Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

For "Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait" specialist, Aloysius "Spider" Webb, time travel has lost its luster.

Working as a senior time machine repair technician, Spider has seen it all - past, present and future. Wanting more out of life, Spider hates time travel and everything that goes with it_after all, time travel cost him his job as a top investigating police officer.

Fixing time machines is a waste of Spider's talent. But he's resigned to do it until he discovers, inside a broken second-hand time machine, the corpse of a woman; brutally murdered, wrapped in plastic and duct tape. Before Spider can act on his old police instincts, the shadowy Department of Time and Space steps in and seizes the machine, the remains, and all of the evidence, and closes the investigation.

Spider wants answers, but his questions only lead to more questions; unsettling evidence, brewing trouble, and the knowledge that Spider, himself, might be involved in an epic battle at the End of Time. Who can Spider trust? And what will they tell him: the truth or what he wants to hear?

For "Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait" specialist, Aloysius "Spider" Webb, time travel has lost its luster.

Working as a senior time machine repair technician, Spider has seen it all - past, present and future. Wanting more out of life, Spider hates time travel and everything that goes with it_after all, time travel cost him his job as a top investigating police officer.

Fixing time machines is a waste of Spider's talent. But he's resigned to do it until he discovers, inside a broken second-hand time machine, the corpse of a woman; brutally murdered, wrapped in plastic and duct tape. Before Spider can act on his old police instincts, the shadowy Department of Time and Space steps in and seizes the machine, the remains, and all of the evidence, and closes the investigation.

Spider wants answers, but his questions only lead to more questions; unsettling evidence, brewing trouble, and the knowledge that Spider, himself, might be involved in an epic battle at the End of Time. Who can Spider trust? And what will they tell him: the truth or what he wants to hear?

School Library Journal

Adult/High School

Al "Spider" Webb is a time machine repairman who happens to detest time machines. On a routine call, he encounters a machine that seems about ready to blow. In order to repair it, he must work with Australian officials to create a small, alternate universe-to protect the rest of the world from the explosion, of course. The job becomes far from normal, though, when it becomes apparent that the explosive device is hiding both another machine and a dead body. The corpse sets off a series of events that sends Spider across alternate realities and puts everyone he cares about at risk. Teens who enjoyed Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Macmillan, 1979) but are craving something more sci-fi, with fewer goofy antics, will appreciate Time Machines. -Sarah Krygier, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CA

"I take my writing very seriously indeed, which is a relatively recent development. I see myself as a journeyman apprentice sort of writer, more craftsman than artist, and I expect to continue learning my craft for the rest of my life. Writing continues to be a struggle for me, in more ways than one, and I see that as a good thing. I have instructed my wife that if I ever pronounce that I have mastered writing, she is to hit me hard with a squid. I now live in fear of the squid." ~ K. A. Bedford