Dictator of Time

Larry Wilson is late for his train. A split-second decision to chase a departing express catapults him and a stranger named Sandra Day across twenty-five thousand years of human history. They wake in the year 25,983, where civilization has grown strange and fragile, ruled by a brilliant, diminutive intellect called Harg-Ofortu who sees the time-tossed newcomers as curiosities to be dissected for their knowledge of the ancient past. What begins as disorientation curdles into danger: Harg-Ofortu's society is precarious, its ruler desperate to harvest whatever scientific secrets the visitors might carry from an age they barely understand themselves. Bond writes with the propulsive confidence of pulp's golden age, trading in big ideas and bigger stakes. The novel asks what remains of humanity when the future becomes so alien that the past becomes a foreign country. For readers who love their science fiction with forward momentum and a hint of existential dread.