Reader: Daughter of Time, Book 1

Erec Stebbins

May 2013 · Daughter of Time Book 1 · Twice Pi Press

About this ebook

 From the future, a final plea. Out of the past, a last hope.

A young girl, born to die in freakish disregard. A doomed world, enslaved to forces unseen. A final hope beyond imagining. Become a Reader, because in the end, the most unbelievable step in the adventure - will be your own.  

Book 1 of the Daughter of Time trilogy, a 2016 Foreword Book of the Year Award finalist.

"Unique and altogether profound, reminiscent of Bradbury, haunting, thought-provoking and surprisingly philosophical" -San Francisco Book Reviews

"A gripping science-fiction epic that will propel readers toward wonder" -ForeWord Reviews

"An original take on various sci-fi motifs that meditates on themes of love and humanity. Stebbins does an exceptional job. A richly detailed, compelling story about the power of love." -Kirkus Reviews

Ratings and reviews

I loved the way quotes from famous scientists writers thinkers r quoted. It is difficult to put the book down without completely reading it. Thank you for a wonderful read.

this is a must read if you like some intelligence in your sci-fi, it's like nothing I've ever read and is definitely worth your time.

Enjoyable, but can also be difficult to follow. Retrospective. With strange alien monsters. Not sure about the enjoyable but then, well strung together.

About the author

From the Author

READER is the first book of the DAUGHTER OF TIME Trilogy.

When I began this series (then only conceived as a single novel), I wanted to write a "superheroine" book for my (then) middle school-aged daughters--the story of a "girl that saves the universe". Inspired by the starlight over the Aegean, I began to write the novel one summer visiting Greece. By the time I had made much progress on the manuscript (which took a back seat to my first thriller), my daughters were in high school and the tone and maturity of the novel wasn't right for them (as their initial devastating critiques revealed!). I then rewrote it from scratch for older readers. So it has some remainder of the YA flavor of the initial drafts, especially in the beginning, but it quickly turns darker. Books 2 and 3 have left the initial universe of that gestation far behind.

With these books, I was also interested in exploring certain themes and ideas from a variety of science fiction authors and modern cosmology, trying to find my own "mythology" to harmonize some of the disparate conceptions of reality. Ideas of the subjectivity and limitations of human perception and understanding played important roles, as did ideas of causality, time, superstructure, divinity, and infinity.

Finally, I always wanted to write a book that not only "broke the fourth wall", but obliterated it, mocked it, transformed it, and turned it into a house of mirrors for the reader. There has been a decidedly mixed reaction as to how well that worked in READER, but it was a lot of fun in the making.

About the Author
Erec Stebbins is a biomedical researcher who writes novels in a variety of genres, focusing on thrillers and science fiction. His work has consistently been praised for its action and thrills alongside a deeper, often philosophical angle. 

His novels have been called "unique" and "pulse-pounding" (THE RAGNARÖK CONSPIRACY), "altogether profound, reminiscent of Bradbury and Dan Simmons' Hyperion" (DAUGHTER OF TIME TRILOGY), and "startlingly dark" (EXTRAORDINARY RETRIBUTION) with five star ratings in Foreword Reviews, San Francisco Book Reviews, Portland Book Review, and others.