A gothic spire, a rogue supercomputer, and four bottles of port… what could possibly go wrong?
When time-travelling duo James Urquhart and Elizabeth Bicester return to Chichester, they find themselves 300 years in the future — and the city is not quite as they left it. The Internet has collapsed, social media is a distant memory, and society is rediscovering the joys of handwritten rants and face-to-face bickering.
But stranger still: a peculiar new faith has emerged — the cult of the 404s, devoted to lost connections, error messages, and holy buffering, all hell-bent on restoring the Holy Cloud. And deep beneath the cathedral, an ancient machine stirs — the Silicon Abbey’s Threadripper: a device with the power to reconnect… or destroy… reality itself.
When time-travelling duo James Urquhart and Elizabeth Bicester return to Chichester, they find themselves 300 years in the future — and the city is not quite as they left it.
The Internet has collapsed, social media is a distant memory, and society is rediscovering the joys of handwritten rants and face-to-face bickering. But stranger still: a peculiar new faith has emerged — the cult of the 404s, devoted to lost connections, error messages, and holy buffering, all hell-bent on restoring the Holy Cloud.
And deep beneath the cathedral, an ancient machine stirs — the Silicon Abbey’s Threadripper: a device with the power to reconnect… or destroy… reality itself.
What If the Cloud Really Collapsed?
What if the entire Cloud crashed — not the fluffy white ones above Sussex, but the digital one crammed with your photos, passwords, and abandoned shopping baskets?
What if a Victorian squire called his son-in-law on an unplugged candlestick telephone to warn him about it?
That’s how it begins.
Meet James and Elizabeth: Time Travellers in Trouble
Scientist James Urquhart and his gloriously capable Victorian wife Elizabeth Bicester are swept into temporal chaos once again. Along the way they encounter:
- A doomsday cult convinced that “404 Not Found” is the last sacred message of the Heavenly Cloud.
- A cathedral transformed into Silicon Abbey, complete with a shrine of discarded PlayStations and holy CDs of Bugs Bunny.
- An Abbess in K-pop couture who swaps rhinestones for corsets the moment no one’s looking.
- Sean and Jill, whose jam tarts, fairy folklore, and broken shrines test everyone’s patience.
- And in the crypt: a glowing Threadripper computer running Windows 13 (yes, apparently Microsoft does have a future).
The Big Questions Only Time Travellers Ask
Between Chichester trams, temporal instability, and suspiciously well-dressed Martians, James and Elizabeth must face questions no time traveller should ignore:
- How do you power a laptop in 1873?
- Why do cults always misread the code?
- And, most importantly, what clothes should you wear when fleeing through time?
For Fans of The Time Travel Diaries of James Urquhart & Elizabeth Bicester
If you enjoyed the mix of romantic comedy, absurdity, and speculative science fiction in The Time Travel Diaries, then Silicon Abbey may be your perfect next read.
Silicon Abbey will be available this Autumn on Amazon.
Ready to Join the Adventure?
Then dust off your candlestick telephones, back up your files on parchment, and join James and Elizabeth for their strangest adventure yet. Just don’t chant “404” too loudly — someone might mistake you for a prophet.
