Beyond Yesterdaybook portfolio · synopsis, characters & themes

PORTFOLIO COLLECTION

BEYOND YESTERDAY

ISBN: ‎ 978-1970301243 PB

ISBN: 978-1970301250 HB

STEPHEN FRANCIS MONTAGNA

THE STORY AT

A GLANCE

What if humanity survived the end of the world—but discovered that survival itself was no longer enough?

In BEYOND YESTERDAY, a devastating nuclear war transforms Earth into a dying world. More than ninety percent of the planet's population is ultimately lost, while radiation, environmental destruction, and the long-term consequences of the catastrophe make the surface increasingly hostile to human life. The manuscript establishes that the survivors have spent almost thirty years underground, watching their numbers steadily decline.

By 2054, the survivors face an even more terrifying problem: they can no longer reproduce.

Time travel.

THE CENTRAL PREMISE

The survivors cannot simply travel backward and live in the past.

Their bodies have changed after decades of exposure to radiation and the altered environment of the postwar world. Dr. Dewitt explains that returning permanently to the past would not solve their problem. Instead, they must find a way to bring elements of the past into the future.

The first plan is biological:

Travel into earlier periods.

Obtain reproductive material.

Return it to the future.

Attempt to use it to restore human reproduction.

But the story gradually expands this objective.

The future survivors begin physically retrieving human subjects from the past.

Their mission is no longer simply to recover biological material.

They are attempting to rebuild humanity itself.

WHEN THE FUTURE STEALS FROM THE PAST

How much destruction in the past can they justify in order to preserve humanity in the future?

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE CONNECTION

What if Flight 19 did not simply disappear?

FLIGHT 19

FT-28

FT-36

FT-81

FT-3

FT-117

Were some of history's most mysterious disappearances actually consequences of humanity's attempt to save its own future?

THE

TIME-TRAVEL MISSION

As the story progresses, the future survivors become increasingly organized in their missions.

The time-travel crews are composed of trained personnel supported by military security teams. Their assignments involve entering carefully selected historical periods, locating suitable human subjects, securing them, conducting medical procedures, and returning them to the future.

One mission successfully retrieves five male pilots from five aircraft. The operation itself produces another powerful storm as the craft returns through the temporal vortex.

Later missions retrieve additional people from the past.

In one operation, eight women are brought back to the underground facility for medical examination and processing. The survivors are attempting to assemble enough people from the past to establish a viable population for humanity's future.

THE HUMAN COST

Can saving humanity justify taking humanity from someone else?

THE SURVIVORS

Commander Andy Graff

Dr. Richard Dewitt

Stanley Marck / Marek

General Archie Pairadee

Colonel Jaggers

THE CHINESE SURVIVORS

THE

HURRICANES

Every trip into history leaves a footprint.

THE NOVEL'S CENTRAL CONFLICT

THE FUTURE NEEDS THE PAST

THE PAST DOES NOT KNOW THE FUTURE

TIME TRAVEL HAS CONSEQUENCES

THE SURVIVORS HAVE LIMITED TIME

THE MISSION BECOMES MORALLY COMPLICATED

MAJOR THEMES

Survival

The Price of Survival

Time and Consequence

Human Reproduction and Continuity

Moral Responsibility

Mystery and History

Hope After Catastrophe

WHAT MAKES THE PREMISE DISTINCTIVE

Post-Apocalyptic Survival

Time Travel

Historical Mystery

Military Thriller

Science Fiction

Ethical Dilemma

SUBMISSION-READY LOGLINE

PROFESSIONAL SYNOPSIS

BEYOND YESTERDAY opens in 2025, as escalating conflicts between the world's nuclear powers develop into a catastrophic global nuclear exchange. The attacks spread rapidly across continents, destroying cities, military installations and entire regions. The resulting radioactive contamination and environmental devastation transform the planet.

The survivors who remain retreat into heavily protected underground facilities.

Nearly three decades later, the surviving population has been reduced to fewer than one thousand people in one major underground community. Commander Andy Graff calls an emergency meeting when Dr. Richard Dewitt delivers devastating news: the survivors are no longer capable of reproducing. Their women can no longer become pregnant, and the surviving men no longer possess viable sperm.

The human race has survived the nuclear war only to discover that it may now be biologically incapable of continuing.

Dewitt reveals that the government had secretly preserved technology capable of time travel. The survivors initially plan to use the technology to retrieve sperm and eggs from earlier generations and transport them into the future.

But the experiments lead to a much more radical strategy.

The survivors begin sending specialized crews into the past to retrieve living human subjects.

Their missions take them into historical periods where they can secretly locate people suitable for their population program.

The operations eventually intersect with one of history's most famous unexplained disappearances: Flight 19.

The five aircraft that disappeared in 1945 become targets of the future survivors' operation. The time-travel craft emerges in the Bermuda Triangle, where the temporal vortex coincides with the sudden development of severe weather.

The survivors discover that time travel itself carries a cost.

The vortex produces storms in the past.

Every mission potentially creates another hurricane.

Every return leaves evidence.

Are they saving humanity—or becoming another force capable of destroying it?

WHY THE TITLE MATTERS

Yesterday = the people and history that existed before the catastrophe.

Today = the underground survivors struggling to remain alive.

Tomorrow = a future that may depend upon stealing from yesterday.

POTENTIAL AUDIENCE

&

MARKET POSITIONING

For submission purposes, the manuscript can be presented within the broad territory of:

Science Fiction

Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Time-Travel Fiction

Military Science Fiction

Speculative Thriller

Historical Mystery / Speculative Mystery

Apocalyptic Thriller

The manuscript's combination of a devastated future, time-travel technology, military operations, historical disappearances and ethical questions gives it several possible entry points for agents and publishing professionals.

AUTHOR

Stephen Francis Montagna is the author of BEYOND YESTERDAY, a large-scale speculative thriller exploring humanity's struggle to survive after global nuclear devastation.

The manuscript is structured around an ambitious premise: a future civilization attempts to use time travel not to alter history, but to obtain the human population it needs to continue existing.

SUBMISSION POSITIONING STATEMENT

The future needs the past in order to exist.