The Time Traveler’s Almanac is the largest and most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this book compiles more than a century’s worth of literary travels into the past and the future that will serve to reacquaint readers with beloved classics of the time travel genre and introduce them to thrilling contemporary innovations.
This marvelous volume includes nearly seventy journeys through time from authors such as Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, and Connie Willis, as well as helpful non-fiction articles original to this volume (such as Charles Yu’s “Top Ten Tips For Time Travelers”).
In fact, this book is like a time machine of its very own, covering millions of years of Earth’s history from the age of the dinosaurs through to strange and fascinating futures, spanning the ages from the beginning of time to its very end. The Time Traveler’s Almanac is the ultimate anthology for the time traveler in your life.
Not a hint at anything (maybe) but this book was recommended to me while I was looking up Time Travel for a story idea. I’m thinking of picking up this book though just to see what others have written on this fascinating topic.
Any time-travelling books/movies/comics/anime you’ve enjoyed that you think I might be interested in?
I spent some time today listening to Stephen King and George R.R. Martin talk about their books, their failures, successes, how rats have played an important part of the writing lives and a whole other goodies. I spent some time listening to two major authors in two of my favourite genres (horror and fantasy) and one of them is my favourite author. I have yet to read any of R.R. Martin’s books nor have I watched any Game of Thrones but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate his insights nor the fact that even Stephen King is smitten by the series.
I will admit that I have to fend off the obvious amalgamative (yes this is a word!) conclusion to write a horror/fantasy novel for Camp NaNo. Which, as I write this, seems like such a fantastic idea and I’m trying to write myself out of doing it. I think by the end of this update I will have completely failed at this.
Update on my Camp NaNo Preps:
Graphic Novels and things
First things first, I’m really excited to announce that my graphic novel has a tentative artist. In fact she has a published book on Amazon and works as an illustrator as her job. We’ve talked story, I gave her some comics to get a feel of what it would all entail and yes I know it’s not that simple and the whole process is different to just draw this here, write this there blah blah… but that’s the beauty of camp, isn’t it? It’s not about getting it perfect, it’s about doing it. And right now, I’m doing a fantasy/graphic novel for July. Even if she doesn’t do it, I can probably scrape together enough scenes on my own to bring to a capable artist and bring my dream to life. *stares longingly into the stars*
Story things
So my story is based in Africa, up North this time along the Sahara desert. The premise is as follows:
The Galaxy (an entity of many) saw the destruction that humanity had wreaked upon the single living planet. Overcome with intense emotion, the Galaxy let a tear fall to Earth. It splashed across the Sahara desert and transformed the arid landscape into forestry. Within this tear drop was a star, a source of light that fed into the forest and gave it it’s life. This star was our Earth’s first “mage”, a boy who controls the elements by mental ability alone. But Earth is not unaware of this rare phenomenon, and the people flock to the great desert to see this miracle for themselves. Religion, science, superstition and everyone of the sort gather in hope of drawing some conclusion from the celestial forest to fuel their beliefs.
Of course the most obvious thing here would be to create some sort of mythical being who is jealous of the boy’s power and hopes to control it for world domination. Or a Dark Lord born from the anger of the Galaxy comes to eradicate humanity and it’s up to our lone star to prevent darkness from destroying nature and humans along with it etc etc. But I think I’m going to add a different sort of human element in this, as George R.R. Martin states:
“You don’t just have people who wake up in the morning and say, “What evil things can I do today, because I’m Mr. Evil?” People do things for what they think are justified reasons. Everybody is the hero of their own story, and you have to keep that in mind. If you read a lot of history, as I do, even the worst and most monstrous people thought they were the good guys. We’re all very tangled knots.”
Which is one of the things I love about Stephen King as well, is that most times his villains are the people themselves and not the outside evil that has put those people in those positions. The chat thing between King/Martin validates this too, so of course I’m not the only one who noticed this trait in King’s books. *-1000 ego points*
Camp things
I’ve updated the word count for my Camp to 40 000 words, which is 10 000 shy of NaNoWriMo and rather audacious for me. However, my Natural Man: Comic (name to be revised) will be a collection of stories rather than a novel so it’s word count won’t be very high. So I’ll be working on my Steampunk Horror (name to be revised…I’m terrible at names) and adding that to the word count. I’ve had some great insight from the Dragon Writers writing group I’m part of, with a lot of positive comments on the story. I’m exceedingly excited!
Writing things
Which brings me at last to my writing goals for the future. Listening to Brandon Sanderson and Stephen King and George R.R. Martin has been incredibly inspirational, and if I really want to be a writer, I will have to actually do some writing. And I have to stop this flitting about between books and stories on a whim because this new idea is great, let me write it or this idea is boring now let me work on this one and and and. So I’ll be focusing on getting both of these works done by this year, complete and ready for editing. A novel a year outside of NaNoWrimo, which will effectively mean two novels a year. I won’t say they’ll be amazing and become best sellers, but they will be complete and submission worthy.
Inspirational things
Right, so I’ve been mentioning this chat between Stephen King and George R.R. Martin, and here’s the video. Enjoy.
I recently bought myself a couple of DC comic books, specifically focusing on an assortment of villains we have come to know and hate – and some I met for the first time. Generally villains’ ideals, or rather the process by which they attain their ideals, is not what we would consider “good” or “of good morals” however sometimes villains are villains because someone somewhere turned them into one. Would Edward Enigma be the Riddler if not for Batman’s intellect and ability to solve every riddle? Would the Joker not tire of his antics if not for the Batman continuously foiling his plans? Would Carnage and Venom exist in the form they do had Spiderman not existed? Would Magneto have become Magneto if not for the evil that caused him to turn?
The comics I purchased look at the history of Killer Frost, the ice cold femme fatale who becomes the heat-seeking, vengeful ice queen, the iconic anti-hero, Deadshot, and his rise (or fall) into paid villainy, protector and champion of the people with an anger to boot Black Adam, and the overly-paranoid spy who wears a symbiotic membrane like skin Shadow Thief (DC’s version of Venom?).
A-Scribe To Describe 