Ranna Kikken creates The Committee to End Suffering on Planet Earth at her nonprofit Cat Farm, but its first conference in 2028 is destroyed when intruder Joe Commer time travels from 2036 to lecture CTESOPE on the destruction of the Earth in 2033 and the resulting evacuation of the remnants of humanity to Mars.
Ranna Kikken creates The Committee to End Suffering on Planet Earth, but its first conference in 2028 is ruined when ex-astronaut Joe Commer time travels from 2036 to lecture Ranna’s nonprofit ladies on the coming breakdown of the solar system. Tormented by his role in dropping the superbomb that ended the Final War but rendered Earth uninhabitable, Joe has quit the Space Force, much to the disgust of his older brother Jack, Supreme Commander of the USSF. In the audience, feckless young Urside Charmouth is horrified by the revelations from the future, fearing that he’s ruined the timeline with his own drug-like time travel experimentation.
2028 Urside drags his unsuspecting girlfriend Mandy on an irresponsible time travel romp to 2033 to find sobering proof of the coming destruction of Earth and the resulting evacuation of the remnants of humanity to Mars. Mandy then pulls herself and Urside to humanity’s new life on 2036 Mars, where she not only realizes that Mars is her true home, but also that she’s a reincarnation of an ancient Martian empress. Urside foolishly tries to escape with a final Time Transition which takes him far into the future. There he meets Polot, a refugee Alpha Centaurian, who outlines the damage Centaurian weaponized time travel has inflicted on Sol.
Excerpt
“Oh my God!” Mandy cried.
“Don’t worry! He doesn’t know we’re here! We’re not in his zone!”
“It’s--oh my God! Oh my God!”
Urside stood up dizzily. “For God’s sake, Mandy, don’t panic! He can’t see us!”
“HELLO HELLO HELLO WARE AMM I?” croaked from the--
“Oh my God!” Urside screamed.
“HELLO FRENNLEE HUUMANNS! WARE AMM I? HOWW DIDD I GETT HEERE? WHAZZ GOING ONNN?”
Urside fell back on the carpet. “God, Mandy! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! We must’ve opened up some interdimensional hole! Oh my God!”
A creature five feet high, like a giant fish. Huge unlidded eyes. A pink fin protruding from a golden robe.
“Oh my God!” Mandy gasped, backing towards a bookcase.
“We have to get out of here!”
“No, wait! We need our clothes!”
“Just grab them! He doesn’t know we’re here!”
The being scampered into the room. It was sickening to watch its little feet slap on the wooden floor and then scuff into the loose carpet. Then it stood right on their pile of clothes. “HELLO, HELLO, HOWW DID I GETT HERE? WHOO ARE YOOO GUYZZ?”
“He does know we’re here!” Mandy screamed. “His voice is in my mind!”
“DOO NOTT PANIKKK, MY FRENNS! DOO YOOO NOTT KNOWW TOO REED PROPPURRLEE THE THOTS OF A MARRSHUN?”
“No! God, no!” Urside met those unlidded eyes and his mind burst into hyperventilating madness.
“THE GRAVITTEE HEERE ISS SOOO HIGHH. THISS CANNOTT BEE FURST HOMME, I THINKK.”
“I’m crazy! Crazy!”
“No, Urside, wait!” Mandy cried. “I don’t know how, but I’m aligning with his thoughts! They’re making sense! They come together if you just relax!”
“God, Mandy, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!”
You are Urside? came the voice in his mind. Then, uncannily, something did relax and the voice in Urside’s brain now exuded nothing but calmness as the creature continued to speak: “You are Urside, and she is Mandy? And we must be on Planet Marble because of the gravity? And yet the air is not polluted nor are we dying of radiation poisoning? So by definition we are in the Alaskan Earth Terraforming Project Zone? And you have never seen a Martian before? Have I got that all correct?”
“Planet--planet--” Urside gasped. “You--”
“Yes, Planet Marble is Earth!” Mandy said. “Yes, that’s right, we’re on Earth! And you’re Dar, Emperor of the Martians! How the hell can I know that?”
“I have radiated that, friend Mandy. You have never seen a Martian, nor ever received the outradiance? How is that possible? Unless--”
“God, are you from the future?” Urside cried. “Because that Joe guy talked about Martians!”
“Time travel is not possible! I do not accept this Professor Glasgow’s theories!”
“We’re from 2028!” Mandy shouted.
“This nonsense you humans call Heuristic Time Transition--”
“It’s true! I’ve done it eighty times!” Urside said. “Believe us! We’re from 2028!” He had no idea how he could be standing here naked, shouting at this fish creature, and still be in some possession of his sanity. He had to admit there was something damned comforting coming out of this little thing. Could it really be a Martian? Urside strained to recall this concept of “Martians” showing up now and then in some of his post-2030 HTT trips.
“We are in 2028? Do you believe that? On Planet Marble?” Dar said. “We are not in Alaska on--what is your time reference--January 26, 2036?”
“No! At least I don’t think this is Alaska!” Urside said. “And what is it, Mandy? 2033?”
“Yes. We found this news feed. It has the date,” Mandy said. “Here, on the desk. Look for yourself.”
The pink creature skittered over to the desk. Urside saw that its robe was really thousands of tiny colored golden discs wired together. Somehow he was certain those discs were solid gold.
“Hmm,” Dar said, pulling the tablet to his face. “This device could of course be providing nonsense. It proves nothing.”
“Oh, my …” Mandy blurted.
“What?” Urside said, then felt his mind relax even further. He was flooded with perceptions, images, and history he could hardly make sense of. Human cities on Mars, some great Evacuation off this ruined planet. A war with Martians. Another war in Alpha Centauri. And he knew his naked girlfriend was also relaxing, taking in the same outradiance from this being. “No, this is all a dream,” he gasped. “Just one possibility.”
“Have I really time-traveled?” Dar mused. “Amazing if it is true! For I am instantly transitioned to high gravity. I was on First Home, now I’m apparently on Planet Marble, or else in some clever gravity chamber built to deceive me, yet I have been transported here instantly, the air is rich with your human nutrients, and there are two humans who apparently have never heard of a Martian before.”
“It’s true!” Mandy said. “We’re all time travelers! Urside and I came here from 2028! You came here from--did you say 2036?”
“Yes. The year is 2036 in your reckoning. You know, there is a call in the Amplified Thought Program to a theoretical quantum time disruption.”
Urside almost threw up at the wave of calculus and programming logic pouring through his mind. “God! Stop! We get the picture!”
“This is really quite marvelous. It would solve some incredible problems in AT if we could just consider time as--”
Urside backed away. “Please, not again!”
“Then again, I must remain skeptical. I certainly can’t accept that I’ve time-traveled on the basis of some theoretical computer code and the testimony of two young humans.”
Mandy sighed and pointed out the window. “Maybe taking a look at the moon would help.”
Professional Reviews
An Excellent Addition to the Series
Book Three in the Jack Commer Series, Nonprofit Chronowar, opens with an intriguing mystery involving Joe Commer, the passionate younger brother of Jack, Supreme Commander of the United System Space Force. Tormented by women and unable to cope with having rendered Earth uninhabitable in order to end the Final War, Joe somehow spontaneously time travels to Earth from 2036 to 2020, a date preceding the War. In so doing, he crashes a convention for a committee designed to soothe the suffering on Earth escalated by the early stages of the solar system's destruction. Having quit the Space Force in misery and disillusionment, Joe commences to compromise the timeline by ranting about the terrors to come. Here several characters are unwittingly drawn into a bigger picture.
The characters in this story are full of realistic flaws, bearing all the insecurities, fears, addictions and neuroses the human race is prone to, especially under stress. The author uses a creative manifestation of time travel, the origins of which no one in the story understands, to weave together past and future events into a unified whole in which the main characters become aware of who they are and what they're capable of. They are expanded by contact with the future; and healed by contact with the past.
To keep things lively, in the background looms the threat of war from the Alpha Centaurians, a cruel, bloodthirsty race bent on destroying humankind with advanced technologies that affect time-space and infiltrate consciousness. Their influence is introduced in subtle ways. Religious cults, Martians, Martians reincarnated into humans, beautiful women, madmen, lovers and a mysterious telepathic cat--it is not obvious who is friend or foe, delusional, misplaced in time or put there to wreak havoc. As the story unfolds, a fascinating, unnerving explanation is revealed for the seeming instability of time-space, bringing the characters together amid the chaos of impending doom to fight for a new dawn on Earth.
F. T. McKinstry, author of The Chronicles of Ealiron series
It's about Time...and about Space...
By Toni V. Sweeney, February 8, 2015
5 Stars
One minute it's the year 2036 and Joe Commer is about to consummate his lust for Huey Vespertine's wife Jackie...the next, he finds himself at the podium of the 2020 CTESOPE...The Committee to End Suffering on Earth. What follows is a comedy of errors as well as numerous tragedies as Joe realizes he isn't in love with Jackie but with her sister Ranna, who is head of CTESOPE and also will die in the mass evacuation of Earth shortly before Joe and Jack drop the Xon bomb on the planet.
In no time at all, thanks to Heuristic Time Transtion, which everyone knows exists but all deny, Joe, Ranna's lovestruck assistant Urside, his girlfriend Mandy, and various other participants are hopping all over the Space-Time Continuum, trying to find themselves, and each other, and make certain everyone who should survives the destruction awaiting the Earth in three years...
Meanwhile, back in 2036, what about this Celestion business?
...and what does Ranna's cat Churchill have to do with any of it?
Again, this is another Jack Commer novel which is difficult to synopsize. We learn Joe has resigned from the USSF. He's now partners with Huey Vespertine in a GaiaNet radio show. The Alpha Centauri-Earth peace is holding...or is it?
The rest of the gang, from Martian Emperor Dar to Jack himself and all characters in between, as well as some newcomers, are all in attendance, First and foremost, however, it's Joe's story and he runs with it...sometimes slightly amuck.
Don't take my ramblings at face value. Read this entry in the series for yourself. It's by far the best because it re-examines some of the things happening in the previous two and gives a little more explanation.
I'm not a fan of time travel stories because they're usually so futile, but this one definitely has a ray of something that could be sunlight at the end of its tunnel. It ends as abruptly as the previous novel but indications are it'll pick up immediately in the next, which I'm looking forward to reading.
I hope the title, Collapse and Delusion, is a misnomer.
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