Jeremiah Willstone and the Clockwork Time Machine
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We live in a world in which many people believe that women’s liberation is a solved problem, yet a young woman recently won a Nobel Peace Prize after she was shot in the face for advocating the radical proposition that she should be allowed to go to school. Thanks to my beta readers – Keiko, Gayle, Betsy, Liza, David, and several others – for helping me thread the difficult needle of communicating the point of view of Jeremiah’s world without disrespecting the people of our own.
Thanks also goes to the steampunk community, particularly the Clockwork Alchemy conference, its amazing Authors Alley, and the Treehouse Writers Group, who gave me the chance to explore Jeremiah’s backstory in a series of stories set during her days in Liberation Academy. Thank you all for your support, your assistance – and your patience while Clockwork has been in the works. If you’re reading this, you hold in your hands what I’ve been promising to you all these years.
Thanks again to the city of Atlanta, for letting me blow it up in an alternate universe, and to abuse it in this universe. Special thanks to locations like Willy’s and Fellini’s, the Marriott and the CDC. Also thanks to the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Hangar One, and the IBM Almaden Research Center (not named in the story, because I replaced it with a hospital). Sorry for the invasion of time travelers, but I hope they grow on you.
Special thanks go to Debra Dixon, my editor. I think we worked harder on this one than any book to date, and I’m very proud of what we accomplished. Thank you for working so hard to beat some sense into my thick head.
Thanks go out to my wife Sandi, for believing in me and Jeremiah.
Finally, I want to thank you, my readers, for reading what I write. I hope you enjoy the continuing adventures of Jeremiah Willstone, no matter what universe she’s in.
—the Centaur, October 10, 2016
P.S. Thanks again to the Big G -thanks for staying by my side!
(Please continue reading for more information about the author)
About Anthony Francis
By day, Anthony Francis programs search engines and emotional robots; by night, he writes science fiction and draws comic books. He’s best known for his Skindancer urban fantasy series, starting with the 2011 EPIC eBook award winning Frost Moon and its sequels Blood Rock and Liquid Fire, all set in Atlanta and starring magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost.
Jeremiah Willstone first appeared in the short story “Steampunk Fairy Chick” in the UnCONventional anthology. Tales of her youthful adventures at
Liberation Academy appear in the stories “The Hour of the Wolf” and “The Time of Ghosts” in the Twelve Hours Later anthology and “The Fall of the Falcon” and “The Rise of the Dragonfly” in the Thirty Days Later anthology. More tales of her universe include “A Choir of Demons” in Aurora Wolf magazine, “The Doorway to Extra Time” in the anthology of the (almost) same name, and the “Jeremiah Willstone and the Sorting of the Secret Post” chapbook.
Anthony was co-editor of the anthology Doorways to Extra Time and is a co-founder of Thinking Ink Press. He’s co-author, with Nathan Vargas, of the 24 Hour Comic Day Survival Guide, and has participated in 24HCD successfully five times—and National Novel Writing Month successfully over 15 times.
When not creating alternate worlds, Anthony’s research in artificial intelligence explores memory and emotion, work documented on the Google Research blog as “Maybe Your Computer Just Needs a Hug.” He’s also written about AI and Star Trek in an article in Star Trek Psychology. Anthony lives in San Jose with his wife and cats, but his heart will always belong in Atlanta.
To follow Dakota Frost, visit
facebook.com/dakotafrost or dakotafrost.com;
To follow Jeremiah Willstone, visit
facebook.com/jeremiahwillstone or jeremiahwillstone.com;
To follow Anthony visit his blog
dresan.com,
And to find Anthony’s fiction, inquire wherever fine books are sold.