Time Travel discussion
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Time and Again
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TIME AND AGAIN: General Discussion (June 2014)
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Amy wrote: "Mark wrote: "David wrote: "Before Sturgeon, sci-fi was mostly about concept (with an adequate storyline, and 14-year-old-boy character). Language, as long as it was clear (after Asimov) didn’t ente..."Actually, I wanted to scream Get to the point! after the first couple of chapters. The inciting incident comes pretty quickly (the visit by Prien) but it's 20% into the story before much happens. And, as you said Amy - the last 1/3 of the book is where the story finally gets going. So the fact that it was over-written before we even get to the time-travel means that it's not just about the research - it's about the damned writer not being edited. Grr!
Apparently there was a sequel: From Time to Time. Apparently the option for the original was sold again in 2012.
Blog post for the sake of completeness: http://markspeed.co.uk/do-your-resear...
Since Finney and PKD were both writing sci-fi and living near each other (you could probably throw Frank Herbert into that mix as well, in the early 50s) I wonder if they ever got together? That might have been an interesting place (to be a fly on the wall).
The last day of June and the end of the reading period, I want to post my thoughts on Time and Again. I read it for the first time a few weeks ago and loved it. I gave it four stars and a positive review. Much of the criticism from the group has centered on what they perceive as excessive use of detail and description, or a general lack of good editing. Not everyone views books the same, or art, or anything else for that matter. I liked it just the way it was. I liked the extended detailed descriptions because it helped to paint the mental picture of 1880s New York City that I was looking for. That aspect was more important to me than the main parts of the plot.
I will say in overall defense of the book, with 7,000 ratings on Goodreads, it has an avg. of a four star rating. So I don't think I'm the only one who liked it. It's not the best time travel novel ever written, but it's not bad, and it deserves it's due.
It has been several years since I have read it and I don't recall having a problem with the level of detail. If anything, I would probably have enjoyed it. After all, isn't one of the reasons we read to visit places we can't go to in person, a reason that is all the more relevant when you are talking about time travel?
Good genre fiction expands the genre, and I think Finney did this—making TT psychological, rather than technological (gadgets).
Mod
And it brings me around to our final discussion question that I meant to pay attention to in closer detail while reading:
POST-READING DISCUSSION QUESTION
Is it possible that the time travel was 100% in Si's mind and that he never really traveled at all anywhere except in his mind? He did so much studying of the past and his (view spoiler) Did he bring back any physical artifacts of proof of his time travel? Yes, he initially brought (view spoiler)back with him. But did anyone see (view spoiler)
Oh, I like that. However, I believe that the sequel (a much less fun book) does put paid to the idea. Clearly the experience was real if other people are plotting against you and trying to foil your achievement.
Mod
It's been so long since I read the sequel. Is it possible that Si pieced together enough information under hypnosis from information pieces he already had that the truths were uncovered through mental sleuthing versus actually traveling to the past? Whether the discoveries were a result of time travel to the past or piecing together previously known details through hypnosis, would the results be the same in having people try to plot against him?
Amy wrote: "..."That may be the problem with introducing a psychological mechanisms: Occam’s razor would indicate that regression is more likely to lead to a belief that one has time traveled, rather than actual time travel. Le Guin (in the book some of the sci-fi people are reading this month) has a similar problem with George Orr, but the third person narrative helps. I watched the James Caan/Lucas Haas Lathe of Heaven film last night, and even with a third-person objective narration, they were able to create an intentional ambiguity (not on the page, IMO) as to whether the changes were psychological or actual (and if actual, who was psychologically aware).
Of course, when you read a book or watch a film, you make an implicit agreement to suspend disbelief (and the third person objective narrator becomes an unimpeachable witness).
David wrote: "Amy wrote: "..."That may be the problem with introducing a psychological mechanisms: Occam’s razor would indicate that regression is more likely to lead to a belief that one has time traveled, ra..."
Hmm. We're getting into a dangerously Descartian view of reality here... but I like it! :-)
Of course, maybe the narrator's a BIV, in which case we're all screwed ;<)
This reminds me a little of the discussion in Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club as to the possibility that Charlotte Lucas is a lesbian (and Jane Austen doesn’t know it).
BIVYeah. Don’t we always feel it a cheat when we discover that the writer is intentionally misleading us? How is this different from a writer using a narrator with undisclosed blind spots?
Mod
Hollow World, I urge you to at least try a sample from any major ebook publisher. I just finished reading it, and it's definitely in my top 5 favorite time travel reads list. I think you'll not regret giving it a try, even if it is more than 99 cents. I think you'll all love it.
You've convinced me. Got a lot going on right now but will try to squeeze this in! :)
I enjoyed both this story and the sequel: 
I wish Jack Finney had time to write the third novel before he passed away.
The story is like a complex puzzle with pieces from the past and future fitting together. I love it when the author brings the "native" into our world (i.e. Tarzan into the city). We get a chance to see Julia's reaction to our modern world and what Si wants to keep hidden (war, crime). I love the line where Julia wonders how people can pull themselves away from watching television. I think of that line every time I tell my kids to "Turn that thing off and go outside to play!" :)
My only reservation with the story is the psychological method of time travel. Really? I'm more of a hard sci-fi guy, and that just doesn't fly.
~JT
The problem with gadget TT is that the gadget is usually a (not too plausible) distraction.
I've written a TT trilogy, and I am sorry to report that my gadget is pure balonium.
I'm most interested in the way characters change as they time travel, what their travels actually do to them as people.
Brenda wrote: "I've written a TT trilogy, and I am sorry to report that my gadget is pure balonium."LOL @ Pure Balonium
Yeah, the gadget is not what interests me. The hero is an action-adventure theologian, and in each book the payoff is the moral and theological dilemmas that TT gets you into.
Aren’t the best TT gadgets all eye candy (gaudily distractive, so you don’t question the “how” of it)? They aren’t really science, they’re second-order pseudoscience (like an extrapolation of Feynman’s “cargo-cult”) drawing off the TT gadgets that seem to have worked elsewhere (H.G. Wells chair ==> Doc Brown’s Delorean).
David wrote: "Aren’t the best TT gadgets all eye candy (gaudily distractive, so you don’t question the “how” of it)? They aren’t really science, they’re second-order pseudoscience (like an extrapolation of Feynm..."David, I would disagree. TT gadgets could be eye candy, depending on how close to hard science fiction the author makes it. Most gadgets more than 50 years into the future would be theoretical at best, so the term "eye candy" could be used for any of them: AI, FTL travel and communication, etc.
I'm an engineer, so I like gadgets. I am working on a TT series of novels, and I've spent a lot of time -- too much time, according to my wife -- researching current theories of TT. I've settled on one that's partially feasible thanks to Kip Thorne. He was a professor of Theoretical Physics at Cal Tech, and a colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan. So, more than just eye candy here. We've moved on to mind candy.
Do I seriously think TT is possible? Nah. But it's fun to dabble, and it's important to me, because as a sci-fi author, I need three things to make any sci-fi gadget work:
1. The gadget needs to be believable enough for the reader to suspend his/her credibility,
2. The gadget need to be consistent - If I say you can't transport during warp, then by God, I better not do it, and
3. The laws behind a gadget cannot contradict the laws behind other gadgets.
Gadgets are a sub-set of world building, and as such, are a critical part of the sci-fi genre. Get them right, and they blend into the story; get them wrong, and they are a distraction.
~JT
My other idea was that TT was a side effect. The real project was FTL, and TT was just one of the fringe things. That was fun.
Brenda wrote: "My other idea was that TT was a side effect. The real project was FTL, and TT was just one of the fringe things. That was fun."OOh I like that, Brenda.
It's Einstein -- that going FTL means you travel through time. I was driving to Boston with Catherine Asaro, who is a physicist, and, poor woman! While she was trapped with me in the car I pried enough jargon out of her to make it convincing in the book. So she told me to send it to ANALOG, and they bought it, or at least the first several chapters. It eventually became REVISE THE WORLD.
Eye candy: I’m thinking in particular of things with flashing lights, or shiny baubles that might attract the eye of a raven or pack rat. I think TT as a MacGuffin works perfectly well (a predestination paradox, or even silly things like King’s door in 11/22/63). In fact, someone should invent time-travel-by-mammary—you know, stare at the ingénue’s cleavage, count backwards from ten, and you end up as a waiter in the background of that Mansfield/Loren publicity photo (1957).
Sorry, somehow getting back to this late.I gotta say, telling Finney to 'get to the point' is, well, not appropriate. This is not a story with a point. Nor is a thrilling action-adventure. If you don't want to go on the journey and read all the details, then, fine, it's not the book for you. But that doesn't make it a weaker book.
I, personally, *prefer* the under-edited older stories, with all their concepts and details. I do *not* like page-turners. Different books for different tastes, eh? :)
Cheryl, that’s an interesting attitude. Personally, while I might edit out some of the archival stuff, I probably wouldn't have in 1970. But if you can get it done in 400 pages, length isn’t the problem. What can kill a 400 page novel for me (more than an over-inclusive content) is bland language.Of course, we can’t tell Finney anything. I suspect that if we could, he wouldn't listen. And why should he?
Since he's deceased, you do want to power up your time machine to do it.
Yeah, I'm finding, more and more, that I like older books.
Time Travel
Books mentioned in this topic
From Time to Time (other topics)Hollow World (other topics)
From Time to Time (other topics)
Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney (other topics)
Winter's Tale (other topics)
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Oh. I'd forgotten this came later in his writing career. You know, if they could make a movie out of the thinly plotted Body Snatchers, they could make a movie out of this. Wow. I think I've really turned into the opposite of a fan of Finney. I know a guy who writes/talks like Finney with a similar voice. And the funny thing is that I'm bored of him, too. Either I'm projecting one onto another or I'm just not in the mood for either anymore. I guess we all change as time marches on. I'm sorry, Finney; it's me, not you. Oh, well, it might be a little bit you, too.