Brenda W. Clough is the first female Asian-American SF writer, first appearing in print in 1984 with the publication of THE CRYSTAL CROWN from DAW Books. Her novella 'May Be Some Time' was a finalist for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and became the novel REVISE THE WORLD. Her latest time travel trilogy is EDGE TO CENTER, available at Book View Café. The Adventures of Marian Halcombe, a series of eleven neo-Victorian thrillers appeared in 2021. Her complete bibliography is up on her web page, brendaclough.net

Revise the World by Brenda W. Clough

On March 16, 1912, British polar explorer Titus Oates commits suicide by walking out of his tent into an Antarctic blizzard, to save Robert Falcon Scott and the other members of the English exploration team. His body is never found – because he was snatched away into the year 2045 by scientists experimenting with a new faster-than-light drive.

It's a present from the Forties, an alien civilization that enables the human race to leap to the stars – but is there a catch? A man of his era, Titus knows that there's something wrong. But he can't communicate it until he learns to think like a man of the 21st century. But everyone's happy to help him learn, including Dr. Shell Gedeon, an explorer who's going to ride that first faster-than-light ship to the stars. And suddenly Titus discovers what's really dangerous about the modern age.

 

REVIEWS

  • "Revise the World [is] a novel which presents the reader with not one, but two stories of first contact, along with elements of time travel and some political intrigue… Clough has created realistic characters and her decision to use an Edwardian in the twenty-first century as a viewpoint character gives the novel a unique flavor."

    – Reader review

  • "Despite the updated cultural background and the focus more on romance than adventure, Revise the World continually reminded me of a Golden-Age-SciFi space opera, in the vein of Doc Smith and his contemporaries. It has the same great sense of fun, and the same lack of attention to the mundane details of characterization and plotting."

    – Reader review

  • "Titus Oates comes to life in this book, right down to his accent. From what I've read about his real life personality, his character in the book is absolutely believable. Following his story from near-death to recovery to romantic involvement to lunacy to sheer focus was riveting. I just couldn't put this book down."

    – Reader review
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Titus brushed aside his clutching hand and stormed up to the pitch, which consisted of a folding table, the usual stack of leaflets, and a white cloth banner that proclaimed in blue letters, "Time Travel Will DOOM Us All!"

His first indignant impulse was simple: to thrash the villains. He was forced to rapidly revise the strategy when he found the table manned by an older woman and what appeared to be her grandson, a pear-shaped lad of perhaps twenty. Instead he slammed both open hands on the tabletop and fixed the woman with a masterful eye. "Well? Here I am. What do you propose to do about it?"

"Excuse me?" Rattled, the woman peered up at him from under the brim of her billed cap. Grey-haired and plump as a partridge, she had almost no shoulders, so that the line from ear to elbow was a smooth curve. She made a wildly unlikely murderer.

The youth goggled at him. "Ma, it's him!"

"My name is Lawrence Oates," Titus announced in ringing upper-class tones. "I don't give a rush, your wishing I was dead. But I do strongly object to sneakish and cowardly attacks! Here I am. If you think I'm superfluous, now's your moment. Do something about it in an honest way, here and now! Lash, do you have a weapon that you could lend to this lady? A knife or a pistol or some such."

"Of course not!" Lash almost gibbered with horror. "Titus, I don't think that these people can be connected with that water fountain business."

"Only at the philosophical level," the woman said weakly. "Mr. Oates—"

"Captain," Titus corrected her. Out of sight below the edge of the table he trod warningly on Lash's toe. Surely Lash could see there was no danger? Descending like Jove with a thunderbolt, he had the upper hand on these meek little prats. And damned if he wasn't going to stampede them into an apology and a promise of better behaviour!