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After several days struggling to find a way to charge my little Asus laptop and my mobile phone as well as accessing the internet I have finally found the solution. I am camping in Geneva, meeting as many people as I can to gain help with the future plot of Time Crystal. I’m trying hard, as always, to make the story and true to life as possible. How would the UN and the Swiss government respond to this type of crisis?
By an incredible co-incidence, two organisations circulated my appeals for volunteers just days before I came here. The result is that I have a list of half a dozen people willing to help with research. If they are all as amazingly helpful and well positioned as the person I met today (who wishes to remain anonymous) then I am going to get some very very useful insights into the workings of these organisations which will be central to some parts of the story.
I drove over here so that I could zip around to visit people and also places. The downside of this is that driving is expensive and tiring, so to keep the cost down I am camping not far from Chateau de Peney. I have no electricity in my tent. I assumed I would have (I have never been camping before), otherwise I could have brought the correct adapters and charged the laptop and mobile phone from the cigar lighter of my car.
 Anyway I’ve solved the problem now. It’s 19:45 in the evening. I’m sitting in the Restaurant Forumeyrin, Place des 5 Continents, Meyrin. I’m using the free WiFi of the Meyrin library to write this blog entry while charging both my little Asus notebook and my mobile phone. The restaurant will stay open until midnight (although I expect to be long asleep by then). I drink orange juice and water. It’s expensive but at least I can work, check my emails, do everything I want. Through the open door I see the Saleve Mountains in the distance. It’s just too good to be true.
The weather is scorching hot here, and has been all week. I hope it continues. Camping won’t be much fun in the pouring rain.
The roads here are in complete chaos. They are building the new tram between the city centre and CERN and I have to cross the construction site to reach the Meyrin library. Everywhere else in town there are annoying road closures too. It’ll be wonderful when they finish it all but at the moment it’s hell driving here.
Still, it’s almost heaven.
Episodes are taking about 2 weeks to write these days, but I think they are worth it. In particular I have really enjoyed writing Episode 6 of volume 3. It’s based on a near-death experience which is something I’ve been wanting to write about for many years. Hopefully I’ve done some justice to the profound nature of the subject.
In case you have no previous knowledge of this type of experience you might like to refer to one of the many websites devoted to the subject, for example http://www.near-death.com/
Research Trip
I will soon be embarking upon my first research trip to Geneva since December 2007. This is only happening now thanks to my dear friend Soesic who invited me to visit her in France. Since she lives not too far from Switzerland this seemed like an opportunity not to be missed to go and do some more research.
This trip is especially exciting for me as I have managed to make arrangements with several people who can help with advice, and I am hopeful of meeting more when I get there. I’m not sure whether I will be able to issue newsletters while I am away, probably not, so please be patient. More about this later.
Research Assistants
I recently advertised for a graduate volunteer research assistant and was astonished to receive three replies within as many weeks. All are from young women and none of them is English, which perhaps says something about the nature of those who volunteer for such positions.
So far I have met two of them and I am hopeful that both they and Time Crystal will benefit from this co-operation. We are still deciding which of the many outstanding research tasks they will be undertaking (and indeed whether they really want to do them) but I still have a significant array of tasks which remain to be done. If you would like to help please get in touch. The range of skills needed is so wide that almost anybody can help do something. Write to wyken@timecrystal.co.uk
I am hopeful that I will be able to find more volunteers in Geneva. There are at least four organisations I can approach. It’s both a blessing and a curse that this story is based in Geneva. Future episodes of Time Crystal will involve activities of both the United Nations and the Swiss political system. Understanding how they would respond to this emergency is one of my most pressing problems. As always I am trying to make the Earth-bound thread as accurate as possible.
It was my desire to have a French-language version of at least Episode one so that I could engage Genevan volunteers which led me to start improving my French. This was how I met Soesic and hence this trip. That text is now written and just needs recording. With luck I will come back with that, and perhaps a great deal more.
Volume 2 Episode 26
Should the survivors go down the tunnel and try to rescue Catriona and help her to restart time, or should they wait?
In Episode 26, the firefighters and their guests in the fire station vote to decide. Would they really do this, or would the dominant personality decide? I believe that democracy is so deeply embedded into the psyche of most western people that they would almost certainly settle this kind of question by a vote. Whether the vote would be held now or whether they would wait until everyone was present, or even wait for the United Nations to get involved, is a different matter.
Brigit was enthusiastic about involving the UN at the meeting in the Cafeteria so it might seem strange that she is now prepared to let Alex and George go down the tunnel. That question is never raised in Episode 26. If it had been, I guess Brigit would have said something like this:
‘Well yes of course I want to get the UN involved, but I suppose if I’m honest I feel a bit guilty about what’s happened to Catriona. I mean, I don’t want people to think that I don’t love my daughter. I do. Of course I do. Yes, I want to help her as much as Alex does. And yes, of Sam really is alive and if he can restart time then of course I think we have to try to help him too.
But while Alex and George go down the Tunnel I still intend to get the UN involved in this whole situation. The last thing I want is for Francesco Romani or any other scientist to be making any decisions about what happens next.’
Volume 2 concludes with what I hope is a cliff-hanger. Again I know that some readers will be disappointed. They want closure and finality. But such readers will have to wait for a long time until they reach it. I suppose I will lose them along the way.
Time Crystal is more like a soap-opera than a traditional novel. Yes it would be nice to have every volume written with a well-rounded plot which gives a sense of satisfaction as well as inviting the reader into the next volume. Sadly I have not found a way to do this, so I will have to tolerate losing some reader.
Further Newsletters
And so this newsletter concludes Volume 2. Thank you for listening and reading the story. Please send me any thoughts or comments you might have. I really take them seriously and would also love to know a little about you, so I can see to whom this work does and does not appeal.
I will be issuing further newsletters as I write Volume 3, although I cannot guarantee to issue them every week, certainly not during my research trip. But in any case I will use this method to let you know when the podcasts of Volume 3 are available, and I hope you will be listening to them, and maybe even buying the (very affordable) electronic version of the book!
Useful Links
Podcast: http://media.podiobooks.com/timecrystal2/PB-TimeCrystal2-26.mp3
eBooks in 4 formats:
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume 2 Episode 25
Episode 25 sees Sam and Trissitia in the Big Bang. They have shrunk to the size of particles and, as far as the Universe is concerned, that is what they appear to be. It is this which allows them to withstand the incredible high temperatures and pressures caused by the continuous collisions of the particles around them.
Understanding and describing the young Universe is one of the most difficult challenges which science faces. Our current understanding of it is very speculative and subject to change. Observation of the echoes left over from those early times and our theoretical understanding of the basic structure of matter mean that our current picture will certainly evolve.
Furthermore there were many different phases of the early Universe, each of them fairly distinctive. I therefore decided not to spend a lot of time describing the details of the current theories, or showing how Sam and Trissitia interacted with all the various elements and phases. A simple understanding that space was very hot and dense is probably as much as most readers need to know at this stage in the story.
One of the beautiful aspects of the Time Crystal format, where characters can travel to any point in history almost at will, is that I can revisit the origin of the Universe in a later episode and go into more detail. Indeed, Time Crystal could easily become a “time opera” in which events are visited more than once, exploring different aspects of the underlying science.
In Volume 3 I introduce a mechanism whereby I can describe the underlying physics in as much detail as I like and yet keep it within the bounds of the story. This is a great step forward, found only after considerable heart-searching about how to convey technical information within a fictive setting.
Furthermore when this story is presented in electronic form, I can form links between the fictional story and the factual, two parallel and interlinked books, a bridge between the worlds of art and science, an integrated tapestry of knowledge of a richness and beauty never before dreamt of. This project is, in my opinion, going to move the art of science communication to a new level of sophistication.
As far as the plot goes for Episode 25, the major event is probably the return of Sam and Trissitia to the relative safety of the Time Tunnel and the colour change of the pink crystal. This is explained in some detail by Flenkt’s scientists. No doubt some scientists would prefer if I had spent more time describing the science and less on the fiction, but it’s what I think the audience would want.
For those who are curious you will get some idea about the current theoretical understanding of the events in the Big Bang from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang
It is slightly ironic, I suppose, that the experiments in CERN might well help us to understand these early events. The energy inside the detectors such as ATLAS are closer to the Big Bang than any other experiments, although (as we have already seen) many cosmic rays have far higher energy.
Useful Links
Podcast: http://media.podiobooks.com/timecrystal2/PB-TimeCrystal2-25.mp3
eBooks in 4 formats:
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume 2 Episode 24
Episode 24 moves the plot forward and develops the relationships between characters. The action starts in Hostel 39. Here is a photo of one of the hostel rooms (with apologies for the mess):
The shower and toilet is in the little room behind the wardrobe.
The major change is the position of Alex. From being an isolated rebel, imprisoned and powerless, he moves into the centre of the action, his views accepted, and close to the woman he loves.
Here is one of the fire engines, similar to that which Ludovico drove to ATLAS. Notice the CD (Corps Diplomatique) plates. CERN is an international organisation so it is made immune to local laws.
Perhaps the most interesting events from a psychological point of view deal with Marianne. She finds herself hunting for the baby she lost, unable emotionally to accept that it has gone although logically she knows it. And her body reveals her inner feelings for Alex when she begins to lactate when his hands are near her breasts.
A mother might do this when she hears her baby crying for food, or feels its mouth suckling. For Marianne to do it for Alex shows that despite everything she says and thinks about him, she is still in love with him.
Useful Links
Podcast: http://media.podiobooks.com/timecrystal2/PB-TimeCrystal2-24.mp3
eBooks in 4 formats:
Volume One
Volume Two
Current Writing
At the moment I am working on Episode 4 of Volume 3. When I started work on it I already had the broad outline of what the Episode would contain, but it has still taken me seven days to finish the first draft. When I finish writing this newsletter one of my tasks will be to listen to the TextAloud speech synthesised version of the Episode in begin the editing process and check the features which are very hard to judge while writing, especially the pace.
Since this is the first episode in this volume which deals with Sam’s situation, I feel I need to explain some of the backstory, and this slows the story somewhat.
Feedback
This week I met two people who had read Volume One and both said extremely kind things about it. One was a man who reads a lot of science fiction and he said he especially liked the bubble, thinking through what it would be like to live in a universe where your heart stops if it is outside a bubble. At first he thought it was a book intended for children, but once he had passed the first two Episodes and reached Geneva he felt much happier with it.
The other was a woman who never read science fiction but she liked it. She thought it might be suitable for her twelve-year-old niece, and she has promised to let me know what the girl thinks about it.
This kind of feedback not only encourages me to keep going, but also helps me to know what my targets should be when trying to market the story. It’s not a typical science fiction story. It combines science fiction with romance, and so hopefully appeals to a wider audience.
If you like Time Crystal (and I assume you do since you are reading this newsletter) then you might want to tell other people about it. One great way to do this is to visit Podiobooks where Time Crystal is podcast free and make your own comments
http://www.podiobooks.com/blog/2009/09/18/time-crystal/ for Volume 1 and
http://www.podiobooks.com/blog/2010/02/10/now-releasing-time-crystal-2-by-wyken-seagrave/ for Volume 2.
Strappado
The strappado was the form of torture of witches used in Geneva in 1536. It consisted of hoisting the victim by a rope fixed to both wrists which were tied behind the back. The pain might have been increased by attaching weights to the legs. Dislocation of the shoulders was not uncommon. The victim was then dropped to the floor, and the punishment was known as the ‘drop of the rope’ or ‘pulling’.
In fact Genevan magistrates were relatively mild compared to those elsewhere, and many witches were merely questioned and exiled instead of being tortured and burned. However in the case of the Prince-Bishop of Geneva, who is tortured in Episode 23 of Volume 2, his punishment is described in detail for two reasons.
One is to show how far our legislative systems have progressed in five hundred years. Today this kind of torture is still performed by a few governments, but most torture is of a far milder form and also is done in secret, usually in a different country, instead of being part of the normal judicial process.
Secondly the Prince-Bishop deserves punishment, from the point of view of the reader, since he betrayed Catriona. The reader can get her revenge upon him.
The maleficia on the cow which is mentioned in the story is a standard term used in those days. It means any form of illness or damage to animals or crops. Clearly the cow being frozen by the pink crystal would be seen as a maleficia.
The Big Bang
Time Crystal is probably the first work of fiction ever to take the whole history of the Universe as its backdrop. The idea is that we watch people (and other living creatures) taking part in historical events, interacting with objects in ways which we cannot normally do. Thus In Episode 23 we see Sam and Trissitia flying though the particles of the Big Bang.
We already mentioned the names of some of these particles in Episode 21: WIMPs, quarks, X bosons, gluons, photons etc. I don’t think the reader needs to know a lot more about them than this, although I could have developed any or all of them in much more detail.
I look upon Time Crystal as a framework which future writers can use to explore various parts of science in whatever way they want. It’s a way of putting living characters into impossible situations and having them survive. For example in this case, although it is not expressly discussed, Sam and the others have shrunk down to the size of particles, and this allows them to survive. In effect as far as the Universe is concerned they are particles. This shrinking, which will be explored in later episodes, is the key to allowing characters both to survive and to interact with science in a natural but revealing way.
Useful Links
Podcast: http://media.podiobooks.com/timecrystal2/PB-TimeCrystal2-00.mp3
eBooks in 4 formats:
Volume One
Volume Two
Hurray, the first complete French translation of Volume 1 Episode 1 was put live today!
I owe a huge debt to Soesic for all her work. Now I have the challenge of trying to record it.
You can read it here.
This Week’s News
This week I finally finished writing Episode 3 of Volume 3, after two weeks work, and found a whole new way to communicate the science underlying the story. Details will follow in a newsletter around 30 August when I will discuss the benefits of this approach.
I also started recording Time Crystal in French. The first few minutes are available at
http://timecrystal.co.uk/audio/Cristaldestemps1-01.mp3
I’m currently trying to find out whether the quality is good enough to continue, or do I need to find a native French-speaker to record it. Please send your thoughts to me at
wyken@timecrystal.co.uk
Episode 22
In this newsletter I discuss in detail Volume 2 Episode 22. This continues the meeting started in Episode 20, and Brigit puts Alex firmly in his place, explaining her philosophy:
We have entered a new age now, young man, an age in which the very foundations of civilization and everything which humanity has achieved are now in grave danger. I believe we must put the United Nations at the centre of everything we do. It is the only institution on Earth which can give power where it belongs, to the people of the Earth. Because I believe that something good can actually come out of this disaster. Now, at last, the world has a chance to unite under a rational form of governance, and I will fight until my dying breath to ensure that it works.
It is a remarkable co-incidence that the world’s most important physics laboratory, CERN, happens to lie just a few kilometres away from the world’s largest United Nations offices. One of the major themes of Time Crystal will be how the people of the world will govern themselves following a catastrophe of unprecedented and almost unthinkable proportions. What would normally happen in the face of disaster is that the strongest nations would take control, merely continuing the old political regime. But that cannot happen here. The diplomats who are stationed in Geneva have no way to communicate with their political masters, and instead they will have to work out new political regimes.
This has clear resonances with the world’s current situation. We are facing global problems, especially global warming, which can only be solved by global political action and yet the world has no mechanism for taking effective action at this level. There is no global governance. The ability to explore this set of questions is one of the reasons I am so enthusiastic in writing this story. I hope it will be able to cast a little fresh light on a range of global issues.
It is also a striking co-incidence that the state in which these events happen, Switzerland, happens to have one of the most participative democratic systems in the world. The Internet is now opening up the potential for all states to enable their citizens with more power, transforming the meaning of democracy. The political reaction of the citizens of Geneva will also play a part in exploring these themes.
But all that lies in the future. Once Brigit has expressed her political view she takes George Gabor away to explore more personal but no less passionate issues. It is my belief, although hard to prove, that her sexual response to conditions of stress is not unusual. Birth rates generally tend to decline during wars and rise afterwards, but that is probably largely explained by the absence of men as they go away to fight and then their return and marriage when the war ends. But I can find no figures on sexual appetite in response to disaster, so sadly I cannot make any scientific claim that her feeling is general.
In any case her response allows me to move the plot forward, which is the main thing as far as the reader is concerned. Several years ago an early reviewer of the story, Flo Swann, objected that Brigit would never go for George and that she would instead be chasing Alex. The reasons why she has chosen George will be revealed later in the story.
Useful Links
Podcast: http://media.podiobooks.com/timecrystal2/PB-TimeCrystal2-22.mp3
eBooks in 4 formats:
Volume One
Volume Two
Working on Vol 3 Episode 3 for second week, and with 2000 words written, I realise that the event I had sketched out to be revealed in the final third of the chapter cannot be written as I had assumed because it hasn’t happened yet! This episode picks up the action from where it was last seen in Vol 1 Episode 24. But I had stupidly assumed I could also bring in the action from Vol 3 Episode 3, which in fact occurs many hours later. Now this can be done, of course, just by adding a break into the action, but I should have known that from the beginning.
So I decided that what I needed was to bring the spreadsheet up to date, so I could see all the threads of the story at a glance and not make this sort of false assumption again. I have now added columns which tell me which Volume and Episode each plotpoint happens for each thread. So, for example, I have columns called Vol.Ep, Earth1, Vol.Ep, Earth2, Vol.Ep, Ent, Vol.Ep, Time Tunnel. I don’t know if this will work, but it’s one possible way to do it.
Part of the problem is that the whole spreadsheet is out of date. It has not been brought into line with the new versions of Vol 1 and 2. That is one of the jobs which I’d like to find a volunteer to help with.
Exhibition opens in Globe of Innovation
The large wooden structure which CERN calls the Globe of Innovation was opened to the public on 1 July housing a brand new exhibition. Details at
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/
One of the earlier editions of Time Crystal actually featured Catriona, Sam and Marianne walking around this exhibition. Written several years ago it was rejected because I wanted to speed up the pace of the earlier sections of the story.
Here is an image I created while writing those early versions.
It is what I imagined the Globe would look like. You can see Catriona (in green), Marianne (holding the mobile phone), Francesco and Brigit.
The image was created because, at the time, I was planning to produce an illustrated (or even animated) version of the story.
I will be visiting Geneva in late August and will finally get to see how close my idea was to reality. Not very close, I think, judging by the images on the CERN website, for example:
Volume 2 Episode 21
This week’s featured Episode is number 21 from Volume 2. In this Episode Sam and Trissitia witness the…
Creation of the Universe
In reality nobody is sure what happened before the Big Bang, but there are many theories. In this story I adopt one version of them called the “inflation theory”. According to this idea the Universe before the Big Bang was filled with a field of something called “inflaton particles” (given that name because they were invented to drive the inflation event which followed). Like other virtual particles, (which I explained in the Art & Science of Time Crystal which accompanied Volume One) they are created in pairs, exist for a short time and then annihilate each other because of the laws of that weird branch of physics called quantum mechanics.
In Episode 21 I need to explain this theory, so this raises directly the issue of how to explain science within a work of fiction. This was first raised in the newsletter of 24 May. Two readers, Sarah and Soesic, had suggested various possible solutions: adding a glossary (like a mini-dictionary at the back of the book); adding footnotes or explaining it all in a separate volume, a bit like a printed version of this newsletter.
But I did not like any of these solutions. I want the science to be integral with the story, so that the reader learns something without even realising that they are learning. It was during the writing of this Episode that I discovered the solution to my problem. I do a flashback showing what Michael Zhang thought when he saw this part of the Cosmic Egg. By this time he had burrowed his way down to the center of the Egg and had swallowed so much of history that he was an omniscient, god-like figure. Hence he would understand everything. To me this is the perfect solution, and one which I hope I can re-use as the story progresses. Whenever I want the reader to understand something scientific I can say what Michael Zhang would think if he could see it.
Writing this week
In marked contrast with the week of 24 May, when I completed writing and recording THREE whole episodes, this week I have written only 1000 out of the 3000 words I need for a single Episode. Part of the problem is that the Episode I am working on (Volume 3 Episode 3) is completely new, whereas for Volume 2 I was mostly revising existing work. Part of the problem is that real life, especially working with the charity LeicestHERday, has taken a lot of time.
But at least I don’t have to get the recording finished. I am planning to write and record all 26 Episodes of Volume 3 and upload them all at the same time. The deadline is Crystal Day 2011 (5 April). You might think that’s another reason I haven’t made so much progress this week as in May but I honestly don’t think so. Devising an Episode’s plot from scratch is SO MUCH more work than just editing and recording an existing piece of text. I had spent years writing the first two volumes. Now I’ve got to do all that hard spadework creating stories out of thin air.
Useful Links
Podcast: http://media.podiobooks.com/timecrystal2/PB-TimeCrystal2-21.mp3
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Anyway I’ve solved the problem now. It’s 19:45 in the evening. I’m sitting in the Restaurant Forumeyrin, Place des 5 Continents, Meyrin. I’m using the free WiFi of the Meyrin library to write this blog entry while charging both my little Asus notebook and my mobile phone. The restaurant will stay open until midnight (although I expect to be long asleep by then). I drink orange juice and water. It’s expensive but at least I can work, check my emails, do everything I want. Through the open door I see the Saleve Mountains in the distance. It’s just too good to be true.
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