Title: The Last Of The Time Police
Author: Kim Howard Johnson
Series: The Time Authority
BLURB from Goodreads
It’s "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" meets "Time Bandits" in this action-packed science fiction adventure.
Stan and Jack are the last remaining members of the Time Authority, a government unit formed to correct disruptions to the established Time Line. Although time travel has been officially outlawed, Stan and Jack must make a quick time hop to 16th Century France to clean up some of their careless littering.
Unbeknownst to them, however, Leonardo DaVinci stows away and tumbles out (along with the operating manual for the time machine) in 18th Century England. This disruption is discovered by the Time Authority, as it creates a Chronological Anomaly that begins advancing toward the future and threatens to wipe out all reality. The military and civilian leaders clash before agreeing on a scheme to build one final time machine and send Corporal Spumoni back to correct the Time Line, even though it may ruin any chance of Stan and Jack returning home.
Stan and Jack must crash-land their time machine in 1848, where they discover, due to DaVinci’s influence, a futuristic Victorian England. After nearly colliding with Maggie Wells on her flying machine, she helps them hide their broken Time Hopper. Stan and Jack realize their only hope to fix their machine is to recover the operating manual, if it still even exists. But Special Services agents, led by Maggie’s former boyfriend James Burton, are constantly searching for them. And Jack’s growing attraction for Maggie is tempered by the thought that she could be his great-great-great-great-grandmother.
By 1768, DaVinci has become a favorite of King George III of England. His only rival is Benjamin Franklin. Jealous, with the help of Lord Frederick North, DaVinci frames Franklin for the theft of his own notebooks. But when DaVinci learns Britain’s plans for his own war machines, he realizes he must work with Franklin to stop Britain’s domination of the globe.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Did it take a long time
to get your first book published?
It was all deceptively easy. A writer friend recommended me to his agent, the agent had me write up a proposal, and he sent it out. One editor jumped at it on a Friday afternoon. Then I heard on Monday that he had died over the weekend! But another editor at another publishing house picked it up. Fortunately, he managed to survive long enough to get it in print.
What is the name of your latest book, and if you had to summarise it in less than 20 words what would you say?
The Last of the Time Police (The Time Authority, Book One) [That's practically twenty words alone, isn't it?!] How about:
It was all deceptively easy. A writer friend recommended me to his agent, the agent had me write up a proposal, and he sent it out. One editor jumped at it on a Friday afternoon. Then I heard on Monday that he had died over the weekend! But another editor at another publishing house picked it up. Fortunately, he managed to survive long enough to get it in print.
What is the name of your latest book, and if you had to summarise it in less than 20 words what would you say?
The Last of the Time Police (The Time Authority, Book One) [That's practically twenty words alone, isn't it?!] How about:
Pythonesque adventure as the two least competent
members of the Time Authority are sent back for a candy bar wrapper.
Do
you have plans for a new book? Is this book part of a series?
The Last of the Time Police (The Time
Authority Book One)
is followed by the second part of the story, The Return of the Time
Police (The Time Authority Book Two). I’m in the middle of writing the third book,
which still doesn’t have a title. The whole story is a Pythonesque adventure
about the two least competent members of the Time Authority, which is charged
with correcting disruptions to the established Time Line. In the first book,
Stan and Jack are sent to the past to pick up a candy bar wrapper, but in the
process, they accidentally transport Leonardo DaVinci to Victorian England,
where the government puts him to work. The result is a Chronological Anomaly
that threatens to wipe out all reality. The story takes place simultaneously in
three different centuries.
What genre would you place your books into?
They’re science fiction steampunk
Pythonesque action-adventures in the vein of The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy. Hope that makes it clear!
What made you decide to write that genre
of book?
I
think the genre was the result of the story I wanted to tell—the rest just
happened! But I also dislike time
travel stories that don’t make sense. They have to pass the logic test—could
this actually happen? If Victorian scientists really learned the split the
atom, there has to be a reason that doesn’t impact on us today, perhaps if
someone had to go back in time and repair everything that happened...someone
like a group of Time Police! Hmmm...
Do you have a favourite character from your
books? and why are they your favourite?
The
Last of the Time Police (and The
Return of the Time Police) mixes fictional characters with real-life
historical personages. Leonardo DaVinci and Benjamin Franklin have just
as big a role in the story as Stan and Jack, and I loved being able to write
them. But the most interesting real-life character, one that almost no one has
heard of, is undoubtedly Samuel Warner. He invented the torpedo, but the
mystery of his death inspired my story and several of my characters. In
London’s Brompton Cemetery, there is a mysterious mausoleum that some people
believe is actually a time machine. Seriously. I’m not kidding, look it up for
yourself! It’s an odd structure built by Warner and Egyptologist Joseph Bonomi
for a Victorian spinster and her daughters. I discovered their story early on
in the writing, and they all became characters in my book.
I
decided to use Leonardo DaVinci, who was inventing war machines and flying
devices back in the 1500s after thinking “Suppose he had access to British
technology a couple of centuries later to develop his inventions?” And so I
began studying DaVinci and his world, and the world I was about to thrust him
into. Who would he likely have encountered in London in the 1700s? And how
would they have interacted? I decided to include, arguably, the first great
American inventor and great mind, Benjamin Franklin, who happened to be in
London during that period, and more research ensued. Finally, I came up with
Stan and Jack, my two main characters, whose blunder resulted in DaVinci being
pulled out of his own era. I even had to research the history of golf, for reasons
that will become obvious to readers. I also had to navigate an impossible
romance with Maggie, a very strong female character.
Where do you get your book plot ideas from? What/Who
is your inspiration?
When I was mulling ideas for The Last of the Time Police, I recalled that back
in the 1970s, Terry Gilliam had showed me some pictures of an alternative vision
of Victorian London—it was steampunk before anyone had ever heard of the word.
That certainly informed my story.
I was also inspired, in part, by Douglas Adams
and The Hitchhikers Guide to
the Galaxy.
I knew Douglas—we never became close friends, but I knew him through the
Pythons. My wife Laurie and I went to see my Python pal Terry Jones, who was
doing a book signing in Chicago many years ago with Douglas. The four of us
went out for dinner and drinks afterward, and had to be scolded by the
management more than once because we were getting too loud, boisterous, and
naughty.
Then, several years later, we were living in
Santa Barbara when I was working for John Cleese. Douglas had likewise
relocated to Santa Barbara, and we re-connected. I had only been there a few
months, and had only had lunch with him once, when I got the news that Douglas
had passed away, much too young. Very sad. But Douglas andHitchhikers Guide certainly had a lot to
do with the tone of The Last of the Time Police.
Do you basic plot/plan for your book, before you
actually begin writing it out? Or do you let the writing flow and see where it
takes the story?
Many
years ago, I studied improvisation with the legendary Del Close. In fact, I
went on to co-write the improvisational manual Truth
in Comedy, and even became Del’s biographer years later with The
Funniest One in the Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close. Del was
the guru of longform improvisation, and taught just about everyone worthwhile,
from John Belushi and Bill Murray to Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert.
But the point of all this is that I learned to write improvisationally. It
turns out that the rules of improvisation are much like the rules of good
writing. For example, that’s how I learned to start scenes in the middle and
eschew exposition.
I enjoyed writing this improvisationally, but I
have since been told that I’m lucky to have gotten away with it. And so, sadly,
I am learning the “proper” way to plot and structure. I’m told that once I do,
the rest of the writing process will come much easier to me. We shall see...
Where can readers follow you?
Your Blog Details?
Kimhowardjohnson.com
Your Website ?
Kimhowardjohnson.com
Your Facebook Page?
Your Goodreads Author Page?
Your Twitter Details?
@khowardjohnson
And
any other information you wish to supply?
In addition to all of my magazine writing, I’ve written non-fiction (The First 280 Years of Monty Python), I’ve written biography (The Funniest One in the Room), I’ve written memoirs (Monty Python’s Tunisian Holiday, about my life on the set of Monty Python’s Life of Brian in Tunisia), co-written an improvisational manual (Truth in Comedy), a graphic novel (Superman: True Brit) and other comic books. I’ve also co-written a YA novel (The Dare Club: Nita) with my wife, Laurie (who is the author of A Good Draw andBeyond Reach).
In addition to all of my magazine writing, I’ve written non-fiction (The First 280 Years of Monty Python), I’ve written biography (The Funniest One in the Room), I’ve written memoirs (Monty Python’s Tunisian Holiday, about my life on the set of Monty Python’s Life of Brian in Tunisia), co-written an improvisational manual (Truth in Comedy), a graphic novel (Superman: True Brit) and other comic books. I’ve also co-written a YA novel (The Dare Club: Nita) with my wife, Laurie (who is the author of A Good Draw andBeyond Reach).
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