When an author writes about... Time and Time Travel
By SomeCowgirl
@SomeCowgirl (32191)
United States
December 29, 2009 3:45pm CST
Well I wanted everyone's opinions on something. When an author writes about the past or future and / or time travel, do you think they portray say the past well or what the future could hold excellently?
I'm reading a book by Nora Roberts. I forget the name but it's about a love that transcends time, or two loves. Well Nora Roberts is a great writer anyway, but this book is really excellent. I feel entangled in the story, enraptured by the words and the romance and aggression.
Have you ever come across a book that just didn't portray the past or future or time travel like you would have liked? What genre was it, science fiction or did it have a twist of Romance as well. Nora Robert's book concentrates more on Romance, then on the actual travel...
1 person likes this
10 responses
@thewayis (646)
• Bulgaria
29 Dec 09
Well, I've read most of Norra Roberts books and I think I know about which one you are talking about..
However, I've always liked books, that display different aspects of time, because no matter if the book is in contradiction to your visions or in agreement with them, it can make your imagination go wild :). There are a lot of authors who wirte about the future and I mean the :possible future" not these fantasies thet are set in 2500 +.
I don't know if you know that, but Norra Roberts has a series of books about a female cop in the future, There are more than 20 books of this series out and when you read 3-4 of them in a roll, you start thinking about flying cars as something normal and existant :)
1 person likes this
@jwfarrimond (4473)
•
30 Dec 09
Time travel is one of my favorite SF plot lines and there are lots of stories from H.G. Wells onwards to go at. I think that it's like any other form of SF though, in reading it you need to suspend your critical eye and just go with the story. After all, in most cases, the time travel is just a way of moving the characters to an exotic locale which just happens to be somewhere in the past or the future - or both.
@jwfarrimond (4473)
•
31 Dec 09
I quite liked the twist in the tail though where they found that the loss of the Titanic was a pivotal event in the change of the time line and they tried to change it so that the ship was not lost thus restoring the "proper" timeline. However it turned out that it was their intervention that was the factor that caused the loss of the ship and they realised that the slight course change that they had made was enough to make the ship hit the iceberg when otherwise it would have just missed it.
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
29 Dec 09
I love Time Travel, my favorite science fiction area.
I would say that there are some writers that are better at it than others, and many won't even go there.
I listened to Michael Crichton's Timeline and thought it was a pretty good story, but there are lots of other good writers that also have done time travel stories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel
Of course, there's H.G. Wells' Time Machine, but then there's Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Honestly, if they get the time too wrong, I am bothered by it, but I'm not one to gett all bent out of shape by changing the past, I'm of the opinion that history is pretty hard to change.
If you want a good time travel story, look for Jack Finney's Time After Time.
@jwfarrimond (4473)
•
30 Dec 09
The sequel to "Time After Time" is pretty good as well. Have you read that as well, Elic?
1 person likes this
@srganesh (6340)
• India
30 Dec 09
I have read more science fiction novels by the great author,sujatha,from Tamilnadu,India.He can write about anything and everything with a touch of humor and sudden twists.He had written historic novels as well as what you call time traveled futuristic novels.He used to write short sentences which maintains the tempo of the story.
@edu4625 (188)
• United States
30 Dec 09
I think I know the book you're talking about! I love Nora Roberts and the book was so interesting. It had everything! There was action, suspense, mystery and romance!
Actually this was one of the few books that I found credible about time travel. So yes I have definitely read books that just seemed a little too fantastical. Somehow it seems the books that portray time travel most accurately to me are ones written by women in the genre of romance.
Maybe that's because love is universal and even in the future we will still have human emotions and love transcends all.
@jazzsue58 (2666)
•
29 Dec 09
I read Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" books, and in those there is the Chronoguard. Thursday's father is a kind of Knight errant/renegade guard, who routinely "redoes" history and changes time lines. Jasper's way of describing events is quite complex, but I enjoy his books and was really upset that he's decided the Chronoguard are to be knocked on the head because he was getting bogged down in all the science.
It will be a shame if we don't get any more Colonel Next episodes, but I can understand where he's coming from. I love time travel books, but I tend to "ride over" the deeper aspects - as otherwise my head starts to hurt!
@victorywp (3524)
• United States
30 Dec 09
this makes me recall a 1980 time travel romance film called somewhere in time starring christopher reeve & jane seymour. i like time travel stories & especially if it relates to some romance. 
oops, you are talking about books & i am talking about films. sorry, hope you don't mind... they are all about time travel anyway! 
oops, you are talking about books & i am talking about films. sorry, hope you don't mind... they are all about time travel anyway! 
@bingchen (1119)
• China
30 Dec 09
i have read as same as this book,i find that author's fiction make me surprise and give me large imagined place.in book,i can experience different life and love from book and be addicted to it,sometimes i can imagine i become actor of book and live and love with another actor and want to experience different love,because i find that the book'description is too much beyond what i imagine.
@rivengodwind (369)
• Philippines
30 Dec 09
Nice to know that there are others who are drawn to time travel stories here; it's actually my favorite sci-fi subgenre. Now I'm talking about time travel per se and not just future history-type stories (i.e. stories about the future) so it mostly involves a lot of puzzling paradoxes. If you fancy scouring for other novels of the genre, I'd suggest you search for Robert Heinlein's books; they're the best ones I've read.
