There has been some interesting feedback on one of my facebook posts recently. The question I posed was ‘What would you do if you could go back in time and change one thing?’ and the comments that it received are quite diverse, sometimes personal and rather sad. There were a number that fitted the classic […]
Ideas
Creation of story worlds
Possibly the hardest challenge I have faced in writing these books is the creation of the world in which they are set. There is something close to sadistic in the way I constantly push myself to take the story into strange and unknown places – developing an alternative reality with an Order dedicated to time […]
Ice Age Antediluvians
There has always been something that has fascinated me about a pre-flood (antediluvian) civilisation. If we can assume that there actually was a genuine deluge at some point, and there have been a number of studies into creation myths from disparate cultures that seem to suggest there was one — the Babylonian flood story is believed […]
The intuit learning method of the Oblivion Order
Although they may live very long lives when members of the Order of Oblivion finally expire, they have the option to donate their timelines and their accumulated knowledge to Intuit learning. This is a tradition that stretches back to the very beginnings of the order’s founding when their numbers were less than a hundred, and […]
Antiquarian Railways
My father has always loved the railways, as an engineer he spent his life working for British Rail. He would come home and talk about substations and electrification, buzz bars and 24KV like they were some kind of secret government experiment. He even built a miniature rail network in my bedroom, and we spent many […]
Cornerstone – a defining moment
Watching Westworld recently, I was fascinated by the idea of the Cornerstone — the use of powerful memories to shape the AI of the synthetics. It gave me a name for one of the story arcs I was using with Josh. We all have at least one — a memory or moment from our past […]
Vestige – time compass
The Vestige is a term for any object that can be used to travel back in time. They are like a time compass for members of the Order who can use them to navigate back into history. The most reliable ones are man-made, their slow, passive journey through history creates a clean set of trail […]
The conception of randomness
Randomness is defined as a lack of pattern or predictability to events. It has been studied by Mathematicians, Statisticians, Biologists and even Bankers for hundreds of years. Some have even given it formal definitions and equations to try to harness it. The enigma of random has fascinated scientists as if it were some property of […]
The trouble with time
I have always been fascinated by the idea of Time Travel. It began in the late 70’s with the wonderful Tom Baker as Dr Who, there I would be hiding behind the sofa at my Nan’s, watching as any number of rubber-suited men would once again try and end mankind, destroy the earth or generally […]