RABBIT HOLE (The Paradox Series):General Discussion (August 2014)

[Amy, Queen of Time]

Lincoln wrote: "Reading Question 1
To which call are you referring?

Amy,

Near the beginning of the book, they were testing Nora's trustworthiness and seeing if she would call and report the parachutist."

I would think that call would be essential. If there was one noticeable breach, anything else could have happen elsewhere in history.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Chapter 17 reminds me of a book...

The Things They Carried

[Garrett]

Duane wrote: "Mentioning Pearl Harbor reminded me of the movie, Final Countdown, about the US aircraft carrier that found itself transported back in time to Dec. 6, 1941, just prior to the attack. They had the firepower to stop it or alter the outcome, but didn't.."

Duane,

Thanks for reminding us of this movie. We found it on Amazon Prime last night and watched it. Don't you know those folks in the boat must have thought aliens from outer space had come to town when those F14s flew over.

[Garrett]

Lincoln wrote: "Chapter 17 reminds me of a book...

The Things They Carried"


Yep, that's what we were going for. Loved that book.

[Nate, First Tiger]

Lincoln Wrote: "Chapter 17 reminds me of a book...
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien"

I got to meet Tim O'Brien at a writers conference in January. Such an inspiring writer. His talk was definitely the highlight of the conference.

[Garrett]

Has anyone done as Nick and Nora did, and carried some small thing with them during a journey or challenge to serve as a means to keep tethered to their home, family, or sense of self?

We have, here's our individual answers.

Cynthia: I carry my cell phone now, with photos that I can look at as I travel. For years, I carried a flattened penny I had had since I was a child. Then later, a small flat stone with a jaguar painted on it.

Michael: For years I carried a US dollar bill that I found on the bottom of the ocean, about 160 feet down, while I was scuba diving in the Caribbean.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Garrett wrote: "Has anyone done as Nick and Nora did, and carried some small thing with them during a journey or challenge to serve as a means to keep tethered to their home, family, or sense of self?

We have, h..."

160 feet wow that's deep for Scuba diving Michael...can only stay down a few minutes at that depth.

[Garrett]

Correct, Lincoln, it is. I was at about 130ft when I saw a perfect bill and went down for it. I picked it up, looked around hoping to see a bag of money it came from, and finding none, returned to safer depths.

[Amy, Queen of Time]

I noticed this is a theme of the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. He risks his life to go get his mixed tape out of his ship because it's his one thing from Earth that tethers him to Earth. All the astronauts in the last book I read, Damocles, all had their important piece of home with them on their trip through the universe. It's interesting to see that I theme keeps coming up lately in various things I've read/watched.

I personally am not very sentimental. I prefer memories to objects. If I were leaving my time or planet forever, I'd want to take a family picture with me. Otherwise, things are just things.

[David]

I like the Napoleon quote, improved by David Milch: “History is the lie agreed upon.” Okay, I guess he didn’t say it in English, unless he was spitting it at Wellington, and I’m guessing that if he did say it in English, he wouldn’t have ended his sentence in a preposition (although, maybe he would, just to piss off Wellington) but you know what I mean. “History” is a coherent set of lies. If you change the set of lies, yet get them to cohere, the old set of lies still cohere for everyone else, and so you have two histories (coherence theory of truth) where you formerly had one (or 10 where you had 9). Changing history can be less painless than changing dirty diapers. If you're concerned about people ceasing to exist (the grandpa paradox) couldn't you just assume that they're floating off with their own set of lies? (This is fiction, and we can make reality whichever way we'd like.)

I just got the book and have only read the first three chapters, but: why can’t we travel back within our own lifetimes? Do we individually “own” our atoms and molecules? Don’t we change them out anyway on a fairly regular basis? If we were required to rip our organic molecules from an extant, younger self, wouldn’t we also be required to rip DNA from our grandparents, or extant Roman Legionnaires? Not enough to hurt the Romans? How much commandeered matter would be too much (and who decides)? I’m assuming that this is a plot point further down the narrative road, but if you can’t produce a facile yet plausible explanation, then you probably shouldn’t offer any explanation (no one is making you).

Also, why did MIT (view spoiler)[let Marcus go (hide spoiler)]? More to the point: why did they let his potentially lucrative research go (remember the stink over Cold Fusion—which didn’t even work—between Fleischmann, Pons and the University of Utah)? Is there a reason why the government granted a license rather than a patent? A patent requires a certain amount of disclosure. Does Rabbit Hole have the only functioning bubble (which seems to be the case)? Why doesn’t the government (charged with oversight) have their own bubble in area 51? Would they even grant a license for private time travel if they didn’t know how it worked (were not able to reproduce it themselves)?

[Garrett]

Amy,

Carl Jung was fascinated by how often ideas/inventions etc seemed to spring up at scattered seemingly unrelated places. He opined it was a function of the 'collective unconscious'.

Whatever its cause, we see it all the time, even on the Comic page in the newspaper. Have you ever noticed how often two or more comic strips will feature the same object/animal/theme etc. Just out of the blue with no connection to current events.

I expect the notion of carrying something with you has been around since Neanderthals wandered out of their favorite cave. It isn't a thing you carry, but more a memory attached to a thing.

[Garrett]

David wrote: "I like the Napoleon quote, improved by David Milch: “History is the lie agreed upon.” Okay, I guess he didn’t say it in English, unless he was spitting it at Wellington, and I’m guessing that if he..."

David,

Every author of time travel must chose what 'natural laws' will govern their science, and then write the book in line with what has been created. Then, the next author can take it in a totally different direction defying all the 'natural laws' created by the authors that came before. A freedom science fiction enjoys more than other genre.

As to your other questions, and good ones they are: MIT had lost faith in Marcus' time travel research and didn't think he could make it happen. You'll have to keep reading to see if Rabbit Hole has the only Bubble and why the government made the choices it did.

[David]

Garret,

My problem was more with the explanation than the selection (I think you would have been better off not attempting an explanation).

Okay. Maybe one more question while I’m starting.

Nora has bubbled into the RH shed at Lakehurst for the particular moment of the Hindenburg Disaster “so many times that she could count it down like the drop of the Big Ball at Time Square.” So why doesn’t she see herself when she gets there? For that matter, why hasn’t the crowd at Lakehurst become dominated by RH time-tourists?

BTW, thank you for being here, so I can ask questions rather than simply mutter to myself.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Answer to reading question 4:

I think I would enjoy all the different roles, researching the past, probably not the costume design...and of course going and being on a mission would be cool. But realistically, I am computer guy. I would be back with Jonas hanging out in my lab manning a computer at mission control.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Reading Question 5

What strengths does Nora bring to the organization that is the Paradox Force?

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

David wrote: "Garret,

My problem was more with the explanation than the selection (I think you would have been better off not attempting an explanation).

Okay. Maybe one more question while I’m starting.

No..."

Good Question David...

[Amy, Queen of Time]

Reading Question 4
At Rabbit Hole, my job wouldn't be any on the list. I'd be the person who coordinates the Rabbit Hole program. I'd coordinate who has applied to jump, where they're jumping to, and when. I'd also be the person in charge of checking for discrepancies between Jekyll and Hyde after they return. Doesn't sound much different than my regular day job. :-)

~*~*~*
You know, one thing that really bothers me about the storyline is Jonas putting on Napware to pretend to be asleep in one room while he really sleeps in another. It seems like using Napware in this way is supposed to be a security measure against anyone tampering with the computers in the room in which he is fake napping. But don't they have a whole slew of guards? Why fake nap to guard your computers when you've got guards that can do so? Or is the point that they're not sure if the guards are trustworthy or not?

[David]

Ivana wrote: "wouldn't traveling back to a specific point in time add that time to their own timeline, therefore canceling themselves out..."

That's an interesting tweak—kind of a time-line suicide—but it would be okay, more like recycling. If you dematerialize here and then you come back, where do you find your molecules? (Maybe you keep them in a pattern buffer.)

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

David wrote: "Ivana wrote: "wouldn't traveling back to a specific point in time add that time to their own timeline, therefore canceling themselves out..."

That's an interesting tweak—kind of a time-line suicid..."

Going Star Trek on us David...Teleportation and time travel go hand in hand....All part of the space-time continuum!

[David]

I taught a class in Engineering Ethics, and used Star Trek clips (relevant to the topic of the day) as filler, while I was waiting for the students to roll in. ST has all the virtues of well-developed science fiction: it creates a world which is reductive enough to contemplate, but filled with enough controversy that it’s worth contemplating.

[Garrett]

Amy,

Rabbit Hole would have coordinators, so there would be a job opening there. But the job of comparing Jekyll and Hyde is done at Paradox headquarters by the computer known as the Interface. And Ethan is in charge of all three computers, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde and the Interface. Ethan helped Marcus develop the system, so I don’t think he would give up his position without a fight.

Ethan is also the one who invented Napware. He originally used it to project himself working, so that he could sneak a nap, thus the name. However, on the night you speak of, the concern was that there was a Ripper mole at Paradox, and just as the Rippers had tried to kill Nora, they might try to kill or kidnap Ethan. They didn’t know who the mole might be, guard or otherwise. Ever since Marcus had been kidnapped, Ethan had been sleeping at night in his lab, just in case the Interface alerted of an alteration of which he could then advise Jonas, who was sleeping in his lab at Rabbit Hole, and together they could track the Ripper’s Bubble coming back from where it caused the alteration. On that night, to protect Ethan while he slept, they used Napware to project him sleeping in his lab, while he was actually sleeping in another room at Paradox, guarded by C.C.’s trusted men.

And we say hop, not jump, it is after all Rabbit Hole Time Travel, and bunnies hop.


David,

When a person hops into the past they are only visiting the past, they do not stay there. So when they leave, nothing of them remains. All of their molecules are in one place, or another, never any two at the same time.


Ivana,

Yes, at some point, you have to suspend disbelief and accept the ‘natural laws’ and ‘science’ of time travel as presented by the particular book you are reading, and then read on.


Lincoln,

You nailed it. You wouldn’t wonder how Spock could materialize in one place, and then beam up back on board the Enterprise. He just does. He is always only in one place.

We are very much enjoying this discourse. Keep the questions and comments coming.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Michael and Cynthia,

My question may contain unintended spoilers so I will ask it behind spoiler tags. The question is regarding Chapters 23 and 24.

(view spoiler)[What made you decide to alter history regarding polio? Were you concerned that treating something, in the collective Jung sub-conscience just a generation ago...lightly and how the public would view you? Maybe that's a stupid way to word it, but people who remember polio have some very tender and strong emotions regarding it right?

Further, how was it decided to involve real people in history and how did you decide to write their personalities. I for one am not convinced in the space of two very short chapters that Salk would be demanding that Nick and Nora leave the house and at the end of the chapter agreeing to inject himself. I guess the power of an Ipad with youtube could be convincing, how did that play in how you wanted to portray real people?

I also question the motives of the rippers...they are just really really greedy...would they also be this evil? If its mere money they desire, with time travel money is a given...

That being said, I understand the idea of Nick and Nora and a small group going on corrective missions like special ops, however if time travel is involved...Deploy a brigade....Have war on a grand scale....nothing really sticks because the loser just goes back and changes it to their advantage...that is how I envision it evolving into bigger and bigger battles. Nick and Nora go back to fix something...so the rippers send four goons to take them out...Nick sees them and decides to bring a team of six armed men...Rippers bring a dozen...and so forth...

Explain again how you avoid all these paradoxes by making the story flow linearly despite time travel.

can't wait for book two...The Apocaparadox! (hide spoiler)]

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Reading Question 7

What historical events would you like to see in future Paradox Series books?

[Garrett]

Lincoln,

Many good questions.
(view spoiler)[One:
We saw the chapters on the polio vaccine as being a way to show how far into evil the Rippers were willing to go. By converting Salk’s unpatented vaccine, into their own patented one, they could corner the market on a product that was in tremendous demand at that time. The profits would have been astronomical and would have established their pharmaceutical company as the world’s largest and most powerful. Many people would not have been able to afford the vaccine. The alteration would have also put the Rippers’ company in place to repeat those grand profits when it secretly reintroduces the virus in modern (2025) when most children are no longer vaccinated because the disease was believed to be eradicated.

We also thought this tied into real-life current events. As those chapters detail, the disease is endemic today (2014) in three countries, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where large numbers of people are refusing to vaccinate their children. At the same time, the issue of the safety and need of vaccines is a hotly debated topic in the U.S. and other countries where the disease is currently eradicated. By presenting the real and present danger of polio today, we felt that rather than treating the subject lightly, we were speaking to both painful memories we as a people share, and worrisome issues we must face together now and in the future.

Two:
The holograms which Nora projected from her tablet into the air, which showed Donna Salk in an iron lung and the Salk children being carried out on stretchers, we think, would convince the Salks of 1952 that Nick and Nora truly were from the future.

Three:
In the story, once the Rippers knew a particular alteration had been discovered and corrected, they just moved on to another time and place because it would otherwise have been a game like tic-tac-toe. If the Rippers had ever succeeded to either avoid detection or correction, it might have been game over, and Nick knew that and that’s why he worked so diligently to correct each alteration as it happened. For example: If Nixon had remained in office under the control of the blackmailing Rippers, Paradox most likely would not have existed and the world would have become what the Rippers felt was to their best advantage. So, the linear pattern of our book worked for our story, where the looping back and forth works for other authors in other stories.

Four:
We researched the real people we wrote about and tried to stay true to what we knew of them, and their personalities, as we wrote.

Salk was known to love to interact with people without regard to their status. He was often found chatting with strangers in the street. He showed true concern for the everyday people around him, such as the milkman he thought he was greeting when he opened the door to Nick and Nora. We also know that even though he and his wife were later to divorce, they were united in their love and concern for their children. Salk was incredibly motivated to help all of society, and where he could have become an extremely wealthy man, he chose instead to release his vaccine into the public domain so that it could be cheaply produced and delivered.

Tesla became a very eccentric man as he grew older. He often claimed to have helped the government in some ways, and may indeed have. He claimed to have developed secret weapons that were never found, or so history as we know it says. We tried to present him as he would have been just before he first went to college. The background we give for him in the book is accurate. How he came to pay for college in the book vs real history, well, wait to read about that.
(hide spoiler)]

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Michael and Cynthia,

Love having you here to ask questions. So fun to ask the author directly. Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions.

[David]

Garrett wrote: "When a person hops into the past they are only visiting the past, they do not stay there. So when they leave, nothing of them remains. All of their molecules are in one place, or another, never any two at the same time...."

But they're operating in time-space. If my body were to burn up today, that wouldn't remove my body from yesterday. If I move my molecules to 1937 and then back to 2025, they existed consecutively in those two places. There is the timeline (linear: 1937, 1938, 1939, yada yada) and then there is the timeline of my molecules (nonlinear: 2024, 2025, 1937, 2025).

You should have thought this through a little more.

[Garrett]

Lincoln wrote: "Michael and Cynthia,

Love having you here to ask questions. So fun to ask the author directly. Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions."

It is our pleasure.

[Garrett]

Lincoln wrote: "Reading Question 7

What historical events would you like to see in future Paradox Series books?"

We asked this question when we were the August 2013 Giveaway book. We got some great answers.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Garrett]

Ivana,

We won't say which one, but we do have one of your choices in our next book.

My sister and I have recently been studying our genealogy, so yes, I agree, time travel would be a very good way to fill in those hard-to-research gaps in one's family history.

I personally, would be hesitant to go into the future. It seems to me that hope is the food that brings us to the table of life. If we know with certainty that we will receive what we strive for, would it be as much fun working toward that end? If we know from having been to the future, that our cause will fail, what do we come back and do? Do we shoot for something else? Then what? And for that matter, could we? If I were to travel into the future, I would go far far ahead to a place that was only distantly relative to my lifetime.

Cynthia (The Garrett half of Garrett Smith)

[David]

We all travel into the future. Traveling into the past lets us do it with a playbook. What makes the travel interesting is what we choose to do with the playbook. If it’s just an addition to our powerbase, then it feels like a narrative cheat and we quickly loose interest. I watched the Smallville episode last night where Clark digs this Superman-sized hole, and then gets out of it by using his Legion ring to go back in time and cancel it all out. I won’t be able to watch another episode until my Alzheimer’s kick in.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Chapter 38

(view spoiler)[



I said it before and I will say it again. Dr. Woodall everyone...its the line that makes me think he is so evil...

Fools...They are the ones without a clue!

(hide spoiler)]

[Garrett]

Lincoln,

Funny!

(view spoiler)[Hm...I wonder if he's available for a series? We haven't found the actor we think would play Dr. Woodall. Can anyone think of an actor who looks sort of like a fish?> (hide spoiler)]

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Chapter 47

(view spoiler)[ My favorite passage!!

Pavel felt like he had gotten hold of the wrong end of a chainsaw. Eden's hands, feet, elbows and knees pummeled him meeting his every move with another blitz of strikes. When she let go and stepped back, his cheek bones were crushed, his nose broken, his left knee was shattered, his right shoulder and elbow dislocated.
He reached painfully with his left hand for his gun, and then realized that in the fury of her attack, she had taken it from his holster.

Looking forward to Eden on future corrective missions.

The scene reminds me of another scene from Lord of the Rings..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSNPe...

(hide spoiler)]

[Garrett]

Love it! Who is this actress? We agree that she would make a great Eden.

[Garrett]

In our book, many of our characters have, to some degree, spent part of their lives as an outcast.

Nora so emotionally isolated herself from others; she could claim only one true friend. For years, Marcus was shunned by his peers who believed the notion of time travel was an absurdity. Nick was unable to trust anyone he had not served with during his military career. Jonas was a child prodigy rejected by his father and grandparents long before his fellow students had their turn shunning him. Born to great wealth, Ethan intentionally removed himself from his dysfunctional blended family’s “Die Nasty”, as he like to call it.

But it is Woodall who is truly the outcast. Snobbish, void of social skills, blind to the needs of others, arrogant, and unapologetically self-centered.

A. Have you ever been an outcast? Did the experience change you in any way?
B. What makes a person become an outcast like Woodall?
C. And what inspires an outcast to help the society that has rejected him?

[Nate, First Tiger]

A. I think being an outcast definitely changes you. It changes what you want and expect from life, but I think it also depends on what phase of life you are in at the time. I was home-schooled in California for much of my childhood, then moved across country to a little town in PA where all the kids had been together since kindergarten. At at time when everyone wants nothing more than to fit in, that was challenging. Had it occurred at at different time I think the results would have been different. I think those kinds of situations are the fire that forge your character, either for good or bad. Because after all, what is life if not adversity?

B. I think Woodall would be someone who was an outcast early and never found a social outlet. I think there is a window of opportunity that needs to be capitalized on prior to a certain point or the person closes up and stops trying. Then it's even harder to adapt. In my own life I met a gregarious goofball friend sophomore year who completely altered my view of high school. The difference between no friends and one friend is a massive divide. Once you can cross that, the jump to having lots of great friends is not so tough. The value of that one person in someone's life should never be underestimated. I imagine Woodall as the guy who never met his one friend.

C. I think the inspiration to help others is something we all have. I am a proponent of natural law and call me crazy, but I still believe people are inherently good. That being said, having the courage to help others despite having been hurt by society takes a lot of guts. I think the ones who fail at that or are not given the chance, are the people who are likely to channel that desire into aggression. There is a thin line being walked there. Woodall is a character who would be familiar with straddling that edge.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Well said Nathan!

[Nate, First Tiger]

Lincoln wrote: Well said Nathan!

Thanks, Lincoln!

Good thought-provoking questions from Michael and/or Cynthia.

[Garrett]

Nathan wrote: "The difference between no friends and one friend is a massive divide.

This is so true.

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

My Review of Rabbit Hole:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

A year ago at this time, Rabbit Hole was our featured giveaway. As part of the giveaway I posted an author interview. I thought it would be good to post it again here. Also, I am sure if anyone has additional questions the authors would love to answer them.

Tonight...We are bringing you an interview of Cynthia Garrett Smith and Michael Smith co-writing together as Garrett Smith

The Authors of: Rabbit Hole


How did Michael C. Smith and Cynthia K. Garrett, come to be Garrett Smith?

As a married couple, we deal with having two last names. People never know how to address their greeting cards to us. Often our mail is addressed to just first names. So, when we started writing Rabbit Hole, we decided to write as Garrett Smith, but not to hide the fact that we are a husband and wife writing team.

Why time travel? Appreciation for history, or the desire to explore the future?

We chose time travel because it is such fertile ground for a writer’s imagination. The human condition revolves around the past - thinking of the path not followed, second guessing our decisions, wanting to know what really happened, or simply wishing to return to re-live cherished experiences. Yes, we have a great appreciation for history. We especially like to learn about history while reading fiction. So naturally we enjoy writing about historical events in our own books. Then, of course, we get to twist history and spin the altered events into our plot. Such fun! Of course, we’re all curious to see into the future. In Rabbit Hole, only time travel into the past is possible. The Paradox Force is studying time travel into the future. But you’ll have to wait and read our books which will follow, to see if they succeed.

How does the co-writing process work?

We start with a long road trip. We talk and write ideas in a spiral notebook. When we get home, we pull those ideas together into a broad outline, throwing out un-workable ideas, and expanding on those that seem viable.

We continue to tighten our overview outline, until we have the skeleton of our story. Then we outline a few chapters at a time.

Working from the chapter outline, we write that chapter’s first draft together. Then we take the first draft and edit, together and separately, meeting at the computer, where we polish that chapter. Once we have a chapter honed, we add it to the manuscript file.

The process is not unlike fine woodworking. You cut, shape, sand, finish, and polish. In our case, we are just doing it together.

How do you work together on the male versus female viewpoints?

You might be surprised. Sometime we almost reverse roles, and say, Michael will take the lead on a female’s plotline, while Cynthia will take the lead on a male’s. In the end, we work toward an authentic character that still can surprise the reader.

What helps you write dialogue?

This is one area where working as a team really helps. If you just write dialogue by yourself, you often hear it differently in your head, than it sounds spoken out loud. We read the conversation out loud, almost like a play. It’s important to us that each character has his or her own voice. Because we’ve talked about them so much before we start writing, we know how each character should sound – grammar, cadence, vocabulary, etc.

Do you often disagree with plot lines? How do you decide which way to go with a story?

We do not often disagree, but it does happen. We each try to convince the other, and in doing so, usually convince ourselves that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Or, sometimes, we decide we’re both wrong, and take another direction entirely.

Rabbit Hole is Book 1 in the Paradox Series. What’s next?

Next, we will release four special edition back stories that will dovetail into Rabbit Hole. We have these outlined and pretty well locked down. We anticipate releasing these in the near future.

Then, in 2014, we will release Book 2. Although, we have Book 2 broadly outlined, we are asking our readers for input on some possibilities. For example, we have asked elsewhere on Goodreads, what the readers think about adding a dog as a major part of the story. The answer was a resounding YES.

Do you intend the book to become a movie?

We are both very visual people. It worked well for us to visualize the characters as a known face (actor). And yes, we would love to see the book become a movie.

What actors do you envision to play the parts of your characters?

We love this question, so much so, we’d like our readers to tell us who they have in mind. Our mental casting choices are not fixed in stone. We want to hear from the Goodreads community on their casting ideas.

You took special care to avoid paradoxes. Why? Besides beyond avoiding non-linear chaos and confusion, of course.

The theories of the consequences of time travel are myriad. We found that we needed to define the ‘science’ of time travel as it would play out in our series to keep the story line tight. Then, we wrote the story within those parameters.

How does writing fit in with your full time jobs?

We are both self-employed, which gives us some flexibility in our schedules. We are both committed to writing, so we find the time. At some level, we are always thinking about the series. We have a running dialogue about the series that can take place in all of our in-between moments such as when we are driving across town or across the country. We often pause movies, or stop what we are reading, to discuss how plots are moved forward or characters are developed

The number of books you have mentioned sounds like a lot of time and effort. How do you make the time?

We don’t care for the party or bar scene. We aren’t social butterflies. We like to be at home or traveling in our RV. This lifestyle is conducive to writing. The four back stories we have planned will each be between 20-40 pages long. The second book in the Paradox Series will be approximately 300 pages. This is doable. When you do what you love, it all just comes together.

Rabbit Hole contains quite a bit of shall we say military know how and or tactics. Where do you draw from to keep that part of the book authentic?

Michael in particular has read widely in this area. We also utilize video documentaries. We draw on the experiences of people we know who have served in the military and/or Special Forces. For our next book, we are consulting with canine officers to help us understand what these dogs can do, and to visualize the intricacies of these danger-prone human/canine partnerships.

What made you decide you need to flesh out back story before moving forward with Book 2 in the series?

It’s important to us that our books move at a fast and intense pace. Even so, we found we were asking ourselves about the stories behind the main story. Why was it so important to Nick to leave Special Forces while he was still at the top of his game? Who was Charlotte, and why won’t Marcus speak of her? What happened that one time the Bubble landed in the right place but the wrong time? What isn’t Nick telling Nora about the period during which he was assigned by the FDTT to investigate her?

We didn’t want to slow the book down by digressing into the back stories, so we decided we would publish them separately. It may be that some readers will be interested in some of the back stories, and not in others. It gives the readers some freedom to choose as well.

Oh, that's all the time we have...Thank you to our guests, Michael and Cynthia Smith.

[Duane]

I just finished and I enjoyed it. If I am entertained and invested until the end, that's all I could ask of a book. In addition to time travel, it contained action, suspense, mystery, and a little romance. For a first book, I've read a few better, but many more not as good. It gets 4 stars and a thumbs up to the writer(s) from me. Well done.

[Garrett]

Duane wrote: "I just finished and I enjoyed it. If I am entertained and invested until the end, that's all I could ask of a book. In addition to time travel, it contained action, suspense, mystery, and a little ..."

Thank you, Duane. We are so pleased you enjoyed our book.

[Garrett]

Marcus finds himself kidnapped and transported to a remote inn of a time past. Yet, he keeps his wits about him, and does the only thing he can do. He takes an action that is much like a castaway placing a message that only one particular person could understand into a bottle, tossing the bottle in the ocean, and then making plans for when that message is received and acted upon.

There is an old saying that goes, ‘Leap and the net will appear’. Have you ever taken such a leap, and did your net appear?

One of our favorite authors,Wayne W. Dyer, has written exhaustively about the power of manifestation, as have Carl Jung, C.S. Lewis (in fiction and nonfiction), and Eckhart Tolle. Can you add to this list?

Do you believe that what we think and how we feel can actually influence future events that are not otherwise within our control?

[Garrett]

We want to thank everyone for participating in this discussion, and especially thank Lincoln for moderating here and for all he does in the Time Travel Group.

To Lincoln: 'Hip! Hip!'

All the best,
Cynthia Garrett and Michael Smith, aka Garrett Smith

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Thanks Michael and Cynthia,

I am glad we finally got to read Rabbit Hole as a group. and thanks for the compliment for my moderating efforts.

You wrote: To Lincoln Hip! Hip! wouldn't it be appropriate to write To Lincoln Hop! Hop!

I look forward to reading Rabbit Hole 2 as the paradox series continues.

Thank you again for your participation in this thread but also, in the group generally.

To Garrett: Hop! Hop!

[Garrett]

Love it!

[Christine]

I just finished reading Rabbit Hole. This is the first time travel book I have ever read, and I was impressed. This was an immensely enjoyable, thrilling book for me, and I can hardly wait to read more from Cynthia and Michael. Until then, I will have fun reading this whole thread, which I intentionally ignored until I finished the book. Now I am also going to have to look around the other threads for recommendations for another time travel book that is as good as Rabbit Hole!

[Garrett]

Christine wrote: "I just finished reading Rabbit Hole. This is the first time travel book I have ever read, and I was impressed. This was an immensely enjoyable, thrilling book for me, and I can hardly wait to re..."

Thank you, Christine. We are thrilled you enjoyed our book, and know you will find many good Time Travel book recommendations in this Group.

C&M

[Lincoln, Temporal Jester]

Moderators Reviews of Rabbit Hole

Mine:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Amy's:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Nathan's:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...