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Hexad – Time Travel Series
Dale dug furtively, feeling ridiculous but unable to get the previous evening’s conversation with Amanda out of his mind. Stupid, drunken conjecture about the possibility of time travel. Then one of them, he couldn’t remember which, had come up with the idea that if it really was possible at some point in their future, they’d go back in time and bury proof under the apple tree in the garden.
Dale knew he was acting foolish, and prayed Amanda didn’t wake up to find him digging in the dirt. He couldn’t help it, though, however ridiculous it seemed. There was something nagging at the back of his mind. What if…?
Q&A with Al K. Line
Q: Why time travel?
A: Because, you know, what if?
Q: Is it a love story?
A: Yes, but what it isn’t is a romance, although I suppose in some ways maybe it is. See? This stuff does funny things to your head. Most books are about love though, aren’t they? Love for a partner, love for family, love for country, your fellow man, or maybe your dog. This is a story that goes deeper than just two people trying to stay together when things get crazy. It goes right to the heart of who you are as a person and who the other person is that you love. If you jump through time and encounter another version of let’s say your husband, or wife, in a parallel universe, then is it really still them? Would it be okay to sleep with them? Live your life with them? Is it really the same person? This and an awful lot more, and worse, happens in the story, but I won’t spoil any surprises.
Q: Are the two main characters heroes?
A: Oh, absolutely. To do anything but curl up in a ball and cry after what happens to them makes them heroes, but they are just an ordinary couple, their lives turned upside down and inside out by events that spiral more and more out of control. They have to try to deal with it.
Q: Does it all make sense? The time travel?
A: None whatsoever. Of course, there is the story, and the events that unfold because of the jumps they make, but this is the problem with time travel: it makes your head hurt. For time travel to work there has to be an ever-expanding number of alternate realities — almost, but not quite parallel universes branching out in all directions to accommodate the fact that pasts, presents, and futures have been changed. It gets really confusing.
Q: Is this your most ambitious work to date?
A: Are you serious? My brain actually melted trying to write this book, not to mention the rest in the series. It really does make your head hurt. To quote The Caretaker: “For something as ridiculous as time travel to actually work, the whole premise has to be based on something equally outlandish, if not more so.” You see what I’m dealing with here?
Q: Do you really believe time travel could actually happen?
A: What do you think? Our present could have been changed a million times by someone tampering with time and we’d never know it, would we?
Q: What’s the actual story then?
A: It’s a time travel action and adventure that’s quite fast-paced, but is definitely based on what normal people do in extraordinary situations. Dale and Amanda get drunk one Friday night and have a rather outlandish conversation where they say that if time travel exists in the future then they will jump back in time and bury proof out in their garden. Dale gets up first in the morning and can’t get the ‘what if?’ out of his mind; Amanda catches him digging up the lawn like an idiot. Things get out of control pretty quickly after that. You can be sure that you’ll have plenty of exotic locations, some proper villains, chases through time, a bit of hanky panky, a lot of terribly sad situations, some serious soul searching about the nature of love, and above all else an awful lot of confusion.
Q: What’s next?
A: A long lie down and a visit to a brain specialist, see if maybe I can get my brain pushed back in through my ears. That is a thing, right? They can do that, can’t they? Hello? Are you still there?
Welcome to the Hexad.