I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of this book and I loved it. You can see my review here.
Since the book has just come out, I invited C. M. Keller to visit YAlicious and tell us why she chose Babylon as her setting for the second book in her Screwing Up Time series.
* * * * *
One of the joys of writing time travel is
that all of history becomes your playground. No time or culture is off limits.
Of course, the question then becomes what time period do you choose. And that’s
the question Melissa posed for me when she asked me to write this blog post.
Why Babylon?
I have to admit that Babylon has
fascinated me for most of my life. My first contact with Babylon was the story
of Esther—an ancient beauty pageant winner who almost ended up as a concubine.
Then, I fell in love with the story of Scheherazade, a Persian woman who
survives by cleverness and stories. When I was in school, I read about the Code
of Hammurabi and the Hanging Gardens. Later as an adult, I taught the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Yale Museum
of British Art’s paintings of Babylon captured my imagination.
When I began Screwing Up Babylon and discovered that Peter had kidnapped Miranda
to use her to manipulate Mark, I knew where Peter would take her. Babylon. I
actually tried to talk myself out of the location because I knew it would
present several problems. One, the language—the people of Babylon speak
Akkadian, and my main characters do not. So it would be a huge challenge to
engage the reader in the plot when Mark and Miranda can’t understand what
anyone around them is saying. My other concern was that the culture of Babylon
was violent and life was cheap. I knew if I set the novel there, the story
would be darker.
So I tried to think of other settings,
but they weren’t right. This sequel had
to take place in Babylon because Babylon itself was a character—what was going
to happen in the story could only take place in Babylon. So I stopped trying to
force the story to fit somewhere else. And when I did, the story wrote itself.
Hopefully, readers come away from the
book not only with a better understanding of many sides of Babylon, both the
exotic and the bleak, but also a greater appreciation of their own culture.
* * * * *
I loved seeing Babylon through the eyes of Mark and Miranda. You captured the city beautifully and it was the perfect setting for Screwing Up Babylon. Thanks so much for your insights, Connie.
The first book in this series - Screwing Up Time - is currently only 99c on Amazon. If you'd like to pick up a copy and grab yourself a copy of Screwing Up Babylon, you can follow the link below.
