Friday, September 27, 2013

Pippa Jay - Time Traveling in Circles

Time Traveling in Circles
by Pippa Jay


Once upon a time I believed in fairies and elves. Stone circles were a place of magic and power that could transport you to another dimension. I devoured books by fantasy authors like Stephen Lawhead where his characters travelled to magical kingdoms, or TV series like Children of the Stones and Moonstallion. I dreamt of doing the same.

Then one Christmas a film changed everything. I saw Star Wars: A New Hope. No magic, but the Jedi had amazing telekinetic and telepathic powers, and lightsabres instead of swords. I was hooked!

But the circle power thing - the idea that you could cross time and space through one - stayed with me. So when I began my debut novel Keir, I knew how my characters were going to travel round, using an odd blend of psychic powers and a technological gateway...in the shape of a circle. My heroine Quin can open a pathway through time and space with a wave of her hand from that circle, using the vast psionic power source that lies beneath it. She hops around the universe using these temporal gateways a bit like Doctor Who in his TARDIS, or the Stargate teams. But her control is somewhat erratic. Arriving at an exact point in time and space requires focus - a very definite vision of when and where she needs to be. Sometimes it may not take her to where she intended, but sometimes it takes her to where and when it really matters. In this excerpt, she’s taking Keir back through a gateway, and showing him some of the complexities involved in their creation.

Excerpt from Keir:

Quin stretched out a hand to the wall and opened her fist, palm outward. The vast psychic force she was using to create and open the gateway echoed through him. He felt a surge as though caught in a sudden tempest as she twisted the dimensions in order to forge a pathway through time and space. The hand gesture seemed so simple, yet it was only a pale symbolism of the powers she manipulated. Energy poured through her from an unknown source and, for a moment, he thought he glimpsed a spark of bright-blue flame in her eyes, before dismissing it as illusion.

She turned to smile at him, aware of his presence in her thoughts. “Do you feel that?”

He nodded, sharing the trace of euphoria. Her smile broadened and she opened her mind further, letting him feel the gateway through her, like gentle flames on his skin. He shivered as the sense of pressure built. Strands of fire shot across the surface of the wall in front of them and the gateway unlocked, easing the lines of tension that had bound him.

***
In Gethyon, my young hero starts off with the same problem of focus. He uses his abilities - powers he didn't even know he had - only when scared or angry. At one point in the story it takes him twenty years back in the past on another world where he meets a girl...only to be returned to his own time with the bitter knowledge she’d now be in her forties and possibly married. Unlike Quin, he doesn’t need the circle of power to travel, being half human and half something else – a human possessed by a powerful psychic. But it still requires the focus. And he soon learns the danger of flitting through time and space when a bounty hunter called Jinx with the same abilities is on his tail!

To find out more, you can check out both my books at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and most online retailers.

Excerpt from Gethyon:

Abandoned by his mother after his father’s death, Gethyon Rees feels at odds with his world and longs to travel the stars. But discovering he has the power to do so leaves him scarred for life. Worse, it alerts the Siah-dhu—a dark entity that seeks his kind for their special abilities—to his existence, and sets a bounty hunter on his trail.

When those same alien powers lead Gethyon to commit a terrible act, they also aid his escape. Marooned on the sea-world of Ulto Marinos, Gethyon and his twin sister must work off their debt to the Seagrafter captain who rescued them while Gethyon puzzles over their transportation. How has he done this? And what more is he capable of?

Before he can learn any answers, the Wardens arrive to arrest him for his crime. Can his powers save him now? And where will he end up next?

Available from:

Keir - a scifi romance novel.
All digital formats and the print format are available from:

A 2012 Readers Favorite Award Finalist, a 2013 Aspen Gold (RWA) finalist, and 2012 SFR Galaxy Award Winner.
Outcast. Cursed. Dying. Is Keir beyond redemption?


For Keirlan de Corizi--the legendary ‘Blue Demon’ of Adalucien--death seems the only escape from a world where his discolored skin marks him as an oddity and condemns him to life as a pariah. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise: Tarquin Secker, a young woman who can travel the stars with a wave of her hand.
But Quin has secrets of her own. She’s spent eternity searching through space and time with a strange band of companions at her back. Defying her friends’ counsel, Quin risks her apparent immortality to save Keir. She offers him sanctuary and a new life on her home world, Lyagnius. 
When Keir mistakenly unleashes his dormant alien powers and earns instant exile from Quin’s home world, will she risk everything to stand by him again?

About Pippa Jay:

A stay-at-home mum of three who spent twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay bases her stories on a lifetime addiction to science-fiction books and films. Somewhere along the line a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. In between torturing her plethora of characters, she spends the odd free moments trying to learn guitar, indulging in freestyle street dance and drinking high-caffeine coffee. Although happily settled in historical Colchester in the UK with her husband of 20 years, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

Pippa Jay is a dedicated member of the SFR Brigade, a community of science fiction romance authors and publishing professionals committed to writing and promoting the very best in the genre.




5 comments:

  1. Thanks for having me, Marva!

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  2. Thanks for the interesting article, Pippa. With your SF books, I was delighted you talked about melding the SF with ancient ideas like fairy circles.

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    1. Thanks, Marva. I love to mix a bit of fantasy with my scifi.

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  3. Pippa, your Keir and Gethyon sound like a fabulous adventure. I especially like the idea of Quin arriving where she's needed rather than where she planned to go. Best wishes to you and your writing!

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