"Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change." ~Thomas Hardy

I've been a fan of time travel stories since, as a second-grader, I watched Charlton Heston discover the half-sunken Statue of Liberty on a shoreline of a planet ruled by intelligent apes. Our planet. Charlton, understandably, takes the news of his whereabouts badly. "Oh my God," he says. "I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did it... You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell."

Later, in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (the third of five Apes movie), three chimpanzees from the future escape the destruction of the earth by repairing the same spacecraft Heston had arrived in. The intelligent apes arrive back in 1973 where one of them gives birth to the world's first talking ape, thereby setting the stage for the rise of the apes (something which has both already happened but has still, in 1973, yet to happen). A perfect circle. Watching Escape from the Planet of the Apes for the first time my brain looped around and around, trying to get a handle on this idea.

I think the chief reason that time travel in fiction and movies has such enduring appeal is that for all our technological advancements time is still something we have no control over. Yes, theoretically time travel is possible but I don't have any friends who have actually achieved it. And there are occasions in all our lives when we could desperately use a do-over. Occasions when such intervention would have prevented terrible disasters. Then there's nostalgia, the feeling that the past is somehow closer to perfection than the present. We can hope for the future (or dread it) and miss the past, but both things are always beyond reach.

One of my favourite time travel plots occurs in Stephen Fry's Making History (1996). Time travel prevents the birth of Adolph Hitler. This deviation in history turns the United States into an ultra-conservative nation where racial segregation still occurs and homosexuality is a crime. The alternate post-WWII history of the western world is fascinating and feels credible.

Here are my some of my other favourite time travel plots, mostly from the film world: 

La Jetee/12 Monkeys: I first saw Chris Marker's 1962 French sci-fi short La Jetee in film school. It's both stark and beautiful and contains only a brief moment of actual moving footage. The rest of the film is composed of still-photographs and centers on a Third World war prisoner who is sent back in time, in a series of experiments, to seek help for his world from the future. Director Terry Gilliam made an appealing full length version of the film in 1995: 12 Monkeys. 

Donnie Darko: A teenage boy is haunted by visions which include a guy in a creepy rabbit costume and time lines made visible. Where the hell is all this going? Trippy as all get out but in the best possible way. 

Donnie Darko

 The Terminator/Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Trying to save the future from doom when what's left of humanity only has access to inferior cyborgs is an uphill battle. One that we have to wage time after time. Peristance is everything. 

The Time Machine: First published in 1895, a movie adaptation was produced in 1960 and a second in 2002. This classic tale of humanity's downfall — a collapse brought about by scientific "advancement" — remains as potent as ever. 

Groundhog Day: The transformation Billy Murray makes from perpetually irritated self-centered newsman to a well-rounded human being when he finally stops fighting the fact that the rest of his life might well be spent in the same winter day is hilarious, warm and wise. 

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey: The Black Death is sweeping 14th century England. A Cumbrian village boy's visions inspire a group of his fellow villagers to tunnel through the earth and erect a cross in an attempt to ward off infection. The journey through the earth leads the travellers to 20th century New Zealand, a place they struggle to understand as they race to fulfill their quest.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Planet of the Apes/Escape from the Planet of the Apes: The 1968 film was based on a 1963 book by Pierre Boulle. The horrifying idea that we might one day devastate the planet through human invention (atomic bombs) was much newer when these films were released than it is now. In fact, the rise of an ape civilization after a nuclear war would now appear to be the good news. There's something intriguing about watching our nearest biological relatives follow in our footsteps in these films. 

Looper: In 2044, where time travel is possible but illegal, a crime syndicate has come up with a handy workaround to help them wipe out their enemies and, ultimately, the assassins themselves. When hitman Joe is sent back in time to be killed, young Joe is the one about to pull the trigger. Until he discovers who his target is. And this is just the first few minutes! A must-see for people who like their action movies smart. 

Lost: "Think of the island as a record, spinning on a turntable," Daniel Faraday said. "Only now, that record is skipping." Whatever you say, Faraday! Time travel back to the 70s was only one of the treats in Lost's goody bag. I think the main reason we devoured all the weirdness (including temporal disturbances) was our fondness for the characters who remained three-dimensional no matter what was thrown at them. 

Life on Mars: BBC police procedural show about a cop who wakes up in 1973 after a 2006 car accident and aims to enlighten the '73 police force while hoping for a return to the future. This show simultaneously inspires nostalgia for a less politically correct time while we also root for main character Sam Tyler in his efforts to, in effect, make the future arrive faster by putting his progressive twenty-first century ideas into action. 

Being Erica: Emotional Canadian time travel drama about a woman whose temporally gifted therapist allows her to work out her various issues by travelling back to certain parts of her life and redo them. Erin Karpluk plays the likeable Erica Strange (intrepid time traveller!) and Torontonians will especially enjoy the local scenery, from Centre Island to Casa Loma. 

Fringe: I've seldom been so sorry to see a series end. For five seasons Walter Bishop was the smartest man on television and Olivia its greatest hero. Fringe featured astounding plotlines hinging on parallel universes and a race of people called Watchers who have mastery over time. But it never forgot the humanity of its central characters and the importance of their relationships with each other. Love. Sacrifice. Hope. Courage. On Fringe these qualities endured across time and place proving a wonderful inspiration.

Fringe

Christmas special starts today. Final sale ever of Come See About Me (Dec 19 - 26). Just .99 at Amazon.com and equivalent prices at .ca, .co.uk etc.

Big hair & cold war politics! My guest blog "Yesterday: Introducing the 80s" is up at Kindlepost UK. Yesterday, My Beating Teenage Heart and I Know It's Over are now available as ebook downloads from Amazon.co.uk with The Lighter Side of Life and Death and One Lonely Degree soon to follow. I had great fun designing the ebook covers and am happy to share them with you (click on the image to see a larger version):

I've also been preparing for Christmas and last week I headed over to my friend's house with a gingerbread kit and one of my favourite Christmas movies of recent years, The Holiday. Neither of us had ever put a gingerbread house together, but how hard could it be?

We started out by laying the materials as directed by the package, and the foundation piece (the one that sits at the bottom of the house) promptly broke in two in my hands. Ooph!

We managed to glue the severed pieces together with icing and successfully erect the basic house (even the chimney!). Yippee!

Ultimately, our gingerbread house didn't closely resemble the one on the cover of the package. In fact, ours looks as though it's been hit by a fierce blizzard (a candy blizzard perhaps?). But hey, that's in keeping with the season too, right? I find it awfully cute anyway, even the mutant gingerbread men.

On Monday Paddy and I finally put up our Christmas decorations around the apartment and an interesting thing happened. Remember the childhood Smurf collection I brought back from my mom's place not long ago? Well, the Smurfs took a shine to our Christmas village and have invaded. The original village inhabitants don't know quite what to make of them and some of the Smurfs have been revelling a little too hard (the pub has been a problem area) but generally the Smurfs are following Papa Smurf's genial example. So I have every faith peace (and comfort and joy) will prevail.

Home late last night after a sublime Leonard Cohen show (that I wish I was still at!), I'm mucho groggy today but am interrupting my Internet break to point folks in the direction of my guest blog entry on "Reconnecting with Your Lost Love of Writing" over at Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing. If you've lost that loving feeling lately, this post might be for you. Signed copies of Yesterday and My Beating Teenage Heart are up for grabs too!

 

Some very cool reviews of Yesterday have been appearing on the Internet and out in the world recently. I wish I could link to the wonderful Quill & Quire write-up, but it's not online yet. Here's an outtake to whet your appetite: "A satisfying, original blend of time-travel thriller, science fiction and romance, this white-knuckle read is more Jason Bourne than Katniss Everdeen."

 

I'm very happy to say that Yesterday review appears on the same page with a lovely one for Monica Kulling's new book Lumpito and the Painter from Spain. Aimed at readers five and up, Lumpito is based on true events—Pablo Picasso's love for the one of a kind daschund that comes into his life. Quill and Quire say, "Young readers will delight," but this older reader is very much looking forward to reading it too! Sounds like a great Christmas gift, n'est-ce pas?

 

I'm also extremely excited to report that School Library Journal has given Yesterday a starred review. Yaaaaaay! You can read the entire review on the School Library Journal website. The National Post has also been very kind to Yesterday and said, "Yesterday is a compelling novel that will take up permanent residence in your mind and haunt you, continually leaving you suspended in its spell until the very last page. Martin’s ability to manipulate the laws of time and space to create a fantastical fictional world is exceptional." Check out the full review here.

 

Finally, if you're in the U.K. and looking to pick up a copy of Yesterday as an e-book you can now download it from Amazon.co.uk. My guest blog entry about Yesterday will be going up at Kindle Post (uk) on December 11th and my other YA books will soon be available in-ebook format on Amazon.co.uk too. They're being released via Curtis Brown's digital self-publishing programme, which you can read the details of on the Curtis Brown website. One of the things I loved about this is that it gave me a chance to design alternate covers for my books. Here's the U.K. e-book cover. I'll try to post the others soon too.
 

From now until late December/early Janaury I'll be keeping a low profile on the Internet while I concentrate on the Yesterday sequel and other projects. That means minimal Facebook, Twitter and blogging time, but I'll still be checking email. You can also find me guest blogging at Adventures in YA & Childrens Publishing on December 5th. There'll be a Yesterday/My Beating Teenage Heart giveaway there too so don't forget to toss your name in the hat if you're curious about the books!

As for the Yesterday sequel, I don't want to give too much away but I can say it's called Tomorrow and is from Garren's point of view. The future's reach is long and Freya and Garren are not safe in the Vancouver of 1986. No one is.

Speaking of not being safe, I watched Flight earlier today and it had one of the best airplane crash scenes I've ever witnessed in a movie (right up there alongside United 93 and The Grey). If you're thinking about watching Flight, definitely go...unless maybe you're intending to fly anytime soon.

Fairly early on in the movie there's a scene in a hospital stairwell that let me know Flight was going to offer more a whole lot more than I expected in terms of character development. As persuasive as the trailer is, the film itself is much more compelling. Denzel Washington could, of course, convince a person of anything and between his brilliant performance and a script that never overplays emotions this is one of the strongest dramas I've seen this year.

I also watched Skyfall recently (I was never a huge Connery fan and was entirely won over by Daniel Craig back during Casino Royale so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this latest Bond offering too) and have been tensely following Olivia , Peter and Walter's ongoing battle in 2036 in Fringe. Peter Bishop, damnit, what have you done? In case I haven't mentioned it before, in my opinion Fringe is the best thing on TV right now and I'm simultaneously savouring every minute of its fifth and final season and mourning its imminent end. If you haven't checked out the show yet but like your sci-fi offbeat, super smart and with strong, likeable characters, I highly recommend starting at the very beginning. Fringe isn't the kind of thing you can just dip into and hope to understand but damn it's worth the time you'll dedicate to it.

My mom's moving house shortly and my brother was home from L.A. for a couple of days to help her pack things up. I spent a good chunk of Friday and Saturday pitching in with the effort so now have two sets of clothes covered in a fine layer of dust. But what a trip down memory lane!

While I'd either gotten rid of or taken most of my things in previous years, some stuff I didn't expect was still lying around, including notes I'd taken about my first trip to London, England —a vacation my best friend and I paid for with our summer jobs when we were seventeen, a letter one of my cousins had written me when I was thirteen informing me he'd beaten my Pac-Man score (must have been a lie!), and a letter from my aunt which included the comment that I was developing a very impressive super ball collection. Yes, I actually had a super ball collection when I was a kid! See the below photo.

As well as the things you can see in the picture, I rescued a copy of The Detroit Free Press from February 9, 1986 and issue of Time Magazine dated December 23, 1985 that I'd boxed eons ago. Actually, I'd kept a good few newspapers from that period but I just didn't have room to take all of them home with me so tossed most of them in recycle yesterday. It was interesting that I'd saved so many in the first place—I guess I thought someday I'd need a time capsule to consult (perhaps sensing that in the future I'd write a book set in the 80s??). Seeing as I'm about to resume work on the Yesterday sequel I'm extremely eager to have a read of that old copy of Time and the Detroit newspaper.

And can I just say, my old View-Master is every bit as cool as I remembered! I can't imagine what younger generations would make of the thing but I absolutely adored my View-Master and looking through the slide reels of Star Trek (both animated and from the original TV show), Charlotte's Web, Charlie Browns, Land of the Lost, Scooby Doo and Planet of the Apes (the TV show) brought my enthusiasm back in waves.

You'll also notice my extensive Smurf collection from when I was eleven and twelve. Considering how many decades they've been packed away, the Smurfs remain in admirable condition. I was gleeful to discover some of the Babar books from my earlier years too. I am no less fond of Babar now than I was then and my heart leapt to see them. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to dust myself off and go play with my stuff!