Time Travel discussion
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Just One Damned Thing After Another
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Just One Damned Thing After Another: 1/1/18-2/28/18
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Ned, I really enjoyed your well-written explanation of why you didn't like The Circle. I do see what you mean; Mae frustrated me as well in the same way, i.e. why she chose to spend so much time updating her social media within the company when it took every ounce of extra time she had and left no time for an actual life. And I guess I did wonder why on earth she took the canoe/kayak out by herself when she was friendly with the owners of the rental place. Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to completely address your reasons for not enjoying the book. Even though I really got into the book and found it hard to put down, I can empathize with your view as well.
I had to suspend disbelief, as others did, but mostly with the wisdom of St. Mary’s leadership. Not the science (or lack of), but the clash between their intelligence and common sense. Would we really send “historians” with limited training to face prehistoric predators, ancient infernos, and combat zones? Well . . . of course we would! That’s where the action was. I enjoyed this book far more than I expected, the humor, the adventure, and the surprises. Well done.
Dean wrote: "I feel like a right grouch here, but this is a DNF for me. I just felt the author was trying way too hard to make every other thought or sentence Max spoke be funny. I was trying to treat the book ..."I DNF'd it myself. I did write a review to say why, but don't read it, y'all, if you liked the book because I don't want to spoil your memory of it.
Glad it wasn't just me Cheryl!
Well I did finish it, but can't say I am overly enthused. Parts of it I really enjoyed, and other just seemed pointless, like the book was trying to be too much , so not really doing any one particular part well.
It’s interesting how this book was either a hit, a miss and everything inbetween.
I'm curious to know how those of you who have read this and books in Kage Baker's The Company series compare the two.
I've read Kage's books and liked them -it's hard to compare the two, although the idea that agents can’t bring anything into the future, but they can hide things in the past and recover them later is present in both series, and makes a lot of sense, actually. I liked both series equally - both had good and bad points, but I had more fun with Jody's series - Kage's stories tend to be more serious. (But good! Highly recommended!)
Mod
I’d be interested in hearing your 5 Cardinal Rules of a good time travel story.
Nathan: Thanks for the interest. Rule Number One: No Paradoxes
The existence of a paradox merely proves your theory of time is no good. If there's a paradox, that means time doesn't actually function the way you have defined it in your story.
A time paradox story can be fun to read, but it's based on faulty premises.
H. G. Wells set up the rules for a credible time travel story in THE TIME MACHINE. If time is space, then time can be traveled through. You can't travel through a cause-effect chain. You can only travel through space.
In your own book IN TIMES LIKE THESE, you use the multiverse theory of time travel to avoid paradox. I learned about it from David Lake (who invented it) back in the eighties when I was at the Intensive Institute for the Teaching of Science Fiction. He was quite excited about it. In his theory, each time someone travels in a time machine from the present to the future or to the past, a new branch in time is caused, creating a new universe with its own timeline. You aren't traveling to your own past or future, so you cannot create a paradox.
Thus, in his sequel to THE TIME MACHINE, the time traveler cannot return to the same future in which he met Weena. By traveling again, he is creating a new future.
I can't remember if you can return to your point of origin in Lake's theory, but if you do, no paradox is involved. You just cannot return again to the same past or future you visited previously because if you travel again, it will create a new branching in time, and you will arrive at a new future or past.
I was amused by how your own characters in IN TIMES LIKE THESE use a map of multiverses to cross timelines in order to get home. By allowing your characters to cross multiverses, however, you re-introduce the possibility of paradox into your story.
Rule Number Two: No Instantaneous Travel
Time can be travelled in only if time is space. But travel through space is not instantaneous. Even a wormhole must have spatial dimensions, and it will take time to travel through it. Travel time will also be necessary to reach the wormhole and to go from its exit to the time/place you intend to visit. I can't even walk to my time machine instantaneously.
In your novel IN TIMES LIKE THESE, your characters basically teleport through time. It seems to them as if they have gone from the present instantaneously to the past, but that is an illusion of theirs. Even a signal doesn't cross space instantaneously. There is a pause, between when a signal is sent and when it arrives. If a radio or light signal is going to Mars, the delay will be between 4 and 24 minutes because of the great distance involved. In time travel even greater distances are usually involved because you are returning to where Earth was in the past (or ahead to where it will be in the future), thousands of miles away.
KUDOS to you for inventing a new way of time traveling. There are problems, however, with sending a signal over a vast distance. A signal generally loses strength in proportion to the square of its distance. Over great distances, a signal can get corrupted. That's why the Enterprise doesn't teleport itself across space. The teleportation is done only from orbit to the surface of a planet.
Rule Number Three: No Changing the Future
That is, no travel to change your own future. If I travel through three dimensions to where the Earth will be in the future, I will find only empty space. I have to travel through four dimensions to reach the spot where the Earth will actually be in the future, and if I do that, I may still find only empty space. There will be something there only if the universe is a four dimensional solid, similar to what Wells describes in THE TIME MACHINE.
If the universe is simply an ever-changing present, there will be no past or future to visit.
However, if the world is a four dimensional solid, then the future is already determined and cannot be changed. Wells describes the universe as a four dimensional solid upon which only our consciousness moves. Kurt Vonnegut reasons if only our consciousness moves, what need is there for a time machine? So his protagonist Billy Pilgrim simply comes unstuck in time and wanders mentally around the universe, able to see the future but unable to affect it.
To travel to the future and then return to the past to prevent that future involves a paradox. The paradox is rooted in the fact that the four dimensional solid cannot be changed.
Rule Number Four: No Personification of Time
Even Stephen Hawkings has posited that time may act to prevent paradoxes. However, this concept treats time as a person, a ridiculous anthropomorphic concept. It depicts time as some Dr. Whovian type that patrols the time stream, cleaning up the messes created by time travelers. This could make an entertaining farce but not a credible story of real time travel. The easiest way for time to prevent paradoxes is by making time travel impossible.
Rule Number Five: No Trips to Hunt or Study Dinosaurs
Visiting the dinosaurs does not pose any problems. It's just a cliche. I can explain it best by a cartoon that appeared in the latest NEW YORKER magazine. Two baby T-Rexes are complaining to their mother about their food: "Time Travelers for dinner AGAIN?"
I like to write stories which seem to involve paradoxes but really don't. In my stories time is a dynamic four dimensional solid instead of a static one. Changes can radiate throughout it because the solid is still growing at the present, and the future is empty space that it is growing into. The theory is more complicated than that, but I won't attempt to explain it here.
Mod
With all due respect, I disagree: one of the best time travel novels of all time, in my opinion, is "Up the Line", by Robert Silverberg, and it has several paradoxes.
Another thing, about terminology: a Multiverse is a collection of Universes, so it's always in the singular, e.g. "That Multiverse comprises nearly infinite Universes".
And the Multiverse idea appeared for the first time in 1957, with physicist Hugh Everett III.
I do enjoy a good paradox.
Mod
Celso wrote: "With all due respect, I disagree: one of the best time travel novels of all time, in my opinion, is "Up the Line", by Robert Silverberg, and it has several paradoxes." There's hardy any time travel novel that doesn't violate one of these rules, and even if a novel follows them, that doesn't guarantee it's good. For instance, I love the movie TOMORROWLAND, and it definitely has a paradox. But how can you dislike a movie that includes such a baldfaced lie as Eiffel, Tesla, and Verne designed a time traveling rocket and hid it in the Eiffel Tower? Credibility isn't everything.
Samantha wrote: "I think often when you start having rules, you stop having fun."I called my rules cardinal sins, not mortal sins. After all, sinning can be fun. These are sins against credibility, but as I said, credibility isn't everything. There are other story elements that can sometimes be more important. I gave ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER a positive review, despite its sins.
I have to say that I don't mind the odd paradox, but they do make my head hurt, and often leave me feeling a bit dumb...
You're not dumb, Dean. They're supposed to make your head hurt. That's the appeal.
Time Travel
Books mentioned in this topic
In the Garden of Iden (other topics)Doomsday Book (other topics)
Just One Damned Thing After Another (other topics)
What I didn't like about THE CIRCLE was the characters. They didn't seem real to me. I didn't like them. They weren't interesting. Their motivation was lacking. There was no reason to care about them. I felt the book had too much of the IDIOT PLOT, the story that couldn't happen unless the characters behave like idiots. Mae's character just didn't add up. Why did she do the things she did? I understand she wanted to succeed and wanted to be liked, but that explains only a tiny fraction of her actions. The characters make bad choices for no apparent reason other than to further the intention of making The Circle look bad. As I said in my post, the supporting characters can be inexplicable, but unless the reader can relate somehow to the main character, the book is likely to fail. Your description of the book addresses its premise, which I liked, but not its characters.
When I'm reading along, and I say to the main character "no, don't do that. Why are you doing that?" it's a bad sign. I don't have to like a main character or resemble them to like a book (for instance Ripley in THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY), but I have to relate to the characters somehow (I sympathize with Ripley; I feel sorry for Ripley, but I'm not like him). For me THE CIRCLE is a throw it at the wall kind of book. I can't feel anything for Mae because she's completely unreal and her choices don't add up. Her pointless actions irritate me rather than make me feel sorry for her. I could not give it more than one star because I hated reading it despite liking the premise and finished it only because of stubbornness and because I wanted to figure out why people liked it and what made it was so horrible.