I would like to tell my readers about Nathan Van Coops, who was a significant influence in my time travel novels, “The Time Trinket” and “The Time Duplicate.” Nathan published a series of time travel novels that included: “In Times Like These” (2013), “The Chronothon” (2015), “The Day After Never” (2016), and “The Warp Clock” (2018). The series involves the time-travel adventures of Benjamin Travers, a small group of his friends, his girlfriend and future wife Mym Quickly, and Mym’s time-travel pioneer father Dr. Harold Quickly. There is an addition to the series, “Agent of Time” (2020), which is about a detective that follows the exploits of Travers and his troupe of time travelers.
Nathan’s writing is excellent. From what I have learned studying creative writing in college, Nathan’s work checks off all the recommended practices of great novel writing. His writing is eloquent and draws you slowly into the quagmire and dangers of time travel. Although time travel complications abound, Nathan leads the reader deftly into the adventure. There are only a few moments to take a breath.
I found an ancillary technique Nathan used in his writing quite intriguing. At the beginning of every chapter is a context-related quote from Dr. Harold Quickly’s journal. That is an interesting concept that inspired me while drafting my time travel novels. In my novels, instead of quotes from a journal, I chose to use proverbs or sayings each as a single line of text.
In my first drafts, I listed a series of five proverbs selected for the content of the chapter. However, my reviewers unanimously stated that five proverbs at the beginning of each chapter were too much. I picked significant points in each chapter I wanted to highlight and I reduced the number of sayings to just two. Thanks to Nathan Van Coop’s inspiration, these quotes provide a significant mood to every chapter.
I highly recommend Nathan Van Coops’ “In Times Like These” series. It is a bedrock of the time travel genera.