The Isochron Treatment by Gregg Stewart (6 November, 2026)

One experimental drug. One last chance at freedom.

Feiyu “Theo” Smith doesn’t remember murdering four people. The evidence collected by the DNA-processing drone says otherwise. Now he’s languishing in San Quentin with no contact from family or his former fiancé for three long years.

It’s 2044 and in the dystopian reality of New California Republic, condemned inmates can volunteer for experimental drug testing to avoid lethal injection.

Researchers claim the revolutionary therapy known as the Isochron Treatment will rewrite the man’s immune response. But the vivid, horrific nightmares he experiences while under the drug’s effects lead him to suspect it may be rewriting his past, forcing him to remember things he does not wish to remember. It’s either that, or he’s going insane. Or maybe, just maybe, the drug’s main side-effect is not nightmares, but time travel.

Is there a chance he could prove his innocence by going straight to the scene of the crime?

Description

“A small story packed with big ideas. Imagine, if you will, remote viewing via pharmalogical means…but with consequences. Time-loops are always a tough nut, and Gregg Stewart cracks this one with a hammer.”—Kyle Toucher, author of The Medusa Psalms and Live Wire

“For anyone who’s dreamed of being in two places at once, Stewart’s latest, The Isochron Treatment is an unsettling, near-future prophecy. This story is a disorienting maze of violence, redemption, greed, and hope that would make Philip K. Dick proud.” —Jay Bechtol, author of Quimmering Springs

“Gregg Stewart stirs together an intriguing recipe: One part sci-fi, one part noir, one part horror, and more than a few surprising dashes of emotional connection spanning across the decades…and hope.”—Amanda M. Blake, author of In the Dollhouse We All Wait and Question Not My Salt