DigitalPuppet
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- Aug 19, 2026
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Fancy a free Scifi read?
I'm planning to run a free Kindle promotion for my book, The Time Diary: A Barstewards Tale, and I'm looking for people who'd be interested in reading it.
I'm not worried about sales at the moment, I just want to hear what people think
So, what is it?
The Time Diary is a British sci fi comedy/adventure about ordinary, very flawed people getting caught up in some extraordinary situations involving time travel, alternative histories, paradoxes and the occasional end of the universe.
It's very character driven, "human heavy", as I like to call it. The scifi can get big, but a lot of the fun comes from the characters reaction to the situation they get themselves into. Expect awkward British humour and seeing how badly normal people might cope when suddenly given the ability to change... well, pretty much anything.
Who might enjoy it?
If you enjoy the humour and big ideas of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, or generally like scifi that doesn't take itself too seriously while still throwing around big concepts, then hopefully you'll find this a treat.
It's got short chapters, plenty of twists and lots of cliffhangers to get you reading 'just one more chapter'.
What's it actually about?
Without spoiling the story, The Time Diary plays with some pretty big questions:
How could time travel actually be invented?
Are we good people, or have just never been given the chance to be utter bar stewards?
How did the universe begin?
Would the universe really be better off without humans?
What could GOD actually be?
And rather than just asking those questions, the story actually attempts to answer them. There's even an answer to the meaning of 42 for any Hitchhiker's fans.
So, I'm not really looking to sell you a copy. I want people to read it. If this sounds like your sort of thing, let me know, as I want to arrange a date for a free download on Kindle.
And if you do read it, all I ask is that you come back and tell me what you genuinely thought of it, good, bad or somewhere in between.
Here’s the first chapter to help you decide if this is something you might like to read:
Chapter 1
Despite all the begging, Miller showed no sign of leaving the barstool he had been miserably plonked on for the last few hours.
Outside the smashed front doors of The Royal Ships, a once grand Victorian pub now decrepit and clinging stubbornly to a crumbling red cliff edge, Jacob fought against a storm determined to shove him back inside his family’s grotty bar. He screamed for his twin's help, but the only reply was his echo from within the almost empty building.
Jacob had a mission. And that meant forcing his way further outside.
But his opponent wasn't making it easy. Backward he tumbled. Jacob used every last drop of strength in his small body to fight against the powerful gale. As he forced his way further outside into the storm, a sudden gust of wind lifted Jacob off of his feet and slammed him against the hard gravel ground. As he lay checking his stumpy nose for breakage, a small part of him had to begrudgingly understand his brother's reluctance to help. It was bad enough that the pair of them were stuck in this absolute chocolate starfish of a pub, so he could kinda respect that Miller had no desire to get flung out to sea for the God forsaken place. The better life by the Devonshire seaside that Jacob and Miller's father had promised the whole family wasn’t exactly living up to expectations. Mind you, it would have been more surprising if it had!
Still, disappointing as life had been so far, Jacob would quite like the opportunity to endure more of it. So once more he bellowed through the howling wind, the lashing rain and the war drums of thunder. Miller didn’t budge.
Sure, the booming roar of the storm might've swallowed his pleas. But the front doors had just been smashed open, so you’d think he’d at least turn around to see what all the bloody fuss was about.
Jacob alone had ventured out into the inky black hole of a night to rescue the new signs he had spent all week lovingly painting. He wasn't just saving signs, he was saving the promotions for his amazing ideas for the pub. He was saving the business. He was saving his family! Which, if he liked it or not, bloody included Miller, so the useless fecker should HELP HIM!
But no, not Miller, instead, his scruffy twin remained glued to the news whilst feeding the pet hamster, Mr Chippy, who lived in his shirt pocket. With each passing day, Miller seemed to resemble his furry little lodger more and more.
Accepting no help was coming from his feckless twin, Jacob struggled to his hands and knees and persevered through the rain that crashed over him like a tsunami.
He almost had his fingertips to one of the few A boards that had not been stolen by the storm, when a powerful gust of wind picked it up and gleefully frisbee’d it away into the air.
As Jacob hurled every expletive he could remember at whatever force was behind his torment, he noticed something strange about the weather.
The rain, the lightning, the wind, all of it seemed to be coming from a single point directly above their crappy pub.
In fact, it seemed to be coming from…
Whooosh.
His attention was swiftly diverted as his A board boomeranged back around and just missed his noggin.
Well, Jacob thought, it seemed God didn’t like being called names, so in future he would keep those just for his brother.
Any sensible sod would have thrown themselves back into the safety of the pub, but sensible was never a word anyone had used for Jacob or his family. He wanted to rescue at least ONE of the remaining signs he had painted, even if he was in real danger of the wind carrying his short arse off to Oz any second.
“Milllllller!” he yelled, more panicked now.
The wind was literally lifting him off his little feet. Frantically, he grabbed hold of the wet, smooth brass door handle.
“Can you PLEASE help me!”
“Ang on a minute, J!” Miller casually replied, without even turning to see what all the drama was about (and there was ALWAYS some sort of drama with his brother).
“MILLER!” wailed Jacob.
“J! Can’t you see I’m actually working here?” Miller snapped in their shared Brummie accent.
“I’m watching the bar, aren’t I?” and he let one hand lazily waft across their empty shambles of a ruined pub.
“Hey, the news lady said UFOs have been spotted around Torquay tonight.
Have a look, will ya, whilst you’re fecking about out there.”
The only flying object Jacob wanted to see was his fuzzy face brother soaring up into the air as he kicked him up the arse.
“Nooooooo!” he cried as the storm tore the last sign from his grasp.
As his wide, pained eyes followed the final board ascending up into the heavens, he noticed that it wasn’t alone up there.
Through the blustering rain and swirling debris, he thought he could see a silver sphere hanging motionless in the sky.
It was completely unaffected by the ferocious storm battering it from all sides. If it was a balloon, or even a drone, it would be getting tossed about harder than a stag at a massage parlor, but it was eerily motionless.
Could it actually be a UFO? Jacob swiped the rain pooling in his eyes and squinted to see better, but no sooner had his vision focused, a flash of lightning briefly blinded him.
When his vision returned, the object was gone.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I hope that’s grabbed your interest. If you’d like to read the rest, let me know. Cheers
I'm planning to run a free Kindle promotion for my book, The Time Diary: A Barstewards Tale, and I'm looking for people who'd be interested in reading it.
I'm not worried about sales at the moment, I just want to hear what people think
So, what is it?
The Time Diary is a British sci fi comedy/adventure about ordinary, very flawed people getting caught up in some extraordinary situations involving time travel, alternative histories, paradoxes and the occasional end of the universe.
It's very character driven, "human heavy", as I like to call it. The scifi can get big, but a lot of the fun comes from the characters reaction to the situation they get themselves into. Expect awkward British humour and seeing how badly normal people might cope when suddenly given the ability to change... well, pretty much anything.
Who might enjoy it?
If you enjoy the humour and big ideas of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, or generally like scifi that doesn't take itself too seriously while still throwing around big concepts, then hopefully you'll find this a treat.
It's got short chapters, plenty of twists and lots of cliffhangers to get you reading 'just one more chapter'.
What's it actually about?
Without spoiling the story, The Time Diary plays with some pretty big questions:
How could time travel actually be invented?
Are we good people, or have just never been given the chance to be utter bar stewards?
How did the universe begin?
Would the universe really be better off without humans?
What could GOD actually be?
And rather than just asking those questions, the story actually attempts to answer them. There's even an answer to the meaning of 42 for any Hitchhiker's fans.
So, I'm not really looking to sell you a copy. I want people to read it. If this sounds like your sort of thing, let me know, as I want to arrange a date for a free download on Kindle.
And if you do read it, all I ask is that you come back and tell me what you genuinely thought of it, good, bad or somewhere in between.
Here’s the first chapter to help you decide if this is something you might like to read:
Chapter 1
Despite all the begging, Miller showed no sign of leaving the barstool he had been miserably plonked on for the last few hours.
Outside the smashed front doors of The Royal Ships, a once grand Victorian pub now decrepit and clinging stubbornly to a crumbling red cliff edge, Jacob fought against a storm determined to shove him back inside his family’s grotty bar. He screamed for his twin's help, but the only reply was his echo from within the almost empty building.
Jacob had a mission. And that meant forcing his way further outside.
But his opponent wasn't making it easy. Backward he tumbled. Jacob used every last drop of strength in his small body to fight against the powerful gale. As he forced his way further outside into the storm, a sudden gust of wind lifted Jacob off of his feet and slammed him against the hard gravel ground. As he lay checking his stumpy nose for breakage, a small part of him had to begrudgingly understand his brother's reluctance to help. It was bad enough that the pair of them were stuck in this absolute chocolate starfish of a pub, so he could kinda respect that Miller had no desire to get flung out to sea for the God forsaken place. The better life by the Devonshire seaside that Jacob and Miller's father had promised the whole family wasn’t exactly living up to expectations. Mind you, it would have been more surprising if it had!
Still, disappointing as life had been so far, Jacob would quite like the opportunity to endure more of it. So once more he bellowed through the howling wind, the lashing rain and the war drums of thunder. Miller didn’t budge.
Sure, the booming roar of the storm might've swallowed his pleas. But the front doors had just been smashed open, so you’d think he’d at least turn around to see what all the bloody fuss was about.
Jacob alone had ventured out into the inky black hole of a night to rescue the new signs he had spent all week lovingly painting. He wasn't just saving signs, he was saving the promotions for his amazing ideas for the pub. He was saving the business. He was saving his family! Which, if he liked it or not, bloody included Miller, so the useless fecker should HELP HIM!
But no, not Miller, instead, his scruffy twin remained glued to the news whilst feeding the pet hamster, Mr Chippy, who lived in his shirt pocket. With each passing day, Miller seemed to resemble his furry little lodger more and more.
Accepting no help was coming from his feckless twin, Jacob struggled to his hands and knees and persevered through the rain that crashed over him like a tsunami.
He almost had his fingertips to one of the few A boards that had not been stolen by the storm, when a powerful gust of wind picked it up and gleefully frisbee’d it away into the air.
As Jacob hurled every expletive he could remember at whatever force was behind his torment, he noticed something strange about the weather.
The rain, the lightning, the wind, all of it seemed to be coming from a single point directly above their crappy pub.
In fact, it seemed to be coming from…
Whooosh.
His attention was swiftly diverted as his A board boomeranged back around and just missed his noggin.
Well, Jacob thought, it seemed God didn’t like being called names, so in future he would keep those just for his brother.
Any sensible sod would have thrown themselves back into the safety of the pub, but sensible was never a word anyone had used for Jacob or his family. He wanted to rescue at least ONE of the remaining signs he had painted, even if he was in real danger of the wind carrying his short arse off to Oz any second.
“Milllllller!” he yelled, more panicked now.
The wind was literally lifting him off his little feet. Frantically, he grabbed hold of the wet, smooth brass door handle.
“Can you PLEASE help me!”
“Ang on a minute, J!” Miller casually replied, without even turning to see what all the drama was about (and there was ALWAYS some sort of drama with his brother).
“MILLER!” wailed Jacob.
“J! Can’t you see I’m actually working here?” Miller snapped in their shared Brummie accent.
“I’m watching the bar, aren’t I?” and he let one hand lazily waft across their empty shambles of a ruined pub.
“Hey, the news lady said UFOs have been spotted around Torquay tonight.
Have a look, will ya, whilst you’re fecking about out there.”
The only flying object Jacob wanted to see was his fuzzy face brother soaring up into the air as he kicked him up the arse.
“Nooooooo!” he cried as the storm tore the last sign from his grasp.
As his wide, pained eyes followed the final board ascending up into the heavens, he noticed that it wasn’t alone up there.
Through the blustering rain and swirling debris, he thought he could see a silver sphere hanging motionless in the sky.
It was completely unaffected by the ferocious storm battering it from all sides. If it was a balloon, or even a drone, it would be getting tossed about harder than a stag at a massage parlor, but it was eerily motionless.
Could it actually be a UFO? Jacob swiped the rain pooling in his eyes and squinted to see better, but no sooner had his vision focused, a flash of lightning briefly blinded him.
When his vision returned, the object was gone.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I hope that’s grabbed your interest. If you’d like to read the rest, let me know. Cheers
