Future Matt Jarpe sets me straight
Well, I guess I really put my foot in it yesterday with my post on time travel. Last night my future self traveled back in time to tell me a thing or two about the life I have in store. Not only is time travel possible, my future self assures me, but I will make a killing writing novels about it. But why don't I let him tell you himself. Here he is, my second guest blogger (the first being evil Matt Jarpe) Future Matt Jarpe:
Thanks, present Matt. And thanks also for the delicious hamburgers. You know meat is outlawed in the future so that's a real treat for me. I only wish I'd come back in December since Christmas is also outlawed. Maybe I'll make a special trip if the ticket prices don't go up.
Well, as Matt told you above, my writing career didn't really take off until I embraced time travel. I wrote a few middling stories with hard science and rock musicians and the like, but never sold the millions of copies I was destined for. Then I swallowed my scientific pride and wrote the first of the Tempus Fugit novels, Time Strike.
The jacket copy reads "The Nazis are loose in the time stream! It's up to Tim E. Stryker and the Tempus Fugit Strike Team to save the Universe from temporal destruction! They will strike at the bad guys where it will hurt them most, Adolph Hitlers grandfather!" The cover blurb reads "After reading this book I decided to give up writing and enter a monastery. What's the point? Jarpe has written the definitive science fiction novel of all time!" John Scalzi.
I followed Time Strike with three other Tempus Fugit novels, Time Punch (Alexander the Great's dinosaur cavalry threatens America! The Tempus Fugit strike force must hit him where it hurts, his own grandfather!); Time Drop Kick (H.G. Wells and his steampunk mecha army will overrun Manhattan unless Tim E. Stryker and his team can get to his grandfather in time!) and Time Suplex From the Top Rope, Boooyahh! (Nobody's grandfather is safe!).
After cementing my place in science fiction history by winning the best novel Hugo eleven consecutive times (I was finally beaten out by the reanimated frozen head of Robert Heinlein) I found I could explore new fictional territory, but still keeping with my bread and butter, the time travel plot.
A beautiful young history researcher travels back in time to study the Mongols, but becomes caught up in a romance with the Khan himself. Their love will threaten the very fabric of time itself unless she can convince Tim E. Stryker to come out of retirement once again!. "This book made me cry like a tiny little baby girl." John C. Wright.
By then I had become the only person ever to win a Nobel prize in Literature and in Medicine in the same year. In fact the only major award I haven't won yet is the Nebula, which in the future is only still given in one category, Flame Warring.
My time travel novels have not only touched millions, they inspired the creation of the first real life time machines. Physicist Peter Hartwell credits my 38 page description of the time machine in Time Punch with his greatest breakthrough. "My grandfather laid the scientific groundwork," Hartwell said. "But it was not until I read Time Punch that the final theoretical piece fell into place."
I do remember in my younger days expressing disdain for time travel fiction, but it was not until a colleague pointed out that old blog post that I realized I must travel back and set things right. I hope my present self takes the lesson to heart and reverses his reluctance towards causality violations. After all, life is too short to spend it all on one time stream.
Thanks, present Matt. And thanks also for the delicious hamburgers. You know meat is outlawed in the future so that's a real treat for me. I only wish I'd come back in December since Christmas is also outlawed. Maybe I'll make a special trip if the ticket prices don't go up.
Well, as Matt told you above, my writing career didn't really take off until I embraced time travel. I wrote a few middling stories with hard science and rock musicians and the like, but never sold the millions of copies I was destined for. Then I swallowed my scientific pride and wrote the first of the Tempus Fugit novels, Time Strike.
The jacket copy reads "The Nazis are loose in the time stream! It's up to Tim E. Stryker and the Tempus Fugit Strike Team to save the Universe from temporal destruction! They will strike at the bad guys where it will hurt them most, Adolph Hitlers grandfather!" The cover blurb reads "After reading this book I decided to give up writing and enter a monastery. What's the point? Jarpe has written the definitive science fiction novel of all time!" John Scalzi.
I followed Time Strike with three other Tempus Fugit novels, Time Punch (Alexander the Great's dinosaur cavalry threatens America! The Tempus Fugit strike force must hit him where it hurts, his own grandfather!); Time Drop Kick (H.G. Wells and his steampunk mecha army will overrun Manhattan unless Tim E. Stryker and his team can get to his grandfather in time!) and Time Suplex From the Top Rope, Boooyahh! (Nobody's grandfather is safe!).
After cementing my place in science fiction history by winning the best novel Hugo eleven consecutive times (I was finally beaten out by the reanimated frozen head of Robert Heinlein) I found I could explore new fictional territory, but still keeping with my bread and butter, the time travel plot.
A beautiful young history researcher travels back in time to study the Mongols, but becomes caught up in a romance with the Khan himself. Their love will threaten the very fabric of time itself unless she can convince Tim E. Stryker to come out of retirement once again!. "This book made me cry like a tiny little baby girl." John C. Wright.
By then I had become the only person ever to win a Nobel prize in Literature and in Medicine in the same year. In fact the only major award I haven't won yet is the Nebula, which in the future is only still given in one category, Flame Warring.
My time travel novels have not only touched millions, they inspired the creation of the first real life time machines. Physicist Peter Hartwell credits my 38 page description of the time machine in Time Punch with his greatest breakthrough. "My grandfather laid the scientific groundwork," Hartwell said. "But it was not until I read Time Punch that the final theoretical piece fell into place."
I do remember in my younger days expressing disdain for time travel fiction, but it was not until a colleague pointed out that old blog post that I realized I must travel back and set things right. I hope my present self takes the lesson to heart and reverses his reluctance towards causality violations. After all, life is too short to spend it all on one time stream.
I guess that'll learn ya'...
You know, Janiece, it's the strangest thing. Future Matt told me when I meet you in Denver at Worldcon, "duck." No idea what he was talking about. I guess I'll find out.
Frakking hysterical! The Ghengis Khan cover nearly made me pee myself. That Photoshop work must have taken you at least 45 seconds.
What annoys me the most about time travel in fiction is the invention of a sort of "meta-time," in which things can change in both the past & the future at the same time - like when McFly's parents slowly disappear from the picture in BTF. Nearly every time travel story has this problem.
Oh, it took me at least 30 seconds to get the head size right.
Once Superman did a time travel thing where he kept going back and changing the past, then he came back and not a damn thing had changed. It took him about 10 tries before he finally gave up. I can't remember what their explanation was. Something about time streams, maybe. My favorite, though, is when Homer Simpson goes back in time, accidentally steps on a plant, then returns to find Ned Flanders worshiped as a demi-god.
My favorite part is the Photoshop cover of 45 seconds, too. Cracks me up every time I look at it!
HAW! That's fantastic. Of course, now that your future self has come back and told you all about that, you will choose to start writing about time travel sooner rather than later. Instead of buckling down at your new job, you'll start writing at work and that new drug that helps people who are addicted to reality tv will never finish it's clinical trials. That fateful eve that decided your future will pass while you're holed up in your den. The first Tempus Fugit novel will never be finished and consequently Hartwell will never receive the inspiration to follow in his grandfather's footsteps thereby failing to invent the time machine that allows future you to come back and visit! Oh well, whattay gonna do?
Some of Niven's stories about his time machine were interesting, b/c it had to remain anchored in the future. And Hogan's "Thrice Upon a Time" stuck with only being able to send his "Tau Waves" back through time, so a certain limited amount of info could go back, but not people or things. And his explanation of the results was more satisfying (though less dramatic) than the Back to the Future "fade".
I have to commend you on your Time Strike idea there though. I mean, time travel, Nazi's and scantily and impractically clad women? That's as fundamental as the Three Laws or something right?
Future Matt forgot to give you the Time Strike tag line: "Time flies, Nazi's die!" He had no idea who that chick on the cover was supposed to be. The only woman main character was a mousy physicist. Apparently Baen of the future works remarkably like Baen of the present. And the past.
Tempus Fugit Strike Team. Ha! Gack! Opps, swallowed my gum.
Amused by your cover blurbs.
(As an artist and graphic designer, it would pain me to have a Baen cover. As a starving writer, it would be something I would learn to deal with.)