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The Troubles of Time Travel
01/03/2004 . Source: Anne Groell 
Anne Groell, senior editor at the Bantam Spectra publishing imprint, ruminates on the time in every science fiction editor's life when one has to edit the dread 'Time Travel' novel. Yikes, move over, Terminator ... There comes a time in every science fiction editor's life when one has to edit the dread Time Travel novel. Why dread? Because time travel doesn't work, not really. You try to make it work, of course.
You make graphs and charts and diagrams and apply logic in all the right areas. But there is always that moment when, no matter how hard you try, logic goes completely out the window.
And the most you can do is plant pretty shrubs or some other such distraction around the area and hope no one notices. Sleight of hand, see, disguised as landscape gardening. Of course, the tricky part then becomes figuring out where to lay the shrubbery.
The first time I encountered this phenomenon was when I edited Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog. A brilliant book-and one that still makes me laugh-but boy, did we end up getting snarled in some of the time-travel paradoxes!
As I remember from my position of about five years distant, most of the problem revolved around which flowers were where. But we finally found the place to lay our shrubbery, crossed our fingers, and called it done. And I think we did a great job, so hopefully no one has stumbled over it yet.
So how did I find myself, back in April of 2003, editing another time-travel novel? Well, it all had to do with the fact that I fell head over ears in love with a little book called Strangewood. The author, Chris Golden, and I then had a very lovely coffee together in New York and started discussing projects.
I wanted to bring him onto the list with something similar-a more offbeat, less-genre-type book with some strong mainstream sensibilities. A while later his proposal for The Boys Are Back In Town came in, and we had a deal. The odd thing was, I don't think either of us realized right away that we were dealing with a time-travel novel.
It was just this cool, creepy novel of a guy who goes to his tenth high-school reunion and finds reality shifting around him. But then... Well, there we both were, neck deep in the guts of a time-travel novel. You may notice that in it I have been thanked for providing, among other things, charts. Charts? Oh, yes, there were charts. And chronologies. And time lines. Multiple time lines.
And you should have heard the phone conversations! "Well, if such-and-such a character does this in time line B, how does that affect time line A? And what about time line D?" Yup, major headache time again.
Eventually, we placed our shrubbery, and I think got another great book out of it. But both of us also drew a huge sigh of relief at the end, and made a bit of a pact: No more time-travel novels for either of us for another five years! I am sure Chris will stick to his part of the bargain. Me? I've got Connie Willis' time-traveling London Blitz novel coming in sometime this year. Excited? You bet! Apprehensive?
Well, maybe a bit.
Anne Groell
Thanks to Anne for letting the Nest republish this piece from the March 2004 Spectra Pulse newsletter. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to sub_spectra@info.randomhouse.com
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