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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 100 KB, 323x437, casino royal book.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3635991 No.3635991 [Reply] [Original]

I want to write a book that's basically about a time travelling James Bond. His job is to secure the time space continuum and prevent criminals from profiting from the manipulation of time. I want it to be well thought out. I realize that even if I spend years working on this, I'm not going to get the physics and logic exactly right. What I want is a working model within that universe. I want it to make sense in that context. A James Bond that has a bunch of cool gadgets travelling through time and I want to pit him against a villain that experiments with time travel.

What I have so far considering actual mechanics regards causality. I figured that the best way to do it is to maintain the first law of thermodynamics. Nothing can just "disappear" out of existence. It's a displacement of matter rather than a removal of it. Alternate realities would come into play at that point is my problem. Another thing I really want to do (this moreso has to do with the actual book rather than the interest of a logical system) I want there to be health effects in using the machine. I want the James Bond character to slowly age because of it, becoming suspended in a time of peak virility and I want the villain to get progressively older with each of his uses of the machine.

Where can I read more about time travel so I can adopt from the best? Any suggestions on how you think an ideal fictional time travel machine would work? I really want this to work before I get into the meat and potatoes of action/espionage. If there's already a good book like the one I'm describing please recommend it to me. The meaningful impact it would have on the story is more appreciated than the scientific accuracy, but I dig that too. Also, this is for fun. No intention of publishing or any of that. Writing exercises, you know?

>> No.3635996

it already has been done brilliantly by Kieth Laumer in "Dinosaur Beach"

>> No.3636001

>>3635996
Thank you for this.

>> No.3636004

>>3635996
Wait wait wait, explain how exactly involved is the time travel in this? Is it an excuse for cool locales and gadgets or does it take an active role in what happens? How involved are dinosaurs in this? I don't think I would be including the Jurassic Age in what I would be writing.

Still, I'm going to read this. Thank you.

>> No.3636006

>>3636001
also, check out asimov's "end of eternity"

>> No.3636014

Isn't this what Doctor Who is about?

>> No.3636026

>>3636004
it's about a guy who works for a secret shadowy time agency. He hides out in 1950s America until he's needed, then he gets sent on missions using a secret trigger device embedded in his skull that he can tap out codes with on his teeth with his tongue. It starts wehre he goes on a misson and ends up in a time loop, where he meets himself and gets a cryptivc warning, he returns to the time patrol's base in the jurassic but it's been destroyed and he basically has to find out how and put it back/prevent the destruction from having happened. its a basic spy thriller except he has contacts in different eras, etc instead of locales.

andre norton has a more adventure-themed version in her time patrol stories, with gordon ashe and ross murdock and travis fox as time agents in a lot of books fighting a ar against future humans called "baldies in the pasts of various planets.

>> No.3636028

>>3636014
I've seen a couple seasons of it. Yeah, I guess it is. Just a lot less homosexual and stupid. No fucking alien daleks and timelords here. No.

Bond vs Goldfinger I'm thinking. This guy that goes in time, kicks the shit out of criminals and secures the timeline versus this experimental scientist that is literally trying to break all the rules and play with the spy's mind. I want a cat and mouse game. I know more about spy books and movies naturally and I'm not as familiar with scifi, which is really why I'm here.

>> No.3636029

So, you're writing Looper?

>> No.3636032
File: 69 KB, 506x755, timecop.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3636032

>> No.3636036

>>3636029
Did we watch the same movie?

>> No.3636038
File: 41 KB, 400x356, PRIMER-poster.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3636038

The only one to ever make complete sense.

>> No.3636064

>>3636028
sounds like a good basis for an abbot and costello routine.

"Im looking for Doctor No."

"Doctor Who?"

"No, Doctor No."

"I'm not a doctor."

"No, the doctor I'm looking for is No"

"The doctor is Know what?, are you foreign?

"No, he is."


"Who is?"

"No: No."

"you don't need to repeat yourself."

"Look I'm looking for a doctor...."

"Who is the doctor you're looking for?"

"No. no is the doctor I'm looking for"

Look do you know the name of the doctor you're looking for?"

"yes"

then what is it?

"no"

"you have to tell me the name if I'm going to help you."

"No."

Look the doctor youre looking for is who?

No. I'm doctor who.

don't you know your own name?

yes"

you're name is doctor yes?

No!

well you've found yourself then, that'll be forty five dollars, have a nice day.

>> No.3636079
File: 85 KB, 468x436, 1363855216307.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3636079

>>3635991
Play Steins;Gate.

It's a time travel story done right.

>> No.3636097 [DELETED] 

>>3636079
By the way this is a bit like what you described in the OP.

>self-proclaimed "mad scientist" accidentally invents time machine
>gets tangled up in a fight against an evil organization from the future using time travel to establish a global Orwellian dystopia
>actually has plausible time travel methods and explanations for things and stuff

The pacing is kind of bad at first though.

>> No.3636103

>>3636079
>>3636079
By the way this is a bit like what you described in the OP.

>self-proclaimed "mad scientist" accidentally invents time machine
>gets tangled up in a fight against an evil organization from the future that is using time travel to establish a global Orwellian dystopia
>actually has plausible time travel methods and explanations for things and stuff

The pacing is kind of bad at first though.

>> No.3636134

>>3636079
>>3636103
Really not a big fan of anime. Like, at all. My favorite animes are Speed Racer, Astro Boy, and Cowboy Bebop because they basically aren't animes. Does it transcend that or am I going to be trudging through anime cliches that are going to kill me? No offense. I'm being honest here.

Unless we're talking about the VN specifically, even then... Really that worth it?

>> No.3636148

>>3636134
Yes read the VN, it's better than the anime.

It's also really worth it, it's probably the best time travel story I've ever read. All the time travel involved is plausible enough that it's really difficult to even find plot holes.

The characters are mostly pretty interesting too and go through believable characterization and stuff, especially the main character.

If you liked Cowboy Bebop you'll probably like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv-SxsebY6U

>> No.3636219

>>Where can I read more about time travel so I can adopt from the best?

Here's a better idea - read a bunch of time travel fiction *so that you can see what's already been done and then try to do something fresh and original of your own.* Otherwise, don't bother.

H. G. Wells: The Time Machine
Robert Heinlein: "By His Bootstraps" and "All You Zombies," & "The Door Into Summer"
Kurt Vonnegut: "Slaughterhouse Five"
Julian May: "Saga of Pleistocene Exile" series
Connie Willis: "Doomsday Book" & "To Say Nothing Of The Dog"
Michael Moorcock: "Behold The Man"
L. Sprague DeCamp: "Lest Darkness Fall"
and so on ad saecula saeculorum.

>> No.3636266
File: 33 KB, 925x301, timeline.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3636266

>>3636148
also I forgot here's an s;g timeline

By the way you should also watch La Jetée. It probably won't help you much with your story but it's a great time travel movie anyways and it's only like 40 minutes long I think.

>> No.3636438

>>3636266
... and along the lines of that pic ... "All The Myriad Ways" by Larry Niven.

>> No.3636452

>>3636064
all my lels

>> No.3636456

just watch quantum leap over and over, that should be sufficient research
oh boyyy

>> No.3636470

>>3636438
Eh, technically that pic isn't "many worlds" theory.

In Steins;Gate they use something called "attractor field theory" in which many world lines are possible, but only one can exist at any given moment. When you're on a specific world line you can alter the past to change little details, but things will always converge back to the same end result. For instance if someone is fated to die on the Alpha world line, you can change the way they die but you can't change the time or prevent them from dying. The only way to truly change things is to alter the past in a large enough way that you're put onto a different world line; so for instance you could attempt to jump from the Alpha world line to the Beta world line, in which the aforementioned person might not die.

>> No.3636474
File: 123 KB, 1024x768, jet_li__the_one.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3636474

>>3635991
Too rate honky, you ruse

>> No.3636491

>>3636470
Fair enough.

OP should read the story anyway, though.

>> No.3636501

>>3636064
Clever lad!