Ticking: Ticking 4: Southumb Pride (Paperback)

This is the fourth novel in the "Ticking" time travel series. While this adventure can be read as a standalone piece, the author recommends that the reader first read "Ticking: The Hawking Sequence" which provides the background for this story. Following that logic, you may want to read the other two as well to get you ticking along at the right speed.<br>Skypilot Sewell and Zachary Burling are chrononauts; that is, time travellers. They became chrononauts because Sky's aunt and renowned theoretical physicist, Beatrice Westover, needed some adventurous persons to travel through space and time.<br>You see, Beatrice invented time travel.<br>As far as we know, that is. She is the inventor, or founder if you prefer, as time travel has always been possible, through a proven effect called "time dilation".<br>It appears, though, that others have mastered the process. These others do not necessarily live in our dimension. The chrononauts made a discovery of their own, accidently travelling into another dimension in their second adventure. They had planned to travel to ancient Galilee to find Jesus Christ but found themselves instead in a bizarre place called Southumbria.<br>This story is based there. It is a place like no other on Earth. Mostly because it is not on Earth; at least not the planet as we know it. With flying machines, gadgets, and a few gizmos, all in what some might refer to as a "steampunk" world.<br>A steampunk world has a very visual quality. It resembles our world in the late 1800's, with a whirring steampunk vibe. This vibe includes the ticking of clocks, the clicking of gears, the sheen of burnished metal, the softness of velvet, and steamy goggles everywhere.<br>Many of these devices were steam powered; like the ornithopter, a bird-like contraption that seemed to defy conventional physics. Indeed, Southumbria may not be subject to the laws of physics that we are accustomed to.<br>Southumbrian time, on the contrary, seems to tick right along in the conventional way, into the future.<br>Unless you are a chrononaut.