Can you tell us a bit about your “Time Authority” series?The Last of the Time Police (The Time Authority Book One) and the second part of the story, The Return of the Time Police (The Time Authority Book Two), is my first solo fiction. It’s a Pythonesque adventure about the two least competent members of the Time Authority, which is charged with correcting disruptions to the established Time Line. 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 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.
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.
Shortly after I began writing, I stumbled onto the Sam Warner story. The more I read, the more amazing it seemed. A time machine in a modern-day London cemetery? I couldn’t not use that! And he became a central figure in the story.
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 and boisterous.
Then, several years later, we were living in Santa Barbara when I was working for John Cleese. Douglas had likewise moved out to Santa Barbara, and we re-connected. I had only been there a few months, when I got the news that Douglas had passed away, much too young. Very sad. But Douglas and Hitchhikers Guide certainly had a lot to do with the tone and attitudes of The Last of the Time Police.
A good book cover is one that makes a curious browser want more. In a brick and mortar store, it will set the book apart from the others on the rack and make the reader want to pick it up and look inside; and it will make on-line readers start clicking to find out more about it. I look for images that will reflect the story and the tone of the book inside, and hope for the best. Oh, and a little cleavage never hurts.
I’ve always been a fan of Monty Python, ever since I stumbled on it by mistake many years ago. I had always been a fan of the classic comedians–Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, WC Fields, The Three Stooges–and if I had lived during that era, I would have wanted to hang out there, and learn what it was like on a movie set when they were shooting one of their classic films. I somehow saw something in Python that I saw in the early, classic comics–and was lucky enough to get to hang out on the set of Life of Brian, watch them at work, and even write a book about it all (Monty Python’s Tunisian Holiday). And best of all, I was lucky enough to become friends with them all, and discover what great people they are personally.
I think there is something about Python that appeals to more thoughtful, more educated viewers–at least, I like to think that! There’s something anarchic and liberating about the attitudes and humor–it doesn’t appeal to the mainstream and traditional viewers. Python has always been a cult in America–an increasingly large cult, but a cult nevertheless!
How do you market your books?
I impose upon the kindness of people like you, Dag, who have their own websites and blogs, and are willing to help spread the word. Seriously, marketing e-books is one of the most difficult aspects of the e-publishing movement, and I’m still taking baby steps trying to figure it out. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m listening!
No question about it, it’s forcing myself to put the butt in the seat and keep it there. If I can force myself to sit there long enough, the words start to flow and the story starts to form.
I guess you’ve forced me to admit it–I don’t have an e-book reader! But my wife has two of them. I gave her one for Christmas two years ago, then got her a brand new one last Christmas, hoping I would get the old one. No such luck! She now uses both of them, and I have to wait for this Christmas!
I have a long list of favorite authors, from the classics (Dickens, Twain, Wodehouse, Thurber) to my own wife Laurie Bradach. I’m a huge fan of historical fiction by Max Allan Collins and the classic Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser, and I think his historical fiction has influenced my Time Police novels. If it’s funny, I’m there, although I also like Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Neil Gaiman.
I’m researching a history of The Committee, the legendary West Coast improvisational group, which is slowly turning into a history of the ‘60s. As one of them told me, “The Sixties walked through our door”—and he was absolutely right. Just about every well-known music and counter-cultural figure from that era crossed paths with The Committee.
And as soon as I finish that, I’ll be starting on the third Time Authority book. I have to figure out another impossible situation for them, a problem with no solution. Once I can do that, I’ll throw them in up to their necks and see where we go from there!
