Broken

What happens when a geeky engineer gets trapped in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur? When Shiloh, a senior engineer at Silicon Valley’s hottest company, gets frustrated with the gadget lifestyle, he retreats to a low-tech pastoral life. But when thrown 4,000 years back to the bronze age, his only choice is to re-invent technology and save the future. If you liked Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, or time travel classics like L. Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall, join the adventure and read this exciting debut novel from Micah Joel.  Interview with the Author Q - Where did the idea for this book come from? A - Believe it or not, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash sparked the initial idea for this book. One of the side topics in Neal's book was the 'me' or Sumerian rules that defined the basis of their culture. What would it look like if these were physical objects taken at face value?  Q - What is the connection between this book and Nikola Tesla? A - This is the first book in the Tesla Chronicles. As a whole, the series focuses more on Tesla's ideas, with him directing things from offstage, rather his personal story being in the spotlight. For example, a character in this book has a similar visual affliction that Tesla wrote about in 1900, where he would see images which 'marred the vision of real objects and interfered with thought.' This character goes on to demonstrate the kind of intuition that one might have seen in the great Serbian inventor himself!  Q - Who is your inspiration for Shiloh, the modern-day protagonist? A - Shiloh’s not modeled after any particular individual, but combines aspects of a number of Silicon Valley folks from real life, including myself. For example, he’s an animal lover to the point of keeping a service dog on a volunteer basis. He’s also frustrated by the technological marvels he’s been a key part of creating. Nearly every person I talk to in the valley can identify with this!  Q - What draws you to this genre? A - I've been a huge fan of time travel since 2199. In that genre, I've noticed that Euro-Western settings come pretty standard. I wanted to explore a distinctly non-European culture, in this case early asian/middle-eastern dawn of civilization, combining aspects of both sci-fi and fantasy. Nobody else was writing this, so I had to. :-)  Q - So you are working on more books in the series? A - Yes, and later books more sharply skewer Silicon Valley culture more fiercely. Prominent figures who are highly revered are not always that great at being role models. The female protagonist in the next book has an ambition to pick up things where Nikola Tesla left off, which has been great fun to write.  Q - Why should readers give this series a try? A - It’s written for geeks, by a geek. It includes a sympathetic main character, as fed up with technology as any of us. Then it throws this character into a situation unlike anything you’re likely to have read about before. In the end, this is a celebration of geek culture, and all the amazing things that people can accomplish. Enjoy! Grab your copy now, and enter a new realm of time-travel adventure.