Go Monster — H.C. Turk

Corrupted by a professor who teaches sabotage, a new mode of interstellar transport shifts history, turning time into a monster.

Samuel Ligon is a 23rd-century interference operator (INOP) utilizing a Remote Ortho-Organic Data Integrator (ROOD): a computer yoked to the cerebral tissue of a deceased person. Connected to this zombie box, Sam has unprecedented control of his memory, emotions, and perceptions.

Sam and his lover, Dinah Weigenstein (another INOP), have been hired to sabotage an interstellar transport system. When the system activates prematurely, time is shifted across the universe. Dinah and her ROOD go monster: becoming ancient and unborn simultaneously, then vanishing. Sam follows them to the “time planet,” the repository of all those who go monster. He finds himself on an Earth whose time frame has shifted. There, Sam has to retrieve Dinah's personality, which is lodged in her ROOD. When the time shift increases, Sam becomes immersed in a 13th-century feudal war fought with tanks and crossbows. If Sam loses this cross-time tech battle, he'll find himself in his zombie box.

Though often as hot and hard as an electric shock, GO MONSTER is also touching, most importantly dealing with the emotions of people, not the circuitry of their high-voltage machinery.