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3.5 

Time's Agent

By Brenda Peynado
Time's Agent by Brenda Peynado digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

"All at once a meditation on motherhood, grief, war, environmental collapse, dread, and the nature of memory and time. I ate it up."—Lauren Groff, New York Times bestselling author

A multiverse story of love, loss, time travel, and final-stage capitalism from award-winning author Brenda Peynado.


Pocket World—a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down by time.

Following humanity’s discovery of pocket worlds, teams of academics embarked on groundbreaking exploratory missions, eager to study this new technology and harness the potential of a seemingly limitless horizon.

“What would you do, given another universe, a do-over?”

Archeologist Raquel and her wife, Marlena, once dreamed the pocket worlds held the key to solving the universe’s mysteries. But forty years later, pocket worlds are now controlled by corporations squeezing every penny out of all colonizable space and time, Raquel herself is in disgrace, and Marlena lives in her own pocket universe (that Raquel wears around her neck) and refuses to speak to her.

Standing in the ruins of her dream and her failed ideals, Raquel seizes one last chance to redeem herself and confront what it means to save something—or someone—from time.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

27 Reviews

3.5
Thinking Face“📚 129/100 (2024 Reading Goal) 📖 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚'𝙨 𝘼𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙩 ✍️ 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮 𝗣𝗲𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗱𝗼 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱: Sci-fi, speculative fiction, LGBTQIA+ representation, time dilation, dystopian, Dominican mythology, lost civilizations, merpeople 𝗙𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗼𝘁𝗲(𝘀): “Grief can make a single breath feel like a thousand years, but when you want to stay in the moment forever, time is a hound that hunts you down.” “No matter how many worlds we use and eat and expand into, there is never enough after the ruin.” “Blink, and anything could be unseen. Blink, and time’s entropy consumed any order you made or understood about the world.” “How without time, everything is beautiful, every gasping breath disconnected from its consequence.” 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: This amazing sci-fi novella really connected with me. It explores important themes like time, humanity, and love in a way that feels deeply meaningful and pulls readers into a future society that seems surprisingly familiar. Set in the Dominican Republic, a place full of the area’s beautiful language and rich history, the story becomes even more engaging. Raquel, an archeologist and agent for the Institute for the Scientific and Humanistic Study of Portal Worlds, goes on a mission to uncover the secrets of her lost Taino civilization and culture. Her wife, Marlena, a biologist, wants to find new life forms and treatments for the diseases affecting Standard Earth. Raquel’s journey is a mix of love, loss, and the search for truth, stirring a strong emotional response. Sadly, an unexpected event changes her life, making her lose 40 years on Earth Standard Time, even though for her it’s only been a few minutes of Relative Time. As Raquel deals with her situation, Marlena finds comfort in a small pocket world, which Raquel wears on a chain around her neck. Raquel’s decisions after the tragedy only make her more unhappy and frustrated with the world. She longs for her wife, the world she lost, and the answers she’s always wanted. An unexpected find of a rare pocket world suddenly gives Raquel hope that it will finally fix what’s broken and, maybe, be the truth she’s always dreamed of discovering. Peynado’s writing style really resonated with me, making 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚' 𝘼𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙩 feel deeply relevant to the global challenges we face today. It encourages thinking about oneself and the significant impact that even small changes or contributions can have. The novella skillfully combines chaos and beauty, sparking both my imagination and fostering reflection.”

About Brenda Peynado

Brenda Peynado's genre-bending short story collection, The Rock Eaters—featuring alien arrivals, angels falling from rooftops, virtual reality, and sorrows manifesting as tumorous stones—was named one of NPR, the New York Public Library, and Electric Literature's best books of the year. Her stories have won an O. Henry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award, and inclusion in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.

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