World Building And The Potterverse

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 167312

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jordan Abel" <random832 at ...> wrote:
>
> > Ken:
> > Above all you should
> > not write time travel into your story unless you *have* taken a
course in
> > tensor calculus!
> 
> Regardless of everything else you said, the perfectly self-consistent
> recursive causation we see in PoA is worthy of hard SF. What's tensor
> calculus have to do with anything?
> 
> --Random832
>

Ken:

I don't know if you are being serious or not so I don't know whether
to respond seriously or not. Perhaps this time travel sidetrack has
gone on long enough so rather than post a detailed discussion, let me
just say this: "perfectly self-consistent recursive causation"? I LOVE
it, it has me rolling on the floor in fits of laughter! I don't know
if that is the response you expected or not. I cannot take this
seriously as a plausible element in a "serious" work of fantasy or SF,
there are way too many problems with it. If you were being serious and
it works for you, so be it, I am sure you are not the only one who
enjoys stories written around the notion. It's just a big, ugly wart
on the HP series to me. I can ignore it well enough to truly enjoy the
rest of the story, I can never accept it.

I've been running all this over in my mind and come to think of it I
do not believe that the authors I enjoy most make much use of time
travel. Isaac Asimov's Spacer/Robot/Empire/Foundation universe started
out with a time travel culture but then a character in the time travel
ministry realized that the technology was ruining the human race and
managed to kill off time travel entirely. As I recall only one other
character after that time traveled and he was blown forward in time.
Mostly the authors I like avoid the notion like the plague and I don't
pick authors based on their stance on time travel so I guess the kind
of mind that dislikes time travel just naturally seeks out its own kind.

Sigh, I've said it before but in my best Foghorn Leghorn impersonation:

"Tensor calculus? That's a joke... I say, that's a joke, son".

Come on people, is my sense of humor all *that* dry???

Ken