All Things in Time
Discussions about books with the author.
All Things in Time is the latest award-winning story in The Time Equation Series.
To begin with, I’m somewhat ashamed of my lack of productivity. The last few years were mainly devoted to worrying about external issues: politics, the Covid-19 virus, society in general, and so on. The best I can say for the whole period was that I learned if you watch too much news, you’re likely to be too depressed to write.
When NANO month rolled around, I decided to participate but not actually sign up. It was a good decision, since it cured my writer’s block. I cranked out All Things in Time in 30 days. It’s a little less than 100,000 words, which is optimal for most sci-fi readers.
Lest that sound like a lot to you, it involved writing about 3,000 words per day. That’s approximately the average length of one of my chapters, and it’s not a terribly difficult task, since I usually write about a thousand words an hour.
Well, it’s not difficult if the book is flowing well. I’ve come to learn the key signal when I’ve got a good thing going. It’s when the characters tell me what they’re going to do. That means I’ve developed their characters successfully, and their personalities begin to dictate what they will do. It’s fun when they do things I hadn’t planned initially. (and, no, I’m not crazy…I think:-) The best part of that is that the words seem to flow out without much conscious thought. Maybe it’s that having semi-autonomous (speaking figuratively here) characters relieves the author from having to make judgment calls.
So, back to the point. All Things in Time is based on the relationship between Kathleen and Cadeyrin’s son Cole and Lola, the Deinonychus chick. If you haven’t read All the Moments in Forever, the idea of intelligent deinonychus (raptor dinosaurs for those of you who didn’t watch any of the Jurassic Park movies) might sound strange. But, my rationale is if some Amazon Gray parrots have a vocabulary of over 1000 words and can use them appropriately (some do), then perhaps a prehistoric raptor, as their indirect ancestor, might have had enough cognitive ability to learn to speak.
The nice thing about writing fiction is you get to define your fictional world. In this story’s world, the Deinonychus species have the capability to speak. In fact, they are on an intellectual par with humans. Crazy, you say? Let’s call it artistic license.
I keep returning to humans meeting sentient creatures or Artificial Super Intelligences in my stories. It’s probably because I wonder what would happen between the species (or entities in the case of an ASI). We can’t get along with our fellow humans, so relationships with other intelligent species will probably pose a big problem. Anyway, that’s my rationale for talking Deinonychs.
As an aside: Other dinosaurs encountered in The Time Equation Series are “normal” dinosaurs and don’t possess human-level intelligence.
The problem with such a rationale is when you once adopt it, then it becomes a license to carry it to extremes. Lolita (Lola’s mother) was the first to learn to speak, and she has a distinct personality with a wicked sense of humor. While she uses shortened and often non-grammatical English, her daughter Lola makes her best effort to use correct English. Her reasons are complex. 1. She grew up with Cole as her close companion, and 2. English is her native tongue.
Still, she is a deinonychus, a stone-cold killer weighing about 110 lbs with the ability to rip up prey many times her body weight. Her problem is that she is so close emotionally to Cole that she cannot envision having a mate of her type. On the other side of the equation, Cole admits that he is close to Lola, enough to say that he loves her, but his feelings are tempered by his knowledge that he needs a human female to raise a family. Lola knows that, and it causes her a tremendous amount of grief and internal conflict.
She repeatedly tries to find a way to cope with the problem, but nothing works. Meanwhile, Cole, off at college in the future, meets a beautiful but narcissistic and sadistically twisted girl. Devonette has a long string of male conquests that she has destroyed on social media, and she sets her sights on Cole. She finds his exceptional strength and high maturity level irresistible and eventually falls for him…as much as she can. She’s not really capable of true attachment, though, and her emotional inability is the main driver of her actions.
The story is complicated by the intrusion of the time-traveling Sasquatch elder (first seen in Time Enough to Live). He takes pity on Lola and imparts the Sasquatch method of time-travel through the astral realm. In her first attempt, she tracks Cole into the future and realizes she has competition (Devonette) for his affection. She is nearly caught in a vast ongoing time storm due to her inexperience, but the Sasquatch saves her, cautioning her to avoid that area in her travels.
The complication is that Devonette’s father, a multi-billionaire of dubious origin, wants Cole’s mother, Kathleen’s time equation. At his insistence, Devonette sets Cole up for capture with the idea that his mother will give up the equation and other assets for his freedom. This act of betrayal leads to a complex web of actions in which all the characters become entangled. But I’m not going to spoil the story for you.
The underlying message is that external physical form need not define and constrict true love. Does this sound like it might be a little risky? Well, maybe, but since gender dysphoria is a “thing” in our society, why not species dysphoria?
Given that idea, my challenge was how to write an adult-level novel and circle around Lola’s problem until a successful resolution develops. The biggest problem was keeping that resolution within the realm of reasonably acceptable actions.
At a certain point, roughly 80% through the story, I found myself wondering how the hell I was going to deal with my characters’ problems. The solution gradually became apparent as the story developed. It only required a certain amount of death and temporary heartbreak for my characters. In retrospect, I believe if Lola were asked, the answer would be: “It was worth it.”
The book is available on all ebook outlets and in paperback. It won the bronze President’s Medal for Adult Science Fiction from the Florida Authors and Publishers Association.
Here’s the blurb for the story:
TRUE LOVE IS PRECIOUS…
But what if the two lovers cannot possibly make their relationship work?
The two grew up together. Each often knows what the other is thinking. They get along perfectly. Unfortunately, they belong to different sentient species. There is no chance for them as a couple.
Each needs a mate of their own species, but finding a suitable life partner can be problematic. There will almost always be missteps, sometimes even fatal mistakes.
There is no such thing as an impossibility in the infinity of years available throughout eternity. The laws of probability imply that given enough time, any event, no matter how improbable, has a chance of happening.
The ability to jump through time and space can make things easier or more difficult. It also attracts those who will kill to get the secret for themselves.
When all of infinity is available to search for a mate, will it be necessary to go beyond death to find success?
This is the fifth story in the Time-Equation Series.
It is now available on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple, and elsewhere. Here’s the universal link: https://books2read.com/allthingsintime
and here’s the full series link on Amazon: Love Through Time - The Time Equation Series
Namaste,
Eric Martell