A Brief Teaser

I'm writing a book of my own actually. A trilogy, with a little luck. Here's some background before I post the first chapter.

The world is much like our own, liberally altered. The laws of reality change over vast spans of time as starts align into intricate geometric patterns. The current reality in the year 2000 is much like our science and technology. Theirs is more 'primitive' however.

Their technology focuses on steam power and clockwork. It is quite advanced, but digital technology is non-existent as is the combustion engine. There do exist enormous analog computers. These are slow, but potent enough as to be almost sentient.

Magic also exists. It is extremely hard to master and dangerous as all hell. It is also a very well kept secret.
The story follows Eliza Fyrwen. She is a young woman, 22. She is a witch attending Harvard 'After Dark,' which Harvard become on certain nights. She will soon graduate with honors in witchcraft, majoring in Golemetry. She works for a strange un-aging man in a building no one else can see. Her 'guardian' and partner is a ghost.

The starts are aligning, and something is awakening...

Time travel, angst, and more.

Replay, by Ken Grimwood

By the time I was sixty pages into this book, the protaganist had died three time. I was hooked.

Jeff died of a heart-attack and woke in college 25 years earlier. He came to terms quickly, and gambled and invested his way to enourmous wealth.

He died again on the same day at the same time, although in this life he was perfectly healthy. He came back again, a few days after his first replay.

His second time around, he tried to achieve personal fulfillment. He was unable to win his wife over this time, and so settled for a society woman. He had a daughter, he'd never had children before.

When death-day came, he admitted himself to a hospital. He suffered a fatal, inexplicable heart attack anyway. He cam back, wounded to his soul that his daughter was simply erased.

I won't spoil anything else, as I recommend this read. The characters feel quite real. The author deals with them with a mix of compassion and cynisism that makes them all but breath.

The Last Watch by Sergei Lukyenko (spelling more or less optional)

A Russian author writes a four book series on super-natural hijinks in Moscow. It is, to my mind, an instant sucess.

The stories follow Anton. He is at first a low-ranking member of the super-natural poloce, on the side of Light.

All 'Others', as opposed to humans, fall into Light or Dark. The difference is deliberately ambiguous. Bad guys are honest, good guys tend to scheme.

The stories are mysteries, with genuine twists, some forseeable, most not.

I won't spoil this one, it is worth the read.