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Description:
Timestopper is an adventure book taking place on another world very similar to medieval Europe. We follow Einu, a young boy in his quest to rid his world of magic and the last evil sorcerer who stands in his way. In what should be a straight forward fantasy story, this novel shockingly turns out to be a real life adventure for the author, or perhaps, it is the author who is lost in a Walter Mitty type story.
Whichever possibility is true - some startling insights into the way the universe works are revealed. The classical perception of time being an unending linear stream is challenged by the author Claude who finds it to be a rather jerky non-linear experience. When time does stop, the collective reality agreement for the entire human race can be altered. Also during the period of a time stoppage, any individual can transfer their consciousness to any other individual. Rarely is any memory of these events kept by anyone, because of what is stipulated in our current agreement.
After countless twists and turns on the other world, Claude returns to discover his reality never to be the same.
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EXCERPT:
From Chapter 8 entitled Beast:
Time stopped.
It had nothing to do with me.
There was a howl in the distance.
For some reason the Beast could not find me. Still the sound of his howling caused me to pick up my pace a bit. I used up the rest of my energy climbing the hill where Maru was waiting.
She was curled up in the blanket. Her eyes were half open, looking in the direction of the smoke over the village. It looked as if she was forcing her eyes to remain open.
There was nothing to do but wait. I ate some dried meat from the pack that lay beside her and then took a small sip of water from the waterskin. It was almost empty. Maru must have been really thirsty.
I had been sitting in one spot for too long, because the air was getting hot and stale around me. One disadvantage of being a timestopper was that energy didn't dissipate away from the body as it did when time was flowing normally. And fresh air didn't flow freely toward the body either. So it was necessary to keep changing positions if time was stopped for a long period.
My uncle told me the reason that we didn't overheat or just plain suffocate during stopped time was that timestoppers are able to influence the immediate environment around our bodies, so we can still breathe. And the air and whatever we are touching can absorb some heat, so we do not boil to death from the heat of our own bodies.
One of the first memories I had as a child was making objects hot by just touching them, and starting to choke by staying in one spot too long.
My uncle said that it was dangerous for a timestopper to day dream while time was stopped. He said something about infecting reality with my dreams. I never understood that.
My uncle explained that if I were to touch someone long enough while time was stopped that there was a possibility that they would notice me. I had never tried it because my uncle said that it was possible to drive that person crazy. In spite of the warning I thought of trying it on Maru. I longed to have someone else understand the loneliness of being a timestopper, now that my uncle was gone.
The Beast howled in the distance again.
I held on to my uncle's sword to try and comfort myself. It didn't sound far enough away for me. Though I couldn't really tell how far away it was, because my hearing him had nothing to do with my ears. I heard the Beast with that part of my mind that was sensitive to other creatures' thoughts.
Time started again. Some unknown Timestopper finished his task, or maybe Caines had found some other victim, but I was once again in normal time.
Maru was in front of me. She moved underneath the blanket.
The blanket hugged her body in a very distracting way. My thoughts strayed from my current situation and back again to seeing Maru by the stream.
I sneezed.
Maru quickly rolled out of her blanket, jumped to her feet and stared at me in disbelief.
"How did you do that? Sneak up without me noticing? What happened? Where's Janus?" she said in a rush.
I waved my hands to ward off her barrage of questions. Maru was unstoppable when she was excited or curious, and right now she was both.
"Maru, Maru, please. I'm tired and I'm hurt. I'll get to what happened, just give me a moment,
"That's your own problem. Where's Janus?"
She asked her last question quite forcefully, emphasizing her anxiety by grabbing my shirt and tugging on it.
I grabbed her hands and slowly removed them from my shirt. The impact of what had happened hit me full force. Tears filled my eyes as I looked into Maru's. After a moment she too started to cry.
"What ... ?" Was all she could muster.
"They cut off his nose."
She gasped.
"I couldn't do anything to help him. They tried to catch me. I barely got away. A sorcerer has him. "
She wiped her tears and became stern.
"What happened? Start from the beginning."
I took a deep breathe and started my story.
"Well, I stopped time then headed towards the village ..." I began to say, when Maru interrupted me.
"Wait a minute, what do you mean you stopped time? The last I saw, you were heading down the hill, then you suddenly disappeared. I thought that you were just doing some sorcery, and would be back in the blink of an eye with Janus. But you were gone so long, I got tired and lay down. It seemed like you were never going to come back, then you pop up behind me. Now you try to tell me some crazy story about stopping time."
"It's true, I can stop time. My uncle could do it and so could my father."
"You use your magic to stop time?" she asked slowly.
"No. I have no magic. All I can do is stop time."
"Show me."
Looking into Maru's eyes, I stopped time then walked behind her, and started time again.
She looked around, obviously surprised, then she turned and saw me.
Quickly she asked, "Can you teach me how to do that?"
"No. I don't think so. My uncle said that timestoppers were all born with the ability and are immune to time stoppages caused by other timestoppers. He also told me that he never knew of anyone who learned how to do it. Even though he did tell me of others that we had to watch out for. Sorcerers, gnomes and Time Beasts."
"I've heard a little about sorcerers and gnomes. What do they have to do with time?" she asked.
"Well, my uncle told me that timestoppers and sorcerers are natural enemies. Sorcerers have a way to negate the stopping of time. And until today I never knew what my uncle meant. That was how the sorcerer almost caught me. And gnomes as you know are immune to magic, but my uncle said that they are also immune to the stoppage of time. My uncle told me that gnomes are sometimes allies for timestoppers and I was leaving the village to find one."
"Why would you want to do that?"
"My uncle made me promise that I would if something ever happened to him. And something did. Another timestopper killed him."
"How do you know this?"
"It happened right in front of me."
"You had better tell me everything."
She listened to everything that had happened in the past few days, with all the time stoppages put into the right places. As I told the story, tears came unbidden to my eyes ... with the death of my uncle, leaving the village, escaping from Jocko, being thrust into saving Maru, then trying to help the villagers and finding my mother dead. Maru looked at me differently but I didn't know what it meant.
"Well, you certainly kept your wits about you, but what do you think happened to the Beast? And just what is the Beast anyway?"
"I don't know what happened to him, and as to what it is, all my uncle would tell me was to avoid Time Beasts at all costs."
"Good advice if you ask me, but what are we going to do now?"
The sky was red. It was near sunset.
"Well, I think we will have to sleep here ... and in the morning we should make our way to Finirton."
"Sleep? Out here? How will we do that? There is only one blanket."
"We'll take turns sleeping. Someone should stay on watch."
She looked around then said, "Nonsense. We could hear someone coming for miles up here. We'll share the blanket."
My heart jumped at the prospect. The weariness that I had felt earlier, left me.
She seemed to sense my change in mood and said, "We'll lie back to back. and we'll keep warm that way."
We lay down back to back, covered ourselves with the blanket and said good night.
I couldn't sleep, feeling the presence of Maru against my back and didn't want to move and spoil the sensation. I silently cursed myself for not having relieved myself before lying down, but the urge eventually went away.
Just as I was falling asleep, Maru, who I thought to be already asleep, turned and put her arm around me, which caused my heart to race for a while. In spite of her sometimes abrupt treatment of me, I really was beginning to think that she might like me. Eventually though I fell asleep quite content and had wonderful dreams, none of them involved any of the events of the past few days.
I had been asleep for many hours when there was a noise. My heart raced again but this time for a different reason. Reaching out from under the blanket and grabbing my sword gave me a sense of security. I held on to it tightly and listened, straining my ears for any other noise. I had the feeling something was lurking out there in the darkness. I listened for hours, until a light sleep overtook me. My dreams now took a darker turn with some unknown creature stalking me.
I fell into a pattern of a few minutes asleep, followed by a few moments of wakefulness.
This lasted until just before dawn when the distinct sound of footfalls came up the hill.
In the pre-dawn light, a black shape approached.
It shambled along on all fours, sometimes rearing up on its hind legs and walking upright for a few steps.
Maru awoke and clutched me.
There was nothing else to do but hold onto my sword and wait.
The Time Beast had found me again.
Maru tightened her grip on my arm until it became painful.
The Beast was now fifty feet away and it slowed its pace.
She resisted all my attempts to dislodge her grip from my arm.
"Let go," I whispered.
She didn't appear to hear me. Her grip didn't lessen.
I stopped time and pried Maru's fingers open.
The Beast leapt forward when time stopped and howled louder than it had ever howled before.
I jumped up and ran a short distance away from Maru then met the creature's charge.
In the state of stopped time, the Beast took on a more fearsome appearance. It was darker in my mind and its presence invoked a sense of panic in me.
I restarted time, for it would be harder to face it in that way.
It halted just in front of me and glared at me with red eyes. It stank and smelled of rotting flesh, probably from some festering wound. A wind carried its foul odor towards me.
Maru screamed. This distracted the Beast for a moment and I charged. Sword up high, I swung my blade down at the creature, but it leapt out of the way so quickly I didn't see which way it went. As I turned, I caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye. I didn't have a chance to get out of the way. Before it hit me I instinctively stopped time, but that didn't help. The creature hit me with its full weight and knocked me to the ground and landed on top of me. It pinned my arms and looked at me, its face inches from mine. Its breath was revolting, as the smell of its rotting teeth filled the air. Saliva dripped from its mouth and fell into my own.
Looking into its eyes, I saw my death.
I restarted time.
The Beast had the eyes of madness. It hovered over me and its presence in my mind grew. I began to lose my identity.
Then, as from a distance, the Beast screamed and loosened its grip on me. Maru stood over us with a large rock. She raised it and brought it down again. The Beast staggered away as best as it could. She had hit it on its head and blood was pouring down its matted hair.
She moved forward and tried to bring down her rock again, but the Beast moved too fast for her. She threw the rock, missing by only inches. It stopped, jerked its head up and stared at her.
It leapt at her with lightning speed.
I recovered and swung my sword at it, as it flew through the air past me. I meant to hit it on the side of its body, but it passed so fast, my swing hit it at its ankle, severing the foot from its leg. The Beast was already curling to clutch at its ankle as it hit her. She hit the ground with the creature howling on top of her. It quickly rolled off of her and tried to scramble away on three legs.
I got up and went to Maru, "Are you okay?"
She weakly nodded her head and pointed to the Beast. It was about twenty feet away and faltering in its attempt to get away.
I easily caught up to it and tried to stab it, but it anticipated my move and rolled to one side. My sword hit the ground.
The Beast made one last attempt to leap at me, but it instinctively tried to use both back legs. It screeched in pain and leapt wide of me going at least ten feet behind me, but I had swung my sword while it had passed and cut a long gash over the length of its body. It was in its death throws, when I approached it. It looked up at me and I stabbed it in the throat and twisted, just as Caines had done to my uncle.
I wiped my sword on the grass and walked back to Maru. She was crying.
I held her in my arms and we watched the sun rise. The sky was red. as if angry at what had just happened.
"It's over."
She just nodded, and I helped her back to our blanket.
She drank the last few drops of water, while I packed up our scant belongings, and then we walked away from where the Beast lay.
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REVIEW:
Timestopper is a book that... It brings up images of... Well, let me put it this way, have you ever had one of those days when you didn't feel like yourself and wished you could be someone else or live another life?
In Timestopper you do! Claude Limberger's writing is superb. It's one of those books that I couldn't put down. It's filled with non-stop action. And along the way you have the opportunity to gain insight into the way that ordinary people deal with time. In fact the author's last bit of advice to his readers is 'don't infect your future with your past.'
In this book Claude tells the tale of the exploits of a young boy, Einu, who was born with the ability to stop time. One would think that with this ability, life would be easier and all your problems would go away! Not so, as we soon find out that within stopped time there is another world to be experienced filled with magic and madness. Here we follow Einu from the age of fourteen to adulthood and watch as he copes with this strange world. And as Einu grows older so do his powers and abilities. It's at this point that Einu mistakenly takes on the identity of his best friend and begins to live another life.
For those on the spiritual path who remember their other
lives, Claude's book not only lets you step into someone else's
shoes - he settles you right into their soul.
(Judy Remedios , Eye For The Future magazine, June
1998)
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AUTHOR BIO:
This tourist from the future has had many names, but for now resides in the body of Claude Limberger, author, actor, father, husband and businessman. His story was first told in Afterworld - When Ghosts Disappear and continues in Timestopper, where we follow Claude on an exciting journey to find the essence of pure joy, by cutting the bonds of time. He currently resides in Mississauga, Ontario.
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PUB COMMENTS:
In Timestopper discover that all humans have a collective reality agreement which dominates the lives of all that it includes, except for the few brave souls who step outside its boundaries. Are you brave enough to read the magical words contained within these covers and free yourself to experience the joy of being a Timestopper?
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