Joshua David Bellin

Agent Miriam Randle works for LifeTime, a private law enforcement agency that undertakes short-term time travel to erase crimes before they occur. Haunted by the memory of her twin brother’s unsolved murder at the age of six, Miriam thinks of herself as Myriad—an incarnation of the many lives she’s lived in her journeys to rearrange the past. When a routine assignment goes wrong and Miriam commits a murder she was meant to avert, she is thrown into the midst of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of LifeTime. Along with her partner Vax, Miriam flees into the past in an attempt to unravel the truth before LifeTime agents catch up with her. But then her brother’s killer reappears, twenty years to the day since he first struck. And he’s not through with the twin who survived, not by a long shot. Myriad is a mind-bending time travelling sci-fi thriller that will keep readers guessing to the very end. File Under: Science Fiction [ Myrioi | Baked In | Three Ravens | The Dark Backward ]

It's About Time Time-traveling thieves and assassins. Mysterious visitors from the past and future. Historical encounters that were never meant to be. Predestination paradoxes and miraculous machines. Journeys through the ages that take unpredictable twists and turns, sending the travelers--and the reader--where they least expect. Welcome to The Accidental Time Travelers Collective, featuring twelve short stories by an international group of speculative fiction authors who share a common love of time travel. Each story ventures into the realm of alternate possibilities (or impossibilities). The stories range from whimsical to technical, thrilling to uplifting. Some will make you laugh. Others will touch you in surprising ways. All offer an adventure into tantalizing futures and haunting pasts. So if you're ready for a wild ride, take a trip through time with us

The trap closes. The hunt nears its end. Sixteen-year-old Aleka travels the western desert with Survival Colony 9, a small group of renegades seeking shelter from the monstrous Skaldi that have overrun the land. The daughter of Diana the Huntress and a part-Skaldi father, Aleka was left as a baby with the woman she knows as Auntie, who swore to protect her from those who would exploit her unique ancestry. Unaware of what she is, Aleka spends her days searching the tunnels beneath the desert and dreaming of freedom from Auntie's domineering rule. Then Aleka meets a desert nomad calling himself Aesir, who proposes that she join his band of teen runaways in a daring plan to defeat the Skaldi for good. What Aleka doesn't know is that the Skaldi high command inhabiting the city by the great salt lake have a plan of their own, one they cannot put into effect without reclaiming the girl who shares their genetic history. Their final assault will come soon, and Aleka will need to discover her own powers with the aid of an unlooked-for ally if her colony is to survive. Scarred City is the final volume in the Book of the Huntress series by speculative fiction author Joshua David Bellin.

The darkness spreads. The hunter becomes the hunted. After their fatal confrontation with the Skaldi in the Pennsylvania woodlands, Michelle and her fellow survivors travel west in search of a safe haven untouched by the creatures. In her case, Michelle hopes to find the mountains where she and Kareem dreamed of starting a new life. What she finds instead is a country turned into a wasteland, with the Skaldi rapidly replacing the human population. When Michelle learns that she is pregnant, she seeks refuge in the western desert, where she is welcomed by a group of military scientists occupying a heavily fortified base. But there are those among the scientists who are working to develop an even deadlier strain of Skaldi, and Michelle must fight to protect her colony-and her unborn child-before this new terror is unleashed on the world. Dark's Dominion is the second volume in the Book of the Huntress series by speculative fiction author Joshua David Bellin.

Can we bring a species back from extinction? Why are dragons not with us today? Would you condemn a whole species to die so you could live? Explore these tales of species extinction. Hold fast against the winds of death with the caretakers of the future. Decipher warnings from the past, the future, and worlds between worlds. Be more dangerous than the big game hunters. Doggedly track down the last specimen across three continents. Recognize messages aliens have left for us so we don't continue on the destructive path we're on. Are our successors already waiting in the wings? Featuring stories from authors: Liam Hogan, Blake Jessop, Owen Leddy, Katie Sakanai, Joshua David Bellin, Marshall J. Moore, Elana Gomel, Rhonda Eikamp, Jamie Lackey, Jennifer R. Povey, Jim Hanson, Sean Jones, E. A. Petricone, Brett Kozlowski, Bradley Heywood, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Katrinka Mannelly, Bo Balder, Bethany Van Sterling, Steve Carr, Joy Kennedy-O'Neill, Marissa James, Brian Rappatta, Anya Ow, Michael Triozzi, Carina Bissett and Sam Hicks

The end of the world. The beginning of the hunt. Michelle Simmons watched the eerie yellow fire consume the countryside on her seventeenth birthday. Cut off from home, she's lost in the desolation that remains. When Michelle is discovered by other survivors under the command of Jason, a ruthless leader with a mysterious past, she fears she may never be freed to search for her missing family. And when a video surfaces showing nightmarish creatures with the ability to mimic human beings, Michelle is sure the end has come. But then Kareem, a teenage boy, arrives in Jason's camp claiming to have lost all memory except one: there is a city nearby, a city that holds the secret to the attacks that shattered Michelle's world. He can take her there, if she's willing to risk leaving Jason's camp behind. What Michelle doesn't know is that there are other, more sinister secrets hiding in the scarred city. And that Kareem might not be what he claims to be. Daughter of Dust is the first volume in the Book of the Huntress series by speculative fiction author Joshua David Bellin.

The Ecosystem will not survive. Fifteen years ago, war nearly destroyed the City of the Queens. In the time since, Queen Rebecca's reign has been marked by reconciliation between the Ecosystem and its people. With the aid of Chief Sensor Miriam and her husband Isaac, an era of peace and prosperity seems to have been assured at last. But then a new and unparalleled threat arises: the Ecosystem is dying, and Rebecca is powerless to restore it. Joining the Queen's guard in the search for a cure to this mysterious malady is teenage apprentice Hadassah, daughter of Miriam and Isaac. For her, the quest is deeply personal: she seeks word of her friend and guardian Sarah, the former queen of the city who has been missing for years. Hadassah's journey will take her to the ends of the earth, to a place of legendary wonder, beauty, and danger. And it will require her to tap a source of power even the queens have never imagined if she is to save her family and heal her world. The Last Sensor is the final book in the Ecosystem Cycle, which includes Ecosystem, The Devouring Land, and House of Earth, House of Stone.

The Ecosystem is at war. The dark queen has attacked the City of the Queens. Commanding an army of creatures from legend and nightmare, she appears unstoppable. Sarah is forced to flee into the treacherous mountains north of the city, where she seeks to discover word of the missing queen, Celestina. Only with their combined strength, Sarah believes, is there any hope of contesting the dark queen's might. But to wage the final battle against the dark queen, Sarah will have to overcome an ancient curse that threatens not only the survival of the city but the existence of the Ecosystem itself. And she will have to decide whether to save Isaac, the boy she loves, at the cost of losing everything else she holds dear. House of Earth, House of Stone is a riveting fantasy-adventure set in a world where Nature holds dominion over humankind. It is the third book in a series that includes Ecosystem, The Devouring Land, and The Last Sensor.

The Ecosystem has awakened. On the day of Miriam and Isaac's wedding, Sarah's village is attacked by monstrous creatures from the Ecosystem. With the community's leaders dead and few Sensors remaining, Sarah shepherds the survivors into the deadly forest surrounding the village. Her own Sense badly damaged in an earlier attack, she must fight through a host of new threats in hopes of discovering the place where her mother was born, rumored to be home to a community of healers. When another attack decimates her band, they are rescued by a group of people under the leadership of a man named Gabriel. Taking Sarah and the remnants of her village to a sheltered city ruled by healer-women known as queens, Gabriel instructs Sarah in the Ecosystem's origins and teaches her a new way of coexisting with its creatures. But the City of the Queens is haunted by a dark secret from the past, and Sarah will have to learn the truth of her lineage in order to save the people she loves and protect the world she knows. The Devouring Land is the second book in a fantasy-adventure series that begins with Ecosystem (2018) and continues with House of Earth, House of Stone (2019) and The Last Sensor (2020).

When the 1% and the 99% clash, the fate of the human race hangs on the actions of two teens from very different backgrounds in this thrilling adventure that School Library Journal calls "a strong choice for YA sci-fi shelves." In the Upperworld, the privileged 1% are getting ready to abandon a devastated planet Earth. And Cam can't wait to leave. After sleeping through a 1,000-year journey, he and his friends will have a pristine new planet to colonize. And no more worries about the Lowerworld and its 99% of rejects. Then Cam sees a banned video feed of protesters in the Lowerworld who also want a chance at a new life. And he sees a girl with golden eyes who seems to be gazing directly at him. A girl he has to find. Sofie. When Cam finds Sofie, she opens his eyes to the unfairness of their world, and Cam joins her cause for Lowerworld rights. He also falls hard for Sofie. But Sofie has her own battles to fight, and when it's time to board the spaceships, Cam is alone. Waking up 1,000 years in the future, Cam discovers that they are far off-course, trapped on an unknown and hostile planet. Who has sabotaged their ship? And does it have anything to do with Sofie, and the choices--and the enemies--he made in the past?

The Ecosystem breathes. Sarah is a Sensor, gifted with the ability to survive within the sentient Ecosystem that swept away human civilization centuries ago. While the remnants of humankind huddle in small villages of stone, Sarah uses her psychic connection to the Ecosystem to travel freely in the wild in search of food, water, and fuel. Sarah doesn't fear the Ecosystem--but she hates it for killing her mother when Sarah was a child. When she hunts, she hunts not only for her people's sustenance but for revenge. Then Miriam, an apprentice Sensor, is lost in the Ecosystem, and Sarah sets out to rescue her. Joining Sarah is Isaac, a boy who claims to possess knowledge of the Ecosystem that will help their people survive. The harrowing journey to find the missing apprentice takes Sarah and Isaac into the Ecosystem's deadliest places. And it takes Sarah into the unexplored territory of her own heart, where she discovers feelings that threaten to tear her--and her society--apart. A thrilling fantasy adventure from the author of Freefall and the Survival Colony series, Ecosystem is the first book in a series that includes The Devouring Land (2018), House of Earth, House of Stone (2019), and The Last Sensor (2020)

In a futuristic landscape ravaged by war, a colony's hopes for survival hinge on one teenage boy in this fast-paced, action-packed story "filled with interesting plot twists, compelling characters, and gripping action" (VOYA). Querry Genn is in trouble. He can't remember anything before the last six months. And Querry needs to remember. Otherwise he is dead weight to the other members of Survival Colony 9, one of the groups formed after a brutal war ravaged the earth. And now the Skaldi have come to scavenge what is left of humanity. No one knows what the Skaldi are, or why they are here, just that they impersonate humans, taking their form before shedding the corpse like a skin. Desperate to prove himself after the accident that stole his memory, Querry is both protected and tormented by the colony's authoritarian commander, his father. The only person he can talk to is the beautiful Korah, but even with her, he can't shake the feeling that something is desperately wrong. Whatever is going on, Querry is at the center of it, for a secret in his past not only makes him a target of the Skaldi's wrath, but the key to the colony's future.

From the 1820s to the 1930s, Christian missionaries and federal agents launched a continent-wide assault against Indian sacred dance, song, ceremony, and healing ritual in an attempt to transform Indian peoples into American citizens. In spite of this century-long religious persecution, Native peoples continued to perform their sacred traditions and resist the foreign religions imposed on them, as well as to develop new practices that partook of both. At the same time, some whites began to explore Indian performance with interest, and even to promote Indian sacred traditions as a source of power for their own society. The varieties of Indian performance played a formative role in American culture and identity during a critical phase in the nation's development. In Medicine Bundle, Joshua David Bellin examines the complex issues surrounding Indian sacred performance in its manifold and intimate relationships with texts and images by both Indians and whites. From the paintings of George Catlin, the traveling showman who exploited Indian ceremonies for the entertainment of white audiences, to the autobiography of Black Elk, the Lakota holy man whose long life included stints as a dancer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a supplicant in the Ghost Dance movement, and a catechist in the Catholic Church, Bellin reframes American literature, culture, and identity as products of encounter with diverse performance traditions. Like the traditional medicine bundle of sacred objects bound together for ritual purposes, Indian performance and the performance of Indianness by whites and Indians alike are joined in a powerful intercultural knot.

The canon of popular cinema has long been rife with fantastic tales, yet critical studies have too often expediently mixed the fantasy genre with its kindred science fiction and horror films or dismissed it altogether as escapist fare. Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation reconsiders the cultural significance of this storytelling mode by investigating how films seemingly divorced from reality and presented in a context of timelessness are, in fact, encoded with the social beliefs of their era of production. Situating representative fantasy films within their cultural moments, Joshua David Bellin illustrates how fantastic visions of monstrous others seek to propagate negative stereotypes of despised groups and support invidious hierarchies of social control. Beginning with celebrated classics, Bellin locates King Kong (1933) within the era of lynching to evince how the film protects whiteness against supposed aggressions of a black predator and reviews The Wizard of Oz (1939) as a product of the Depression's economic anxieties. From there, the study moves to the animated cult classic Sinbad Trilogy (1958-1977) of Ray Harryhausen, films rampant with xenophobic fears of the Middle East as relevant today as when the series was originally produced. Advancing to more recent subjects, Bellin focuses on the image of the monstrous woman and the threat of reproductive freedom found in Aliens (1986), Jurassic Park (1993), and Species (1995) and on depictions of the mentally ill as dangerous deviants in 12 Monkeys (1996) and The Cell (2000). An investigation into physical freakishness guides his approach to Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). He concludes with a discussion of X-Men (2000) and Lord of the Rings (2001-2003), commercial giants that extend a recent trend toward critical self-reflection within the genre while still participating in the continuity of social alienation.

In recent years, the study and teaching of Native American oral and written art have flourished. During the same period, there has been a growing recognition among historians, anthropologists, and ethnohistorians that Indians must be seen not as the voiceless, nameless, faceless Other but as people who had a powerful impact on the historical development of the United States. Literary critics, however, have continued to overlook Indians as determinants of American-rather than specifically Native American-literature. The notion that the presence of Indian peoples shaped American literature as a whole remains unexplored. In The Demon of the Continent, Joshua David Bellin probes the complex interrelationships among Native American and Euro-American cultures and literatures from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. He asserts that cultural contact is at the heart of American literature. For Bellin, previous studies of Indians in American literature have focused largely on the images Euro-American writers constructed of indigenous peoples, and have thereby only perpetuated those images. Unlike authors of those earlier studies, Bellin refuses to reduce Indians to static antagonists or fodder for a Euro-American imagination. Drawing on works such as Henry David Thoreau's Walden, William Apess' A Son of the Forest, and little known works such as colonial Indian conversion narratives, he explores the ways in which these texts reflect and shape the intercultural world from which they arose. In doing so, Bellin reaches surprising conclusions: that Walden addresses economic clashes and partnerships between Indians and whites; that William Bartram's Travels encodes competing and interpenetrating systems of Indian and white landholding; that Catherine Sedgwick's Hope Leslie enacts the antebellum drama of Indian conversion; that James Fenimore Cooper and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow struggled with Indian authors such as George Copway and David Cusick for physical, ideological, and literary control of the nation. The Demon of the Continent proves Indians to be actors in the dynamic processes in which America and its literature are inescapably embedded. Shifting the focus from textual images to the sites of material, ideological, linguistic, and aesthetic interaction between peoples, Bellin reenvisions American literature as the product of contact, conflict, accommodation, and interchange.