Today I'm super pleased to have Karen Akins, author of
Loop and the upcoming sequel,
Twist as my guest!! She's stopping by to let us in on her favorite time travel inspirations!
ABOUT THE BOOK:
The unbelievably thrilling sequel to the time-travel YA novel Loop.
Bree
Bennis finally has it all—a non-comatose mother, an uber-hot (albeit
anachronistic) boyfriend named Finn, and a new-found mission to protect
the timeline from those who would skew it for their own gain. But when
she leans over one day to smooch said boyfriend, her lips meet those of
her arch-nemesis Wyck instead. The timeline has been altered, and Bree
is caught in the crosshairs. But when she goes back to repair the
damage, she is stopped by none other than her Future Self, who delivers
an urgent message: Someone is kidnapping Shifters from the distant past.
It’s up to Bree to stop them. But first, she has to figure out who...
and why.
To follow the trail of chronocrumbs, Bree reluctantly
accepts her new undercover gig as Wyck’s girlfriend. Everything goes
spiffy until Finn shows up in the 23rd century on the eager arm of a
gorgeous fellow Shifter, Blark. Even as Bree struggles with
jealousy, she battles the nagging dread that Finn might be better off
with someone less chronologically complicated. Her worst fear is
confirmed when Finn becomes the kidnapper’s next victim. As Bree zeroes
in on the culprit, they unravel her life one timeline-change at a time.
She realizes that she alone has the power to save herself and everyone
she loves. But to do that, she may lose Finn forever.
Favorite time travel inspirations!
Thank you so much for hosting me on your blog!
One of the hardest parts of writing time travel has been that I love the genre so much. There are so many amazing, fun, mind-bendy examples of time travel that I adore. In LOOP and TWIST, I wanted to pay homage to those, but I also wanted my world to be original.
That being said, here are some of my favorite time travel tales that have inspired me over the years:
1.) Back To The Future
This was the first movie I truly remember seeing in the theater. I was seven years old, and my dad took my sister and I out to see it on a school night. (SCHOOL NIGHT!) A good 75% of the movie probably went straight over my head, but I didn’t care. I was in love.
The idea of going back in time and being able to change your own past…what? It blew my mind. Even today, I love dissecting the trilogy, looking for slip-ups and hiccups. That’s half the fun.
And, of course, hoverboards had to make a cameo in TWIST. Because hoverboards.
2.) Star Trek: First Contact
In all its incarnations, Star Trek has done time travel many times in many different ways. I’m a huge Trek fan, but I think this one is my favorite time travel. The Next Generation Enterprise gang goes back in time to the first instance of human’s traveling at warp speed—the speed of light. The Borg is about to wreak havoc and prevent them (Bo-org!) so, of course, it’s up to Picard and company to stop the Borg.
The reason I love it is that it holds up this iconic moment in history, and then shows the blunderings behind the scenes. I think that’s how a lot of big historical moments actually were and are—full of humans with all their imperfections. It doesn’t take away from the things we’ve achieved, and in some ways, I think it actually adds power to them. That beautiful things can be made out of our messes.
3.) Terminator
I think the thing I love about these movies is that they just keep…coming…back. That’s one of the great things about time travel. Don’t like the way the story ended? Ehh, just go back and change it.
4.) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
This was my favorite of the movies and second favorite of the books (behind Goblet of Fire). I had already predicted that Hermione had a time-turner, and I remember being all smug about how smart I was, figuring out a sub-plot before it was revealed. But then the sub-plot ended up driving the entire plot. Didn’t see that coming, and I love it when time travel loops back on itself and reframes the story.
5.) The Time Traveler’s Wife
Confession: I’ve never read the book, only seen the movie. This one was fun, if a bit depressing. But…Eric Bana. Come on.
6.) Somewhere in Time
This is one of those classic gems that I didn’t discover until ten years ago when my hubby introduced me to it. Christopher Reeve is a modern day playwright who becomes obsessed with a popular stage actress in the early 1900’s (Jane Seymour). He time travels back to meet her by… dressing up in period costume and convincing his brain that he’s there. (Yeah, don’t overthink it.) It’s cheesy good fun, and last summer, my family went to Mackinac Island in Michigan where it was filmed. We stayed in the same hotel where the cast and crew stayed. We recreated our favorite scenes.
They don’t allow cars on Mackinac, and it genuinely feels like taking a step back in time. It’s always interested me how humans crave that experience of being immersed into history. One of TWIST’s subplots involved time travel tourism, and I thought of Mackinac while writing it.
7.) Groundhog’s Day
Some might quibble that this is an alternate reality loop rather than true time travel. Don’t care. I love this movie, and I love that he figures out how to cheat the system. I mean, who of us would be able to pass up the opportunity to know every question on Jeopardy? To invest that dollar in the stock market at just the right time? To impress the girl with how much you know about her before you’ve even really met? Oh, wait. I might be talking about Finn here.
Goodness…I could keep going. But Future Karen wants me to wrap it up and go eat some chocolate.
Thanks again for having me! I hope everyone has as much fun reading TWIST as I did writing it. :)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Karen Akins writes humorous,
light sci-fi for young adults and the young in spirit. When not writing
or reading, she loves lightsaber dueling with her two sons and forcing
her husband to watch BBC shows with her.
Karen has been many
things in her life: an archery instructor, drummer for the
shortest-lived garage band in history, and a shockingly bad tic-tac-toe
player.
Thanks, Karen, for a wonderful post! I see some of my own favorites in there--Hermione's time turner, Groundhog Day, Somewhere in Time, and definitely Back to the Future!
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