05.07.08
Time travel: How far is not far enough?
I’ve always enjoyed time-travel novels, Jude Devereaux’s A Knight in Shining Armor and Anya Seton’s Green Darkness, just to name two classics and not even taking into consideration the depth of work of Diana Gabaldon. But all those stretch themselves back centuries. What if you wanted to go back just a little bit? How far would be far enough to make a difference in what you wrote?
Shades of Quantum Leap come to mind, when Sam Beckett was allowed to “leap” within his lifetime. Staging a book five years in the past wouldn’t make much difference, perhaps not even ten, except in a few instances. But what if we went back 15 years, to 1993? How different would a books need to be?
No internet for the general populace is the first thing which comes to mind, and for most people of my acquaintance, buying a cell phone was a Big Deal. Video cameras were still bulky, digital cameras were a few formulations off, and DVDs still on the drawing board. There was satellite TV, but they were big satellites, stuck in your yard and not handily affixed to the side of an apartment’s rail.
Air travel might have actually still had a tinge of fun to it.
We made long distance calls when the rates dropped after five (and Sundays until they rose again in the evening). Now I scroll down the contact list on my cell phone and touch ‘dial.’ As to gas prices… does a dollar a gallon sound about right?
I’m not contemplating any time-traveling in my future novels. I’ll leave that to the historical authors and I’ll read them with gusto. I’m strictly a contemporary type of gal because if 1993 is too far back (except where gas prices are concerned), then anything more than that would really cramp my characters’ (life)styles.