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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Time Travel Writing




As an avid reader of time travel fiction, movies, and TV series, not too surprisingly, I also enjoy writing time travel novels.

My young adult novel, DANGER IN TIME, involves a teenager who goes back in time ten years to save sister's life--only putting both teens in danger.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of time travel, black holes, and such. It is fun speculating on the theoretical twists, turns, and implications of time travel.

For instance, would I be dead or never born today, were I killed during a trip to the past? Or does the chicken or the egg come first when it concerns the time bending of traveling from the present?

Could a single change in time disrupt the entire future?

These are all intriguing questions, giving novelists and screenwriters ample possibilities to play with, leading to varying outcomes.

Some of my favorite time travel novels are:

1. THE MAP OF TIME by Félix J Palma
2. THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE by Audrey Niffenegger
3. THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells
4. A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle
5. BOTH SIDES OF TIME by Caroline Cooney

Amongst my favorite time travel series are:

1. THE TIME TUNNEL
2. BEING ERICA
3. STAR TREK
4. LOST IN SPACE
5. JOURNEYMAN

Favorite time travel movies include:

1. TIME AFTER TIME
2. THE TWO WORLDS OF JENNIE LOGAN
3. SOMEWHERE IN TIME
4. THE TIME MACHINE
5. THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE

What do you think about time travel? Where would you like to go if you could travel to the past or future?

What are you favorite time travel novels, movies, or television series?

5 comments:

  1. I actually think I'm not a big fan of time travel per se. I liked Bradbury's "Sound of Thunder" pretty well, and a few others. I've written only one story with Time Travel in it, but the travel was incidental. I actually did not like most of the Star Trek time travel episodes. I guess if I could time travel, I'd want to go back to the time when Jesus died. The big question, you know. I'd also love to see Dinosaurs! One time travel show I'll give a try is the new Terra Nova, which is coming this fall.

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  2. I don't seek out time travel stories and won't attempt to write one. To me that kind of exploration always raises more questions than are answered in the stories and the resolutions seldom seemed logical to me. The ones I love best are the spoofs like Back to the Future.

    I recall being hooked on Time Tunnel and Star Trek back in the day, but far too many inferior ripoffs have ruined it for me.

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  3. The two problems with time travel I've never seen anyone deal with (though perhaps someone has and I just don't know about it) are:
    1. If Einstein and Hawking have it right, very second is 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers)long. You're going to need the energy equivalent of pushing whatever mass you're sending 300,000 kilometers for every second you travel. And logically the perception of the traveler the experience would be of traveling every one of those kilometers. (Imagine an eighteen-million-mile road trip for every minute of time travel.)
    2. There's no evident, known, or suspected correlation between time and gravity. (The time dilation effect at the event horizon of a black hole has to do with acceleration.) So lets say the energy problem is solved and the time time travelers have something akin to the time dilation effect saving them from spending several hundred lifetimes in each other's company. The decide to jump back 525 years to warn the Tiano to kill all Europeans and burn their boats. (Because, really, a zero-tolerance immigration policy in the 15th century would have saved this hemisphere a lot of grief.) The trip goes perfectly and everyone dies on arrival. Because the earth is moving around the sun and the sun is moving through space. 525 years ago earth was nowhere near where it is now -- our intrepid revisionists would materialize in empty space.
    So, with few exceptions (Poul Anderson's The Man Who Came Early among them) I don't care much for time travel stories.

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  4. My favorite time travel book has always been Orion by Ben Bova. The way he handles time travel in that one is pretty mind-bending. Not to mention that it's a rousing action/adventure.

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  5. Time travel is theoretically possible by means of an Einstein-Rosen bridge (or wormhole) through space-time.

    There are many time-travelling adventures in science fiction. Among my favourites are: The Light of Other Days by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter; and Fallen Dragon by Peter F Hamilton.

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