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My
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(Especially if you're into bells)
Teller of Time
Find it at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore HERE
and at the Barnes and Nobles Nook Book Store HERE
The Teller of Time brings together twelve short stories, nine of which have appeared in well-established print books and magazines. The other three see first publication in this anthology. But unlike the case with the earlier appearances, here I've provided a paragraph or two of introduction to each story.
The stories in this roughly eighty-four thousand word collection range in length from two to fifteen thousand words.
Several of the stories are among my very favorite and one of them, the final story, is just weird.
The title story, The Teller of Time, is largely concerned with the 'science' (or exercise, as it is called) of Change Ringing. It may be only the second story in the Ringing literature--the first being the Dorothy Sayers novel, The Nine Tailors.
'Teller' is a word for a tolling bell—usually the lowest pitched bell in a ring (note: a 'pack' of dogs, a 'sheaf' of papers, a 'ring' of bells).
The bells in a ringing tower, are mounted so they can swing a full 360 degrees and are each worked with a rope—one person per bell. The towers usually have from three to twelve bells. Change Ringing involves ringing all combinations of the bells. The highest pitched bell is called the Treble, and the lowest, the Tenor.
Suppose, the tower has three bells which we'll call bell 1, 2, and 3
(by convention, the highest pitched bell is 1.
One could, for example, ring the bells in the following order:
123
213
231
321
312
132
So for three bells, there are only six possible rows (a row is also called
a change). The sequence of rows is a 'method'. There are multiple methods
for ringing the bells through all their possible permutations (ringing
their 'extent'). There is a constraint though: Bells are heavy. By pulling
the ropes harder or by 'checking' the ropes, a bell can be made to ring
one (and only one) position off from its previous ringing position (e.g.
the two rows 123 and 321 can't be played sequentially since bell 3 would
have to move two positions).
For three bells, ringing the full extent (six changes) would take about fifteen seconds. For seven bells, there are 5040 changes and that would take about three hours. Nine bells would take a solid week. Ringing the extent of twelve bells (479,001,600 changes) would take about 36 years.
The success of my two tier pricing policy ($4 or Free) for my anthology 'SF++ Science Fiction Stories for Linux Geeeks' has led me to employ it here as well. While I would be delighted were you to buy the book from Amazon or Barnes & Nobles, you may also get it at no cost by simply requesting a copy.
Email for your free copy: Kindle (MOBI) or Nook (EPUB). I'll e-mail the book to you within a few days. In the unlikely event that I'm flooded with requests, it might take a little longer.
Table of Contents
Preface
Teller of Time (6000 words)
The Universe beneath our Feet (6500 words)
Walkabout Station (15000 wordsk)
Descent (7000 words)
Double Helix, Downward Gyre (8000 words)
A Zoo in the Jungle (5500 wordsk)
The Engulfed Cathedral (5000 words)
Greenwich Nasty Time (8000 words)
Lifespeed (5000 words)
Running with the Herd (9000 words)
The Art of Creation (6000 words)
Rondo in Cut Time (2000 words)
