Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway - The Clockmaker's Tale: and other stories by Ian Williams

Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for The Clockmaker's Tale...and other stories by Ian Williams. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as an interesting guest post from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $50 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to visit the other stops on the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: The Clockmaker's Tale: and other stories

Author: Ian Williams

Publication Date: June 20th 2021

Print Length: 145 pages

Genre: Science Fiction

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In The Clockmaker’s Tale: and other stories, Ian Williams takes us to the near future and beyond. From a moon base where androids conduct experiments on human test subjects, to futuristic tours of the ocean depths that hide a terrible secret; from a society governed by harsh rule of law that is enforced by AI, to a humble clockmaker tempted by the promise of increased productivity through technological augmentation.

Covering issues such as environmental decay, the end of facts and proven truths, our growing waste problem, and humanity’s tendency to divide when we should come together, this collection of six science fiction stories relates as much to our time as it does to the many possible futures.

Goodreads * Amazon

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EXCERPT:

We lost the Earth today. Well, not physically lost it. It’s still there. In fact, I’m looking at it right now, as I write this report. No, I just mean that we’ve lost contact with it. Earth ‘went dark’ (as Test Subject #47 put it), never to see the light again. What light? You may ask. The light of a stable civilisation is the best answer I can currently offer you.

As I sit here staring at that blue marble in space, I swear I can hear the last of the bombs dropping, smell the stench of decay stretching across every continent, feel the last vibrations of warring nations. You may think I’m being overly dramatic, and you’d be mostly correct. The past ten years have been hard to bear, watching as the people who created me descended further into chaos. They gave me life, now I fight to save theirs.

Even though all communications have ceased, I will continue my work in silence. But don’t fear, dear future reader, I am not alone out here. There is another here just like me. We share this moon-based facility equally as we do our work. His name is Arthur (originally designated R4).

“Today sees you fully functional, Rachel?” Arthur greeted me with this morning. He’s trying something new today, something a little more personal than my model number; I was originally designated R8CH-L.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ian Williams is a Science Fiction writer from the UK. He lives in a small town not far from London. Ian had a short career in the UK Court Service but was forced to quit that job when his medical condition worsened. Now, from the comfort of his wheelchair, he writes the stories he has always wanted to read. His writing spans lightyears of space, to near-future Earths; from small changes to society, to entirely new civilisations.

Website * Amazon * Facebook *

Goodreads * Twitter * YouTube

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AUTHOR'S YOUTUBE VIDEO:

Watch below or click here.

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GUEST POST:

- Do you think we are headed for a bleak future or a more promising future? Why?

The short answer is both. There are many ways in which, if not dealt with in time, problems we currently face as a society could lead to our demise. If we cannot put the brakes on the current warming of our planet then the future will be bleak indeed. Why so pessimistic? Because despite our efforts thus far we are still on track for a potential 3.1°C warming of the planet. That is higher than experts want and will lead to yet unpredicted effects. Global Warming is our greatest ever test, and so far, we have achieved a C-.

But equally, humanity has achieved incredible things in the past (once we’d put our minds to it). The moon landings, for one, demonstrated our capacity for brilliance. With much less technology than we have today, these intrepid explorers set forth into space and landed human feet on another world. That is no small feat, as we have found recently. We’re only now aiming for more trips to the moon thanks to private enterprise. In this respect, our future is very promising.

If we can put humans on the moon, surely, we can reverse Global Warming? Absolutely. If we can work together as one mind, with one goal. That is not to say that we aren’t trying already. There are efforts to create an entire hydrogen power industry to replace fossil fuel usage. We could halt the planet’s warming overnight with such innovations. It can be done, but only if every nation makes the switch to renewable energy before it is too late.

And there lies a major difficulty. To tackle Climate Change successfully we need a global consensus. All disputes must be overcome, even temporarily, while we deal with this crisis. I’m not so sure this can be achieved. Hell, I’m not so sure we could get everyone on this planet to agree there is even a problem.

This leads me to another concern. Technology is not just a great mover of societies, it is also an unstoppable force, and for every new piece of gadgetry that appears before us, there are ways in which it can unbalance the status quo. Did we foresee the upheaval social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter could have on a country’s elections? I certainly didn’t. And yet here we are, with an ongoing power struggle between tech companies and governments. If the fight lasts too long, none of us wins in the end.

One of the most insidious of problems with social media sights is fake/false news. The truth has become a moveable thing, something we can change if we don’t agree. With the emergence of social media came anonymous outliers. These voices exist away from reality, in their bubble of misinformation and lies. How do you contain conspiracy theories when so many people find themselves drawn towards them? Much cleverer people than me will have to solve that conundrum. But ask yourself this: If the truth is no longer the truth, then what is?

Take the past year for example. You would expect during a pandemic everyone would be perfectly willing to vaccinate against COVID-19. But the anonymous outliers have spread their falsehoods far and wide, using their platforms to turn others away from the solution. To these individuals, Bill Gates is always lurking somewhere in the background, like some Silicon Valley Bogeyman, eager to take away their rights and freedoms.

Again, however, there is a brighter side, a silver lining if you will. For every anti-vaxxer, there are many more willing to do what is needed to get us through this pandemic. And for every Climate Change denier or moon landing hoaxer, there is a wave of others that see the problem of the former and appreciate the immense achievement that is the latter.

In some distant future, I see humanity looking back on our time with a mixture of emotions. Books will be written that describe how we faired against Climate Change (because we will survive it, regardless of the cost). These will tell the story through graphs and tables, but will they tell of the cost to each person that suffered through it? Will they explain how much we could have done but didn’t? Will they call us the polluters or the saviours?

Only we can change what is to be written about us, by doing our best to protect this fragile world. And if we won’t or can’t do that, then our future will be bleak. That is the overarching theme of the Clockmaker’s Tale: and other stories. Our future could be a dark one if we continue to ignore our problems, or worse, convince ourselves that they never existed in the first place. They are a warning to deal with, today, what you cannot put off until tomorrow.

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GIVEAWAY:

Ian Williams will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway