Time Travel discussion

Caught in the Moment by Martin Dukes Caught in a Moment is June's giveaway. What a way to kick off the summer!

Caught in a Moment is the story of Alex Trueman, a teenager who daydreams himself unwittingly into the strange world of Intersticia. This is a world outside of ordinary time, that exists in the slender intervals between instants. From Alex's point of view the world around him freezes into immobility. At first it seems that he alone is free to wander the hushed streets with their motionless cars and people. But he is not alone. Alex soon discovers that he shares the world with others. There are a few dozen fellow daydreamers who share his fate. There is plump, bespectacled Will, pretty brunette Kelly, and the rebellious outcast Paulo. Presiding over them all is the enigmatic Ganymede, and irascible vagrant who distributes food to his dependents and sets them perverse tasks to perform in return.

Alex soon finds that he has rare skills in Intersticia. Most uniquely he can affect the motionless world of 'Statica' around them. He can open doors, help himself to food, and move objects. But this forbidden activity soon sets him on a collision course with Ganymede in which the very existence of Intersticia is put at risk."

Discussion Question for a chance to win a free copy

Imagine a world in which time stands still, in which everyone and everything around you is frozen into immobility, solid as marble. This is the strange world of Intersticia, a world outside of ordinary time that exists in the slender intervals between instants. It would be a silent world, a lonely place but one that offers boundless possibilities to the creative mind. Intersticia is the world I create in “Caught in a Moment”, a place with its own rules and its own physics, a freeze frame universe trapped between one instant and the next.

What would you do if you found yourself there? How would you take advantage of the possibilities afforded by such a situation?

The winner will recieve a signed paperback and will be determined by the author based on interesting and inventive answers!

Many years ago there was an episode of Wild Wild West in which a villain was able to speed himself up to the point where everyone else was frozen. He used this ability to rob banks and such. As an adolescent male my ideas for using such a power were pretty, well, adolescent. As I matured I went through the super hero phase where I thought I would look for accidents that were about to happen and prevent them. Later I thought that such a skill would be great in medicine allowing surgeons to perform long, complicated surgeries literally in a heartbeat. Truth be told, though, if dropped in such a situation I would probably just end up doing something involving creme pies and politicians.

Assuming to gloss over the typical fret over such a place and attempts to get back 'home', my first thought was to explore the physics of the place, but I'll get back to that in a moment.

I thought secondly what a common response might be, such as loot or vandalise or whatnot. But I daresay that would get old quickly, no? Stealing money gets you money, but whatever would you spend it on? And vandalism is enticing for our natural desire to see things destroyed, but that brings me back to my initial thoughts.

Should I be in a place frozen in time, perhaps for long enough to get used to my surroundings, I'd go experiment with physics. Turn on a tap, and see if it flows. I'd go touch some water being poured out somewhere, currently frozen in time, and see if it moves. I'd try to throw something to see if it will leave my fingers, completing an arc, or if it will simply stop midair. Might even try to force some entropy into something to see if it might break the spell of being stuck in one moment. How I'd do that, who knows? Perhaps ingest a growing mushroom in a forest, or some such, using my own biochemical processes to force it into something else. Or perhaps attempt murder, and, like seeing if stilled water might move again upon my touch, see if they will die and decompose.

That all being said, though I haven't read the book yet, I can imagine it would be awfully sad, boring, and possibly insanity-forming had the protagonist been stuck in such a place indefinitely without finding anyone else...

I may be a bit boring, but I'd use the time between time to explore places that are usually very busy without others getting in my way. I'd pop to the Louvre and not have any annoying tourists in front of the Mona Lisa, I'd walk walk up to the stones of Stonehenge and get a closer look. If I was being treated poorly in a shop or some other place I'd be a bit immature and make something embarrassing happen to the person being rude.

Nice Kathryn,

I feel that certain crowded busy buildings take on another eeriness to them when they are unoccupied and completely empty. There were a few times in grade school when we were allowed to have a sleep over at the school...Who wants to be at school...but be there at night with just a few people from your class and boom its magical...and cool.

I think I would expand on your answer as well. Having a good look of exhibits without the crowds would be neat but also see the things that they don't allow the public to see for whatever reason, to ancient, to precious, to be able to pull back the curtain and have a look anywhere at anything...Go walk around the Whitehouse, The Vatican etc.

What? Nobody's said they'd take the opportunity to be a Peeping Tom in a changing room? I'm surprised. For the record, that's not what I'd do.

Like Superior, I think the first thing I'd do would be to explore physics. If I could move things, it might be funny to really mess with people's minds by moving things ever so slightly so that they're a bit confused when time starts moving again. Come to think of it, I think someone played this trick on me at lunch the other day ... either that or I'm losing my mind. I opened up my lunch bag, looked inside, and started lamenting that I must have left my lunch at home. Everyone looked at me strangely because my lunch was sitting on the table in front of me. I honestly only remember opening up my lunch back to find nothing, so I blamed time traveler pranksters.

Yes, I think I'd definitely have to pull time stop pranks: switching people's lunches, taking off people's shoes, putting weird things in people's hands, turning off lights. I'd make sure to do nothing that would be dangerous, just things that would make people temporarily confused when time started again.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in June's giveaway. Everyone is a winner!!

Tom, Superior Ven A., Kathryn, and Amy please contact the author Martin Dukes to provide your address so you can have a free copy sent to you.

Congratulations!!

Thanks Martin!!

Yay!

Yeehaw! Was hoping I'd get a chance at such an interesting-sounding book.

Got my book in the mail today Martin! Thank you for sending it to me. I forget the cost of international shipping coming from across the pond. Maybe that's just the UPS man in me, but thanks for the book. I look forward to the read.

Thanks again!