Revise the World:
http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Brenda-Clough/Novels/This books is free if read on your computer, $4.99 for pdf download. It's 500 pages (about 6800 Kindle lines), and after reading a couple of chapters I was happy to pay the download fee. Here is my LibraryThing review:
1912: Titus Oates, an actual member of Scott's doomed South Pole Expedition, is dying of starvation and gangrene and walks into the blizzard to die and give his comrades a better chance to survive.
2045: Titus is revived by scientists attempting to prove the efficacy of time-travel without altering the past. Oates' body was never found in Antarctica, and knowing this, the scientists have traveled back to snatch him before he dies in the blizzard. The reason for the time-travel experiment? - to determine if a faster-than-light, time-traveling drive is safe for use in space travel. The specifications for the drive have been received from a distant planet, and modern society would like to visit the alien civilization and return to report to Earth within the span of only a few years.
Titus awakens into a world he cannot comprehend. The language is the same, but usage and terminology for all the intervening years renders most sentences unintelligible. Constant and instant communication, medical miracles (his rotting limbs have all been cloned and replaced), total equality of race, gender and orientation, and scientific marvels, all are a challenge to his notions of reality, propriety, and his place in life. Much of the books is concerned with his struggles to find trust and purpose again. His rescuers fear for his sanity, and there are many times he must readjust his judgments and attitudes lest he succumb. At one point he tries to find a way to return to the past and die as was meant. He falls in love with one of his doctors, makes friends and some enemies, revolts and runs, tries again, watches his lover sail off in space for a years-long mission to the distant planet, decides to try again to be an explorer and meaningful member of society. The last third of the book takes place 8 years later, with Titus almost fully integrated into 21st century life and embarking on a final huge adventure.
Titus is a fascinating character, an Edwardian gentleman adjusting to an egalitarian, space-age, consensus-ruled society. The author has researched the realities of early 20th century Antarctic exploration, and her imagining of a far future life for one of them is creative and realistic, with natural dialogue. The 500 pages go by quickly, and the last 100 are almost guaranteed to be read in one sitting. Highly recommended!
