Temporal Paradox (definition): events arising from means other than the normal flow of cause and effect
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One of my favourite storylines in
Doctor Who was at the end of Season 3, when they introduced The Paradox
Machine. What a brilliant concept! To say nothing of three of my favourite
actors – John Simm as The Master, David Tennant as The Doctor, and John
Barrowman as Captain Jack – all on screen at once * happy sigh *
It was probably Doctor Who that
hooked me on the concept of time travel, and now, I write my own vision of it.
Writing time travel stories means
I get to play with paradoxes. And since time travel isn’t actually achievable
yet, I can make up the rules as I go along. That’s pretty liberating to a
writer. It’s also mind-bending sometimes.
In my newest release (Isabella’s
Airman), I had a key artifact that needed to be moved from one place to
another – at some point in the future. This meant when my hero came across it,
with no memory of having made the shift, it signalled to him that it hadn’t
happened yet.
The idea came from an old,
sepia-tinted picture I’d seen hanging on an office wall. It depicted a number
of men leaning on shovels, during the construction of a railway line a hundred
years ago. They smiled for the camera, but one of the men appeared
uncomfortable with having his picture taken. When I saw it, I immediately
wondered… what if that young man lived today, and saw himself in the picture –
and knew that part of his future, included going back to the past?
So tell me. Which book, movie or
TV show included your favourite temporal paradox? I’ll give away an e-copy of
the first book in my Out of Time series (Lila’s Wolf) to one lucky commenter.
PS – this is how I handled the
paradox in Isabella’s Airman
Excerpt:
When had I removed these from the
archive? Not only that, but laid a false trail to another collection, and then
removed them and hidden them in my own book. What the fuck was going on? I
hadn’t done any of this.
I lifted my glass, only to find it
was already empty. Think logically, Marc.
There were a limited number of options to explain this
disturbing sequence of events. Either I had some serious issue with my memory
and I’d forgotten these actions, or someone else had forged my authentication
and then broken into my apartment and hidden the artifact. Both were extremely
unlikely.
The final option was the most
unpalatable. It was me, but I hadn’t done it yet.
~
Blurb:
Time travel student Isabella Gillman is
about to embark on her most challenging assignment--leaping back to 1941 to
observe World War II. The rules are simple: don’t get emotionally involved, and
don’t interfere.
She breaks the first rule when she falls
in love with rear-gunner Davy Porteous. The second is on its way out as well,
when she realizes history says he won’t survive the war. Torn between the
fundamental laws of her society, and the man she loves, Isabella faces a harsh
reality: does she risk both their lives for a future that may not happen?
She can’t predict the results if she
corrupts the timelines, but without her actions, Davy is out of time.
Buy Isabella’s Airman (Out
of Time #2) at Amazon:
Watch the trailer on YouTube: https://youtu.be/81eQC1WmBks
Author bio:
Romance author Sofia Grey spends her days managing projects
in the corporate world and her nights hanging out with wolf shifters and alpha
males. She devours pretty much anything in fiction, but she prefers her
romances hot and her heroes to have hidden depths. When writing, she enjoys
peeling back the layers to expose her characters’ flaws and always makes them
work hard for their happy endings.
Thank you for hosting me today :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Sofia! I think I'll have to give the obvious answer to your question--Back to the Future. The ongoing series of movies made the temporal paradoxes increasingly complex, with Marty McFly crisscrossing his own paths through time multiple times.
ReplyDeleteI think there was also a scene in one of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonrider books where F'lar's brother was shocked to encountered himself--all made possible by dragons that could traverse not only "between" to reach other places, but also other times.