening scene for an even newer novel in my Out of Time series for teens. After listening, come back to comments and tell us if you guessed who the "pommie war correspondent" guest star is! The video and audio interviews are available on Space Cowboy Books.

== At the borderland tween sci and sci fi ==

I love it when someone offers a fresh perspective. We’ve long pondered comparisons of the oncoming wave of robots with how we treated each other, across the centuries. But in The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots, MIT Media Lab researcher and technology policy expert Kate Darling argues for treating robots more like the way we treat animals. 

Okay, your first reflex is to cringe, thinking of meat eating and sport hunters and cruel masters. But ponder your own ways and the likely relationships of neolithic hunters to their dogs, farmers to their precious horses and those who rush to beaches in order to help stranded whales their ancestors would have eaten...

...and the simple fact that you do tend to love and complement the animals in your life.

The argument: we are already equipped with tools of otherness-empathy, should we actually choose to use them. “Robots are likely to supplement—rather than replace—our own skills and relationships. So if we consider our history of incorporating animals into our work, transportation, military, and even families, we actually have a solid basis for how to contend with this future.” 

And yes, spectrum folks may be key to this, as was the case when Temple Grandin showed us our complacently unnecessary insults to meat animals. I portray exactly this extension to AIs… in Existence.

And more SF ...

I am impressed with the new novel by Shawn Butler. Vivid and fast-paced, Run Lab Rat Run explores the coming era of human augmentation at every level, from scientific to ethical, asking ‘What if every possibility comes true? Might we split into dozens of species?’ This is the real deal in speculative fiction.

Jackson Allen's MESH is 'Truly Devious' meets 'Ready Player One.' Only one thing stands between Roman’s supervillain principal, his killer robots, and plans for world domination – a plucky band of retrotech rebels brought together by the MESH.

With Kindle Vella, U.S. based authors can publish serialized stories,  written specifically to be released in a serial format, one 600–5,000 word episode at a time. Readers can explore Kindle Vella stories by genre.

David Brin's Annual Summer News Update! So many books & projects.

David Brin’s annual-summer update. This year lots of books & future stuff…
 
FIRST a big re-issue of eight classics with great new covers, new author introductions, and newly re-edited material... starting with The Postman and The Practice Effect. 

Plus I've recently re-released newly edited versions all of my Uplift novels, starting with  Sundiver, followed by Hugo winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War, as well as the Uplift Storm Trilogy, starting with Brightness Reef, and on to Infinity's Shore and Heaven's Reach.  All with corrections and new introductions and better timelines... and great covers!

Best of Brin Short Stories: Subterranean Press is releasing a new collection, “The Best of David Brin," an anthology of my very best short stories as well as some new ones - as well as a play I've written! Now a gorgeous collectable hardcover (beautiful cover art by Patrick Farley). Here, you'll find tales from creepy to inspiring to thought-provoking -- and fun. Certainly some of my best writing. Sample stories free on my website!  

(Also available... especially if you are on a budget... my earlier collections Insistence of Vision and The River of Time.)

== New YA series ==

And now, shifting gears... I'm releasing two great Science Fiction series for teens and young adult readers looking for something different... and yes, for those of you with a youthful yen for adventure!

Colony High: Aliens grab a California high school and relocate it on an alien planet -- and then come to regret it! In the spirit of Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky. Winner of the Hal Clement Award for teen readers! Now expanded with two new sequels, soon to be released from Ring of Fire Press, starting with Castaways of New Mojave co-written with Jeff Carlson (cover art by Patrick Farley), and another upcoming sequel co-written with Steve Ruskin. Sample chapters of this series on my website!  (And there's a full, 3-season TV treatment.)

 

The Out of Time series. If the future asked for help, would you go? A 24th Century utopia has no war, disease, injustice or crime... and no heroes! They reach back in time for some.. but only the young are able to go. Maybe you?

Adventure novels by Nebula winners Nancy Kress, Sheila Finch etc. plus great newly added novels for that teen, pre-teen or young-soul -- starting with The Archimedes Gambit by Patrick Freivald -- soon to be released. Next up: Storm's Eye by October K. Santerelli. Stay tuned for updates.

And for a pandemic era. Sci fi that’s too pertinent? My Hugo-nominated short story, “The Giving Plague” explores our complex relations with viruses. Free access on my website or download this story free on Kindle. Also included in my collection, Otherness.

== Provocative nonfiction... and comedy! ==

Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood. 
Explore our love of far-out cinema, and how sci fi flicks may have saved us all. Wish your favorite directors would notice their repeated clichés? Pass 'em a copy! 

Here I offer chapters on 2001, The Matrix, Dune, LOTR, Ayn Rand, King Kong, zombies...and of course, Star Wars and Star Trek. 

Polemical Judo: Memes for Our Political Knife-Fight  Here you'll find political insights you’ve not seen before. 100+ practical tactics off the hoary left-right axis, to defend our Great Experiment - and forge a better future. Sample chapters available on my website.

And how about trying some comedy... in these trying times?

Feed your under-nourished guffaw-neurons! Comedy is hard! Some say that The Ancient Ones: A Space Comedy - lifted spirits in a particularly challenging year. 

Others say “Brin’s nuts!” 

Try sample chapters and decide. 

"Life... death.. and the living dead... will never be the same."


== A screenplay, a stage play and more ==

I've written a screenplay based on my novella "The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss." It offers vivid action and unusual visuals deep.... under the oceans of Venus. (The novella is also included in my Best of Brin collection!) And yes, show the script to directors! Know any? ;-)

And a stage play!

A smart-aleck argues with the devil. Yeah that old trope, redone from a distinctly modernist perspective. My play, "The Escape: A Confrontation in Four Acts" is wry, pointed… and a bit intellectual. Perfect for your table-reading or local theater group. (Contact me if interested!)

On the side....take a look at Speeches and consulting: See over 300 NGOs, companies, activist groups and agencies I’ve consulted or given keynotes about a future that slams into us with wave after wave of onrushing change.

== And a novel from another Brin! ==

The Melody of Memory. Cheryl’s first novel - a moving tale of growing up while overcoming tragedy on a colony world that seems cursed, doomed to forget... and repeat the mistakes of the past. 

Terrific opening line! 

Sample the first chapters or see the compelling video preview of her wonderful novel.

== Cool watchables! ==

Brin on Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)  
Will humanity diversify?  
The plague of getting ‘mad as hell.’  
Shall we lift the Earth? 
The fabulous-fun trailer for Existence!
Others range from SETI to ESP to colonizing the galaxy.

And I read (for you) the prologue opening of EARTH. It seems to have been written for today.

== And maybe most important... ==

Sci-fi-nerds save us all? 

Picture any weird event. Starships fulla inky squids. Trees walk. Cyber-newborns talk! Panels advise governments.* Might 80 years of thoughtful SF tales prove useful? 

Volunteer programmers** are building TASAT - There’s a Story About That - to rapidly appraise what-if scenarios and maybe someday save us all. Subscribe. Join the Group Mind! 

*I'm on some.       ** Volunteers... like you?

Podcasts, blogs, interviews, YouTubes & social media.

Hot topics. Astrophysics, transparency/privacy, SETI, UFOs, innovations in spaceflight, history... And yeah, cool science fiction.

Want more? News and views at the always-provocative Contrary Brin.

Or see me on Twitter / Facebook

The David Brin site offers free stories, samples, favorite books, videos, nonfiction, ideas and more. As well as advice for new writers!

Finally: what a Sci-Fi-Twilight-Zonish year! But an ambitious, worthy future is possible! 

Do your part. Make it so.