Join us as we travel through myth, memory, and history, exploring the unfolding drama of the Avi Kwa Ame landscape as it responds to the Earth’s ever-changing forces of nature. We’ll tour the town of Searchlight during its mining era heyday, visit Spirit Mountain in the age of beginnings, and wander through the Joshua Trees with the megafauna of the last ice age. Time is a lens through which we categorize the life we know, appreciate fleeting but extraordinary experiences, gain perspective about the past, and prepare ourselves for the futures that are yet to come.

The style of this issue explores ways to investigate and demarcate the constructs of time, while celebrating the adventure of time travel. It utilizes a number of systems, like visual timelines, different time scales, and themed chronologies, designed to package time-based information (especially inspiring was the 1871 Adam’s Synchronological Map of History). This information is supplemented by illustrations, notes, photos, artifacts, newspaper clippings, and maps: each to be given equal value to help present the story.

The cover art is an alteration of the 1863 Jules Verne Voyages Extraordinaires book cover. The stories of Jules Verne represent the interest the public had in the new scientific discoveries of the time (like advances in engineering, the theory of natural selection, and the formation of modern anthropology). During the second half of the 19th century, Verne investigated both the past and the future through his work, and like him, we aim to glean the best from countless ages, epochs and eras, to bring you the most informative and entertaining time-travel journal you have ever experienced.

Cheers!

Kim Garrison Means, Steve Radosevich
Editors, Searchlight Gold Beam