The Brain from Beyond: A Spacetime Opera

A novella. Cover art by Pete Von Sholly.

When (comparatively speaking) time machines run out of power in the wrong bit of spacetime, the intrepid, laid-back crew of the Time Machine Salvage Ship have a job to do — helped by their on-board A.I., Homer, who homes in. However, this time things go awry for Xiaolong and Ngela and Zbeth and Yatta. Soon (comparatively speaking) they are involved with aliens who were stored in stasis under the Antarctic icecap — which melted when an asteroid hit the south polar regions a glancing blow in our own near future, as everyone knows.

Did something aim the asteroid? What and whence the Tall Ones, which have heads like those of hammerhead sharks? Might the far future bring into being a Boltzmann Brain? — yes, one of those! Why are there so many chickens in the year 2776? Why, in the silence of space, does the Time Machine Salvage Ship have a ship's bell? And does Homer have a private agenda?

There’s also some ado about the nature of Nothing. And a Creation Geologist woman from Kristian Homeland USA. Plus, golden humanoid robots are operating a circus.

Partly set in Antarctica — as well as in Australia’s capital, Cranberry; also in the tunnels of dwarf planet Ceres where giant spiders dwell, and in a totally empty universe, and a few other places — The Brain from Beyond resolves its enigmas in sprightly vein.