5 reasons why I hate time travel
I find that I get a lot more traffic to the site when I get all snarky about some aspect of science fiction. Trouble is, I don't have that much snark in me. Genetic defect, I suppose. But I've been storing it up just so I can open up a can of whup-ass on time travel. Which I hate. Let me count the ways.
1. It doesn't make any frigging sense. I freely admit that I think like a scientist. I pretty much have to because, well, I am a scientist. I look for cause when I see effect. I need it. When I read about the effects causing the cause which case the effects and so on, my brain rebels. It can't take the contradictions and like those stupid fembots in Star Trek it starts smoking and saying "Does not compute." And hence I don't enjoy the story. Ted Chiang had a new story out recently, and no one looked forward to reading more than I did. True, Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God" presented me with one of the most negative reactions I've ever had for a story. But "The Story of Your Life" (a sort of time travel story) is among my all time favorites. So I really looked forward to "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" in F&SF last year. And it's a well written story, and it probably deserves the Hugo nomination it got. But I didn't like it, because of the whole cause/effect problem. It just doesn't fit the way my brain works.
2. It's been done. OK, we get it. The time stream is fragile. You can't go back and kill your grandfather because it would cause a paradox. Bad things will happen if you screw up history, and trying to fix it will just make things worse. Even Michael J. Fox, the anti-Elvis, knows this. Fine, enough, move on already. Nothing new to say. (To be fair, I have seen some unique time travel ideas here and there. Kage Baker's Company series does a nice job of re-imagining the trope. Neal Asher's Cowl also gets high marks.)
3. Just because there are no short story outlets for historical fiction doesn't mean you can dump your story about Genghis Khan in a science fiction magazine just by adding a time traveler. Hey, I like history, too. I didn't major in it, but I read historical non-fiction, I like watching "Rome" and "John Adams" on HBO. And yeah, it's too bad you can't just write a fiction novella about Genghis Khan and get it published and widely read in a digest magazine. But when you cram in a "researcher" from the future who is trying to blend in and desperate not to affect the outcome of events in fear of damaging the fragile time stream and incurring the wrath of his PhD adviser, you're just trying to fit a story into a market where it doesn't belong because the market where it does belong isn't there.
4. If the Universe could be destroyed by unwise time travel practices, it wouldn't be here. If the only thing that's preventing total temporal disaster is the resourcefulness and responsibility of the time travelers, or the skill and daring of the time police, we're doomed. We're so doomed we wouldn't even be around to know we're doomed. If something can be screwed up, it will be screwed up. If something can be screwed up at any point in history, it will be screwed up at every point in history. People screw up. It's what they do.
5. The grammar becomes very difficult. Or became difficult? Or will become difficult? Or will have became difficult? Ah, screw it. It makes me want to go back in time and kill H.G. Wells grandfather.
1. It doesn't make any frigging sense. I freely admit that I think like a scientist. I pretty much have to because, well, I am a scientist. I look for cause when I see effect. I need it. When I read about the effects causing the cause which case the effects and so on, my brain rebels. It can't take the contradictions and like those stupid fembots in Star Trek it starts smoking and saying "Does not compute." And hence I don't enjoy the story. Ted Chiang had a new story out recently, and no one looked forward to reading more than I did. True, Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God" presented me with one of the most negative reactions I've ever had for a story. But "The Story of Your Life" (a sort of time travel story) is among my all time favorites. So I really looked forward to "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" in F&SF last year. And it's a well written story, and it probably deserves the Hugo nomination it got. But I didn't like it, because of the whole cause/effect problem. It just doesn't fit the way my brain works.
2. It's been done. OK, we get it. The time stream is fragile. You can't go back and kill your grandfather because it would cause a paradox. Bad things will happen if you screw up history, and trying to fix it will just make things worse. Even Michael J. Fox, the anti-Elvis, knows this. Fine, enough, move on already. Nothing new to say. (To be fair, I have seen some unique time travel ideas here and there. Kage Baker's Company series does a nice job of re-imagining the trope. Neal Asher's Cowl also gets high marks.)
3. Just because there are no short story outlets for historical fiction doesn't mean you can dump your story about Genghis Khan in a science fiction magazine just by adding a time traveler. Hey, I like history, too. I didn't major in it, but I read historical non-fiction, I like watching "Rome" and "John Adams" on HBO. And yeah, it's too bad you can't just write a fiction novella about Genghis Khan and get it published and widely read in a digest magazine. But when you cram in a "researcher" from the future who is trying to blend in and desperate not to affect the outcome of events in fear of damaging the fragile time stream and incurring the wrath of his PhD adviser, you're just trying to fit a story into a market where it doesn't belong because the market where it does belong isn't there.
4. If the Universe could be destroyed by unwise time travel practices, it wouldn't be here. If the only thing that's preventing total temporal disaster is the resourcefulness and responsibility of the time travelers, or the skill and daring of the time police, we're doomed. We're so doomed we wouldn't even be around to know we're doomed. If something can be screwed up, it will be screwed up. If something can be screwed up at any point in history, it will be screwed up at every point in history. People screw up. It's what they do.
5. The grammar becomes very difficult. Or became difficult? Or will become difficult? Or will have became difficult? Ah, screw it. It makes me want to go back in time and kill H.G. Wells grandfather.
My theory is that all of history is made up of nothing but time paradoxes. That's why it doesn't make any sense. (Scandinavians and Japanese start out as berserkers and samurai, then suddenly morph into docile Saab jockeys and Hello Kitty fans? Half the events in Spanish history occur in 1492? The 20th Century?)
Time travel gets invented every three months, is used for a short time until the past is changed so the invention is prevented, then it happens again three months later. Forever. History as we know it is the result.
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I think you're onto something. I saw a movie trailer (can't remember the movie, something British) where a student is asked about history at an exam. He says history is just "one bloody thing after another." You have to have a good imagination to tie it all together in a story. Which scares me.
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Have you tried ALL OF AN INSTANT by Richard Garfinkle? He's got an interesting angle on the whole time travel, cause/effect thing.
I'd also recommend his alternate history novel CELESTIAL MATTERS. That is a great read. Not really time travel, but just because I can.
JP
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I have a time travel story. The problem with my time travel story is that people do things with it that people in power probably wouldn't. I can't get around that, because that's not how my idea bloomed. I should probably finish it anyway, and just keep it tongue-in-cheek.
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My dislike of time travel apparently doesn't extend to the voting members of SFWA, since Ted won the Neb for his story. I don't remember anyone saying a story had to make any frigging sense to win an award. So finish that story and see how it flies.
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