But he is surprised when he falls in love with her, and shocked when someone arms the oppressed groups of the 19th century with future knowledge and weaponry. Knowing the future people's oddities well, he's not surprised by the forthright and occasionally crude behavior (by 19th-century standards) of his new security partner, Elizabeth DePaul. Jesse Cullum is a 'native' City employee, born in the 19th century, who knows he's got a good deal working security and means to keep it, especially while supporting his sister, Phoebe. The 21st-century time travelers who came to 1870s America didn't just reveal themselves to be from the future they also built the City of Futurity in the Midwest to give tourists at least those willing to pay the extremely expensive ticket price a vague look at the world to come. He's fallen in love with a woman from our time, and he means to follow her back-no matter whose secrets he has to expose in order to do it.Īt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. And he knows the passageway will be closing soon.

But like all such operations, it has a shelf life as the 'natives' become more sophisticated, their version of the 'past' grows less attractive as a destination. A small city has grown up around it to entertain visitors from our time, and many locals earn a good living catering to them. It's been in operation for most of a decade, but it's no secret, on either side of time. After a passageway is open, it's the only road to that particular past once closed, it can't be reopened.Ī passageway has been opened to a version of late 19th-century Ohio. And a given 'past' can only be reached once. Each 'past' is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it.

In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson's Last Year, the technology exists to open doorways into the past-but not our past, not exactly.

Second, he saved the life of President Ulysses S. First, he lost a pair of Oakley sunglasses. Two events made September 1st a memorable day for Jesse Cullum.

Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson