Hard Time Omnibus by Erec Stebbins

A harsh and punishing world. Synths, Trunes, and the remnants of humanity battle each other and an unforgiving landscape. Survival is the meaning of life.

The Complete Hard Time Series: A speculative fiction serial of adventure novellas. This omnibus contains all six books that complete the saga: Metal, Longhorn, Cult, Trune, Synth, and Deity.

Book 1, METAL: a woman finds herself in two different worlds, as two different people. In one she is a criminal, sentenced to a new and terrible punishment. In the other, she is a stranger and then a prophet, granted the visions of God.

Book 2, LONGHORN: a man awakes in a terrifying landscape without shelter, explanation, or memory. Join him as he searches for answers and struggles to survive. Find out if life and knowledge of his past are truly worth the price.

Book 3, CULT: missionaries arrive on a holy quest to fulfill their scriptures. But the desert has other plans. Will they escape with their faith, or even their lives, intact?

Book 4, TRUNE: a long awaited arrival bursts into the world, slaughtering all that stand in her way. As characters from previous novels reappear and unify, will they survive to understand their greater destiny?

Book 5, SYNTH: an ancient guardian faces a foe that could destroy them all. Can the last remnants of humanity escape the terrible wrath pursuing them from the past?

Book 6, DEITY: an entity guides a motley crew of creatures toward a new beginning in a planet's last gasp at life.

Format: print

Narrator: n/a
Performance: n/a
Story: 🌑🌑🌑🌑🌓

Would you choose instant death or exile to the end of the world?

So begins this epic sci-fi omnibus by Erec Stebbins. Hard Time is a collection of 6 interrelated novellas about survival. 

In the far, far future, the planet is now covered with sand and the sun is a red giant. It's easy to lose your bearings in the scorching desert amidst deadly alien squids and disembodied voices. The world building came slowly. The POVs shifted per novella and with that came pieces of the puzzles that ultimately coalesced into the bigger picture. This style left me a bit confused but it's also very effective in my piquing interest and kept me turning the pages. 

The book opened with a transcript of a criminal trial. A soldier was charged with mass murder and she was given a choice between execution or a jump to the unknown. Later it was revealed that most of those who were sent to this harsh, brutal period were criminals but there were some who volunteered to go with the intention of helping those who were trying to survive. 

In high pressure situations where humans are involved, the ugly side of human nature tend to come into the fore. And there's nothing as stressful as the end of the world so I expected a scenario similar to how the characters in Walking Dead can still afford to bring in their drama and betrayals in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Thankfully, we were spared that bullshit. There might have been some of those in the background but the people here have more sense. I liked how the novel focused on humans and non-humans working together to survive. 

There were many non-human creatures that existed, both as allies and as threats. Synths are highly advance robots who are sympathetic to humans and are probably the only reason why they survive. When it comes to threats, it didn't hold back on the horrors. Killer cyborgs and genetically modified monstrosities left countless chopped up body parts and blood on their wake. But the worst threat of all was the the planet itself and a dying sun hot enough to melt eyeballs. There were billions of dead creatures whose bones form a road leading somewhere beyond the horizon. And millions more will add to the pile because they just keep coming.

There is a very interesting backstory of humans and the artificial intelligence that evolved to create life of their own, of the war that broke out between creators and creations, the different Synth factions intent on either destroying or saving humans and how they all started jumping billions of years into the future. There is a mysterious entity, a voice claiming to be god, that spoke to The Woman, a prophet of sorts, who gathered a chosen few at its behest. I like to think of them as specimens for a grand experiment conducted at a cosmic level.

This is a very absorbing novel. I am glad I received the omnibus rather than separate novellas because reading them separately would leave you hanging and itching for the next installment.

I sat on this review for a long time. I was hoping I could write intelligent and thoughtful opinions on religion, survival, artificial life, genetic modification and other thought-provoking themes covered by the book. But then, I realized that review will never write itself, I was never one for literary criticism. Instead, I encourage you to read this novel and form your own opinions. And have a great time while you're at it.

P.S.

Thank you to author, Erec Stebbins, for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

SOUNDTRACK

Eyes Wide Open
Gotye

Making Mirrors

With our eyes wide open we... (x2)

So this is the end of the story
Everything we had, everything we did
Is buried in dust
And this dust is all that's left of us
And only a few ever worried

While the signs were clear
They had no idea
You just get used to living in fear
Or give up
When you can't even picture your future

We walk the plank with our eyes wide open

We walk the plank with our eyes wide open we
(walk the plank with our eyes wide open we)
Yeah we walk the plank with our eyes wide open we
(walk the plank with our eyes wide open we)

Some people offered up answers
We made out like we heard
They were only words
They didn't add up
To a change in the way we were living
And the saddest thing
Is all of it could have been avoided

But it was like to stop consuming's to stop being human
And why'd I make a change if you won't?
We're all in the same boat
Staying afloat for the moment

We walk the plank with our eyes wide open
(walk the plank with our eyes wide open we)
And we walk the plank with our eyes wide open we
(walk the plank with our eyes wide open we)

With our eyes wide open we
We walk the plank, we walk the plank

So that is the end of the story