Butterfly Effect
stalking a T-Rex
hunter steps on butterfly
past shifts future forward
*poem published in Far Horizons Magazine – August 2015
A Scifaiku by Wendy Van Camp
Illustrated by Wendy Van Camp
Scifaiku poem is inspired from a famous time-travel story of science fiction literature.
Book Name: Outlander
Author: Diana Galbadon
First Published: 1991
Diana Galbadon grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona where she earned a BA in Zoology from Northern Arizona University. Later she would gain a Masters of Science in Marine Biology from UC San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Then she returned to Arizona to earn her PhD in Behavioral Ecology from Northern Arizona University.
She would become a full-time assistant professor in the Center for Environmental Studies at Arizona State University where she did research, scientific computing and database management and taught classes in anatomy among other subjects. She was the founding editor of Science Software Quarterly and would later write software reviews and technical articles for computer publications as well as popular-science articles and comic books for Disney.
In 1988, Gabaldon began to write a novel “for practice” and without any intention of showing it to anyone. As a research professor, she thought that a historical novel would be the simplest novel for her to write, but she had no particular time period that drew her. It was during this time that Galbadon happened to see an episode of “Dr. Who” entited “War Games”. One of the doctor’s companions was a Scotish Highlander from around 1745 by the name of Jamie MacCrimmon. This character became the spark for her novel’s mid-18th century Scotland setting and one of the lead main characters of the book, James Fraser. However, during the writing, her female lead, Claire Randall, took over the book, making smart-ass comments that were decidedly modern throughout the story. To explain this character’s mindset, Gabaldon added the element of time travel to the story. And as they say, the rest was history.
“You are my courage, as I am your conscience,” he whispered. “You are my heart—and I your compassion. We are neither of us whole, alone. Do ye not know that, Sassenach?” – Diana Galbadon
Outlander begins just after World War II. A British Army nurse and her husband, an Oxford history professor, are together at last after being separated by the war. They travel to Inverness, Scotland in order to have a second honeymoon and for Frank Randall to research his family history. As Frank digs into his research, his wife Claire Randall gathers plants near a circle of standing stones on a hill known as Craigh na Dun. After witnessing a pagan ritual being performed at the stones, Claire returns the next day and is distracted from her plant gathering by a strange humm in the rocks, she touches one of the standing stones and is overcome briefly.
She awakens to the sound of a distant battle and as she wanders about, she is apprehend by a group of Scotsmen that believe her to be a British spy. Claire is confused by the speech and dress of these Scotsmen who later reveal to her that they are members of Clan MacKenzie. They wear clothing that is centuries out of date and their speech is difficult to understand. As the MacKenzie Clan departs the battlefield, one of their own is wounded. Claire uses her nurse’s skill to reset a young warrior’s shoulder. He is called Jamie MacTavish and the Scotsmen put him in charge of taking care of Claire as they continue on their home, Castle Leoch, the seat of Clan MacKenzie.
At the castle, Claire is questioned by the laird, Colum. By now she has figured out that she has traveled backwards in time via the stones of Craigh na Dun. Claire believes that she needs to return to the stones in order to find her way home to the 20th Century and back to her husband. The Scots see Claire as an “Sassenach”, an Outlander who is ignorant of Highlander culture and one of the hated English. Claire pretends to be a widow who has lost all her possessions in order to hide her secret. Colum does not believe her and forbids her from leaving the castle.
Colum wants to learn more about Claire and decides to send her with his brother Dougal’s party as he collects the rents from the tenants on MacKenzie land. Dougal is collecting more than rent, he is also taking donations for the Jacobite cause. At each village, he orders Jamie to remove his shirt so that the farmers can see the whip marks on his back, gained during an interrogation by Captain “Black Jack” Randall. When the villagers see the marks, they donate more money. Claire is appalled by the way that Jamie is being used and the two begin to form a friendship.
Later, Captain Randall demands that Claire be given up to him so that he can question her. The clansmen do not wish to turn her in due to the Captain’s reputation of brutality. The lawyer who travels with them, in order to oversee the processing of the rents, notes that the only way to keep Claire safe from the English is to make her legally a Scotswoman. He proposes that one of the men marry the widow. Dougal considers marrying Claire himself, but then decides to force Jamie to do it since he is more expendable. Claire balks at the idea, but after many arguments and fear of facing the English Captain, she agrees.
Young Jamie also agrees to the marriage. He insists that he and Claire are married properly in kirk. He informs her that his real name is James Fraser, not MacTavish. Jamie is a wanted man with a price on his head. He wants to start this marriage with honesty and to marry her with his real name. Claire is touched by the kindness Jamie shows on their wedding day. She is also surprised to find her wedding night with the young highlander to be more enjoyable than she expected. She is torn between love for her husband Frank, who is on the other side of the standing stones, and her growing fondness for Jamie. However, she is still determined to return home if the opportunity presents itself.
As the collection party travels near Craigh na Dun, Claire escapes from the Scotsmen and attempts to return to the stones. She nearly drowns in the process and is captured by the British. After much daring, Jamie manages to rescue her and the pair, along with Dougal and the party, return to Castle Leoch.
Claire and Jamie settle into married life in the castle. Jamie works in the stables and Claire continues her work as a healer. She befriends Geilis Duncan, the wife of a town official who shares her love of medicine. While Jamie is away, Claire and Geilis are charged with witchcraft. It is during the time that the pair wait to be tried and burned at the stake when Claire realizes that her friend is also a time traveler like herself.
Jamie manages to arrive in time to save Claire from being burned at the stake and the pair of them are forced to flee from Castle Leoch. When they find themselves safe, Claire confesses her secret to Jamie. She is a time-traveler and she is not exactly a widow, her husband is alive and well in the future. Jamie believes her story and takes her to Craigh na Dun himself. He tells her to make her choice. He will wait for her at the bottom of the hill until morning. Claire finds herself near the humming stones and knows that she could return to the 20th century if she wished, but at that moment, she realizes that she loves Jamie and wishes to remain with him.
Jamie and Claire travel to Jamie’s home and live with his sister and her husband. Although Jamie is still an outlaw of the British army, he decides to take on his role as Lallybroch’s laird. They are somewhat isolated on Jamie’s land, but it is not long before the new laird is betrayed by one of his own and is taken to Wentworth Prison where Black Jack Randall is waiting. Claire is determined to rescue Jamie against impossible odds. This leads to a highly charged climax to the novel.
I always intended to read Outlander. Honest, I did! However, I was in a place in my life when books took a back seat to filmmaking and other artistic pursuits and stayed that way for well over a decade. So the series remained undiscovered by me until three years ago when I heard a few of my artist friends talking about An Echo in the Bone and I thought that I should at least give the original book a try.
I was transported into this romantic world full of beautiful historical details that had an interesting time travel element. It was like nothing I had read before. The story between Claire and Jamie is rich and full featured, their love simply grows as they age, like the complexity of a fine wine. It has since become one of my favorite book series. I’m discovering that most of my friends are fans of this series as well. 2014 will see the debut of Outlander on cable television as Starz begins to produce the story, one book per 16 episode season. It has won an award for best new television series in the UK.
Don’t make my mistake and put off reading Outlander. If you like romance, historical fiction, Scotland, or time travel stories, Diana Galbadon will deliver.
Outlander (1991) (published in the UK and Australia as Cross Stitch)
Dragonfly in Amber (1992)
Voyager (1994)
Drums of Autumn (1997)
The Fiery Cross (2001)
A Breath of Snow and Ashes (2005)
An Echo in the Bone (2009)
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood (2014)
Book Name: The Anubis Gates
Author: Tim Powers
First Published: 1983
Tim Powers studied English Literature at Cal State Fullerton. It is where he met his friends and fellow authors, James Blaylock and K.W. Jeter, both of whom he collaborates with. The three of them are all active Steampunk authors. Powers teaches part-time at the Orange County High School of the Arts, where he is considered a Writer in Residence and at Chapman University. He often serves as a mentor author as part of the Clairon science fiction/fantasy writer’s workshop. He currently lives in Muscoy, California with his wife, Serena.
Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice and his 1988 novel On Stranger Tides was optioned for adaptation into the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Most of Powers’ novels are about “secret histories” where he uses documented events featuring famous people, but weaves these facts so that occult forces heavily influence the motivations and actions of the characters.
The Anubis Gates begins in 1801 when the British have risen to power in Egypt and are suppressing the worship of the ancient Egyptian gods. A dissent group of magicians want to drive the Empire from their land and use their mystical arts to bring the old gods forward in time to be unleashed upon the people of London. However, they fail to summon the god Anubis and instead open a gateway that remains stable across time and space.
In 1983, sickly J. Cochran Darrow discovers the stable gateway through time. He charges admission to a group of millionaire to lead them back to 1810, the draw is an innocent one: to attend a lecture by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Darrow hires Professor Brendan Doyle to come along and provide his expert commentary on the journey. The tourist trip begins well, but the time travelers are discovered by Dr. Romany. He is one of the magicians that helped to open the gateway. Dr. Romany kidnaps Doyle, preventing him from returning to his own time. While Doyle escapes the doctor in the end, he is still trapped in the 19th century.
Doyle manages to join a beggars guild in order to provide for himself, he befriends a fellow beggar named Jacky. Due to his knowledge of history, he plans to meet and befriend a wealthy poet named William Ashbless in the hope that the man would become his benefactor. As time passes, Doyle discovers that Darrow has not gone back to the future after all, but has remained behind in 19th century London to search for a man known as Dog-Face Joe, a body-swapping werewolf. Darrow hopes to bribe Joe into granting him a new healthy body. Doyle becomes the target of Dog-Face Joe and is swapped into the body of Darrow’s former bodyguard.
Examining his new body, Doyle realizes that he looks exactly like the wealthy poet he had been seeking as a benefactor and comes to the startling conclusion that he IS that historical figure himself. Doyle copies down Ashbless’ poetry from memory and uses his knowledge of the poet’s life to deduces his own future. By using this knowledge, he is able thwart the plans of the magicians in London. Eventually, Dr. Romany discovers another gateway through time, this one leading to the 17th century. Doyle follows the doctor through the gate and stops his attempt to change history. However, Doyle is once again kidnapped and this time brought to Muhammad Ali’s Egypt. The magicians tempt Doyle with the promise to resurrect his dead wife if he will tell them the secrets of the time-gates. Doyle refuses their offer and manages to not only kill the master magician, but escapes back to the 19th century.
While Doyle is busy in the 17th century, Darrow finds Dog-Face Joe and arranges a deal in which Joe will provide Darrow with a series of healthy bodies that will allow him to live forever. The beggar Jacky is onto the scheme and plots to kill Darrow and Dog-Face Joe. When Doyle returns to London, the last magician of the cabal kidnaps Doyle, Jacky and Samuel Coleridge. The three fight back and secrets are not only revealed, but Doyle discovers that fate has a strange way of working out in ways that he could not foresee.
In The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers uses many historical facts from 1810 and stirs them together with a touch of magic, a bevy of famous poets, and a dash of superstitions from the time period and comes up with a three-dimensional puzzle that sticks with you due to its fast-pace and rich details. While the Anubis Gates is credited for starting what is now known as the modern Steampunk genre, the story takes place in Regency times and there is no steam involved. I believe that the original flavor of Steampunk finds its home here, that of a professor who goes to the 19th century and meets famous people from that historical time period. Later, other authors would move the genre more firmly into the Victorian era and center more of the stories around the steam engines of that time period. I’m a huge fan of time travel stories and I believe that this novel is one of the main influences that led me to want to write Steampunk myself. While the novel was written decades ago, you’ll find that it is just as fresh and lively as any novel you would purchase today.
Book Name: The Time Machine
Author: H.G. Wells
First Published: 1895
The Time Machine was H. G. Wells’ first novel of literary importance. He would go on to write The Island of Dr. Moreau and The War of the Worlds soon after. At the time of his writing of The Time Machine, he was a young man of 29 years, a hard working former apprentice to a draper who felt the class system in England all to keenly. Gaining access to books through the connection of his mother who worked in service as a lady’s maid, he was able to gain an understanding to the classics of literature from her employer’s private library. He would later become a socialist, a supporter of women’s suffrage and become a man who loved to fight for causes. H G Wells would marry twice and carry on several affairs with women artists and authors, having several additional children out-of-wedlock in addition to his two sons by his wife Amy Robbins.
The idea for time travel came from a student debating society at Imperial College in London. The debate was on new scientific ideas about the nature of time and from there, Wells spliced science fact into his fascination of government and the effects of the English class system. During the period that he was writing the novel, he was renting a flat with his soon to be second wife, Amy Robbins. His landlady disapproved of the relationship and would spend time outside his window in the dead of night making rude comments about Wells and his private living arrangements. It is said that much of the Morlocks, the villains of the story, were based on this woman’s personality!
The Time Machine is the story of a victorian scientist and inventor from England. He is entertaining dinner guests in his home and reveals to them that he has built a machine that can travel through time. The time traveller leaves the dinner party to test his device and travels into the far future where he discovers the Eloi, a tribe of simple people that have no concept of work and seem to have little curiosity about their environment. The time traveller speculates that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity overcoming nature and evolving to where intellect and strength are not advantageous for survival.
During his efforts to communicate with Eloi, and in particular an Eloi woman named Weena, the time machine is stolen. The time traveller realizes that the machine has been dragged into a close by building that resembles a sphinx. During the night, he is threatened by the nocturnal Morlocks and within their underground home he finds the technology that makes the Eloi way of life possible. The Morlocks control the Eloi to their advantage, using the simple people as their livestock.
The Morlocks, fearing the strangeness that the traveller represents, using the captured time machine to bait the traveller into an underground trap, little realizing that once he gains access to his machine, he is able to use it to escape them. The traveller pushes forward in time to the end of the world before he returns back to his origin, arriving a scant 3 hours later in the evening to the astonishment of his dinner guests. He relates his adventures to his guests and produces two exotic blooms from his pocket that he claims were given to him by Weena as proof. The following day, the time traveller prepares to make a second journey, promising to return in a half hour, but in the end he does not and after three years of waiting, the original narrator of the story realizes that he will never be seen again.
My first exposure to this classic science fiction story and author was via the 1960 movie The Time Machine starring Rod Taylor. It was a special effects giant of its day, winning an academy award for stop-motion photography. I was completely enamored of film and it led me to seek out the book by H.G. Wells. From there I started to read more of his scientific romance stories and became hooked on his writing. Later, I would also become a fan of the 1979 movie Time After Time where the characters Herbert George Wells and Amy Robbins supposedly meet and fall in love in the 1970’s before they return via time machine to Well’s Victorian era where he is inspired to write his famous science fiction novels. The character of George Wells in the movie is very much as real life H G Wells might have been in personality.
H. G. Wells is considered one of the progenitors of the science fiction genre and of scientific romance in particular. His views on the future were not always pleasant, but in his writings there is such a sense of reality that you can believe his reasoning and accept his views as a logical progression of where humanity might go. I personally find that the book has a steampunk feel to it, although it was created decades before the steampunk movement in literature began. The author and the protagonist of The Time Machine originate during victorian times and the story concerns an inventor of a fantastic machine that likely runs on steam like technology. Perhaps in a way, The Time Machine could be considered a forerunner to the steampunk sub-genre.
You can download a free copy of The Time Machine at Project Gutenberg. It is one of the very first novels that they transcribed for the project.
No Wasted Ink 