{"id":28818,"date":"2022-07-13T12:22:37","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T16:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?page_id=28818"},"modified":"2022-07-13T13:48:50","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T17:48:50","slug":"the-time-travelers-assistant-discovers-what-could-have-been","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/writing\/short-fiction\/the-time-travelers-assistant-discovers-what-could-have-been\/","title":{"rendered":"The Time Traveler&#8217;s Assistant Discovers What Could Have Been"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The Time Traveler\u2019s Assistant Discovers What Could Have Been&#8221; was published in <em>Underland Arcana<\/em> #7, appearing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.underlandarcana.com\/scott-edeleman-the-time-travelers-assistant-discovers-what-could-have-been\/\">online<\/a> on the day of the Summer Solstice 2022, but also available in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Underland-Arcana-7-Summer-2022\/dp\/B0B4335WLC\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&#038;qid=1657734395&#038;sr=1-5\">print<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Underland-Arcana-7-Summer-2022-ebook\/dp\/B0B4BS5T6Q\/ref=sr_1_5?crid=18V7WFG9IES4O&#038;keywords=underland+arcana&#038;qid=1657734395&#038;s=digital-text&#038;sprefix=underland+arcana%2Cdigital-text%2C74&#038;sr=1-5\">ebook<\/a> edition. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an unusual story for me in that it\u2019s the first time in my career I\u2019ve ever written a sequel.But I don\u2019t believe a reading of the initial story, or even a knowledge of it on the part of a reader, is necessary for full enjoyment of this one.<\/p>\n<p>I published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/writing\/short-fiction\/the-stranded-time-traveler-embraces-the-inevitable\/\">\u201cThe Stranded Time Traveler Embraces the Inevitable\u201d<\/a> in 2019 in Cat Rambo\u2019s anthology <em>If This Goes On<\/em>. That story, written in 2017, was the first I was able to write after the only writer\u2019s block of my life, brought on by the 2016 presidential election. It was what broke the block for me, as I despaired of story mattering in a world which would have Donald Trump as president.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Time Traveler\u2019s Assistant Discovers What Could Have Been,\u201d which begins seconds after the start of the first story, was written four years later. I never expected to write this story, but it demanded to be. Considering recent events \u2014 and possible future events \u2014 this seems the right time for it to appear.<\/p>\n<p>As I said above, I believe the story works on its own merits. I hope you\u2019ll agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The Time Traveler\u2019s Assistant Discovers What Could Have Been&#8221; was published in Underland Arcana #7, appearing online on the day of the Summer Solstice 2022, but also available in a print and ebook edition. It&#8217;s an unusual story for me in that it\u2019s the first time in my career I\u2019ve ever written a sequel.But I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28820,"parent":13,"menu_order":102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-28818","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28821,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28818\/revisions\/28821"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}