Maker: Daughter of Time, Book 3

 From the Author

MAKER is the third book of the DAUGHTER OF TIME Trilogy. 

When I began this series (then only conceived as a single novel), I wanted to write a "superheroine" book for my (then) middle school-aged daughters--the story of a "girl that saves the universe". What began as something with a strong YA flavor in the initial drafts, quickly turned darker. In addition, the ideas percolating in the first novel, READER, cried out for a follow-up. Hence, WRITER and MAKER were conceived.

With this trilogy, I was interested in exploring certain themes and ideas from a variety of science fiction authors and modern cosmology, trying to find my own "mythology" to harmonize some of the disparate conceptions of reality. Ideas of the subjectivity and limitations of human perception and understanding played important roles, as did ideas of causality, time, superstructure, divinity, and infinity.

Whereas READER was written very organically (and metamorphosed from a YA novel to something quite different), and WRITER written following a detailed outline, MAKER was a strange synthesis of the two. A detailed flowchart of the various time loops that characterize the first half of the novel was supplanted by a completely unplanned stream-of-consciousness climax that led to a fixed narrative point: the resolution to the entire wild story of Ambra Dawn that was envisioned several years before when I completed the final draft of READER.

Once again I changed the narrator for the novel, in this case the story told through the voice of the alien Waythrel of Xix. A further challenge to myself and the reader is the ever recession of Ambra Dawn in the story. Waythrel's near constant companion in the novel is instead the enigmatic Kloan, a biological replica of Ambra Dawn, modified by the biomedicine and cybernetics of the dark Anti, who kidnapped the alien in WRITER and leads her on a harrowing and confusing cosmic quest. Ambra returns in strange and punctuated events in the novel, in multiple different forms from infant to cosmic goddess. But there are few extended engagements with the Daughter of Time as in the previous books.

By far the most esoteric of the three, MAKER cannot help but ultimately fail, just as any effort to produce an artistic impression of ultimate reality would fail. But I didn't seek to succeed in the impossible, but rather to wade into the chaotic paradox of mind and matter and metaphysics in the context of a thrilling narrative. For those who require coherence, realism, techno-science fiction, or a linear narrative, among other things, MAKER has been at best a frustrating read. And that's okay. It was meant to be in some ways. That others have found it also inspiring and moving, thought-provoking and unique, is a success I am content to achieve.

About the Author
Erec Stebbins is a biomedical researcher who writes novels in a variety of genres, focusing on thrillers and science fiction. His work has consistently been praised for its action and thrills alongside a deeper, often philosophical angle. 

His novels have been called "unique" and "pulse-pounding" (THE RAGNARÖK CONSPIRACY), "altogether profound, reminiscent of Bradbury and Dan Simmons' Hyperion" (DAUGHTER OF TIME TRILOGY), and "startlingly dark" (EXTRAORDINARY RETRIBUTION) with five star ratings in Foreword Reviews, San Francisco Book Reviews, Portland Book Review, and others.