Tentacles of Time

ISBN-13: 9781499170788 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 288 str.

Harvey Robert Tate

Opis

A sizzling bolt of lightning and a jellyfish send a ninth century boy on a multi-lifetime course. Nature's power and the genetic material of the immortal jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii, rearrange young Branac of Hvar's DNA. Sixty years later, Branac approaches death and fades into nothingness, to his surprise his body reforms, but to his regret, he returns as a teenage boy. Thirteen times, a new life begins with only bits and pieces of his memory surviving. To prosper, he must re-learn his story. In his present life in 2060, he adjusts to the new century with the help of Elodie, his human-like robot, and a new name, Smithwick Fowler. As always, his emerging hormones drive him. He seeks companionship but is reluctant to form a lasting bond. Living forever has made him wary of the heartbreak that accompanies love. No man should see his children die, but he has viewed the death of generations of his offspring, as well as many lovers, and twelve wives. The pain of loss has hardened his heart. Wick Fowler prepares for another century of life. With the knowledge that nothing goes as planned, he marshals his resources. With twelve hundred years of education in his DNA, he focuses on science in the Twenty-first century. Comfortably wealthy and driven to build on his previous lives, he hopes to enjoy his next life by contributing to humanity. A seemingly chance encounter with a fellow scientist, Isabel Aragon, ignites a passion he has rarely felt. Isabel is the twenty-six times great-granddaughter of an unrequited love he met in 1110. Their meeting foreshadows a conflict between an immortal man, and another man seeking immortality. The story of Wick and Isabel becomes an epic tale of betrayal, revenge, and a struggle to survive. Wick, relies on his past to defend his future. The future he faces is a momentous one. A friendship with a political activist entangles Wick in a plot bent on revamping the United States government. Tentacles of Time employs history and futuristic predictions by following a journey through Viking times, Medieval Europe, the Crusades, the Jamestown settlement, the Revolutionary War, and the future. The never-ending man has been an assassin, a monk, a man who abandons his family, and an honorable father. In the thousand-year trip to the future, he survives the plague, fights alongside George Washington, meets Abe Lincoln, and helps murder a Saint. He is a patriot, a womanizer, and a beacon of hope. Wick Fowler's amazing life spreads through time, not unlike the drifting tentacles of the Turritopsis dohrnii, which provided bits of its DNA to create the immortal man.