First, an update on Threads. I’m hearing from readers who have recently finished the book. So far, so good. As expected, they have been very surprised by the last several chapters that tie things together and add a twist. Yay!
In case you haven’t been enticed to read Threads because of the eBook format, please keep in mind that there is a free Kindle app for just about any tablet, phone, notebook, or PC. I have spoken to more than a few readers who enjoy reading on their phones because of the take anywhere, read anywhere option.
As promised, I want to talk about books and publications that influenced the telling of Threads. One such book is The Natural Philosophy of Time (Oxford Press, Second Edition, 1980). This book covers a lot of territory. Chapter titles include Human Time, Biological Time, Mathematical Time, Relativistic Time, Space-Time and Cosmic Time, and The Nature of Time. Not exactly light reading. As I perused though I felt even more certain about the direction of Threads. And one idea in particular impacted the story. The psychological phenomenon of deja vu — the sense of familiarity that says we have already experienced what we are about to experience for the first time. For many of us, myself included, the concept renders feelings of mystic and a sort of “ooooh” response. I was a little surprised to see coverage of the idea in a scientific volume. Philosophy, however, uses deja vu to discuss the concept of the past and the connection between familiarity and memory. In other words, if something seems familiar we think it is because we have a memory of it from our past. Deja vu was a vital part of the fossil of a story I needed to unearth (the idea of a story as a fossil is from Stephen King and will be covered in another post). And the further I got into Threads the more I realized that the question of memory and the types of memory would play a role.
Belleyre Books 