Essay Questions

What is the Tempus gene?

Short answer: the whole reason the story exists. Long answer: the Tempus gene is the in-universe explanation for how time traveling is possible. Time travel is plot device that like the power of invisibility absolutely seems for some reason to require an elaborate explanation instead of expecting the reader or audience to just be cool and go along with it. In this particular case, time travel is possible for the small percentage of the population born with the Tempus gene. This recessive gene mutation has actually been known to exist for centuries, but it is impossible to determine just prevalent because most take great pains to keep it a secret. For obvious reason and well as not so obvious ones.

What is the most disquieting not-so-obvious reason to keep having the Tempus gene a secret in this story?

In addition to being a science fiction story with the focus on time travel, the novel also dips its toes into the genre of spy story. The protagonist is forced to amp up any natural suspicions of the CIA with a secret time police unit of sorts sporting the really unfortunately cheesy name Enemies of Time. So, in addition to all the obvious reasons one might want to keep their ability to travel through time a secret, those with the Tempus gene must also be on guard against agents of their own government making things really quite uncomfortable.

In addition to being part science fiction and part spy novel, what other literary genre gets mashed up into the mix in a major way?

Although the major characters are all graduated from high school, they are only just barely out of it. Despite occasionally being written as if they were more mature, the younger characters here are definitely intended to be the kind that younger readers find relatable. And there is a tragic romance at the center of the story. (That’s not a spoiler because it is actually a marketing ploy.) The result of this teen-ish romance being the driving force of the plot has it reading very much like novel that would be found in the Young Adult Romance section even before the science fiction and well before the espionage section in a bookstore.