Interview with Andy Gavin, Author of Untimed

Today, I have Andy Gavin with me. His YA novel Untimed recently released through Tribute Books. You can find my review over on YA Bound.

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates.

As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously.

Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem.

When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it.

And there's one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!

Hi, Andy! Thanks for dropping by to talk a little about Untimed.

What made you choose to have part of your book take place in 1725 London?

I love history and at first I thought about going to the ancient world, which is my real passion, but I wanted to avoid over-indulging myself and for this first outing stay with a time, place, and celebrity that wasn’t so alien. If I was going back that far, I’d want to capture the monumental shifts in mindset, and it was too much for the first in the series.

Somehow, I always imagined Charlie in Philadelphia, and that led me quickly to Ben Franklin, who is a favorite of mine. In an alternate dimension there exists a simpler Untimed, woven between modern and 18^th century Philly. No London. No France. No China. That book would have been more like a Hollywood story, all packaged up neat and clean, but neat and clean isn’t the Andy Gavin style.

If you had to compare Charlie to a well-known historical figure, who would it be?

Hmmm. That’s a stumper. Charlie’s his own man. I tried to make him very likeable and funny but with an authentic fifteen year-old voice, which means it has a bit of an edge. Teen boys think about shit and sex. Sorry, but it’s true. I rub up on issues that make some squirm, even if I deal with the lightly: teen pregnancy, drinking, slavery, etc. But to sweep these under the carpet wouldn’t do justice to the 18^th century – or our own.

What was the best part about researching for this story?

Reading about the London underworld of the 1720s. I tore through perhaps 10 books on the topic (not to mention several Ben Franklin biographies, etc.) but the best was this out of print little book called The Road to Tyburn which vividly painted the sordid reality. After reading that, I knew I had to delve into the seedy side. Also great fun was combing through the two cant dictionaries I found, one from the 1737 and the other published in 1811. The number of hilarious sexual slang words is uncountable and it was a blast to disguise the nasty bits of Yvaine’s and Donnie’s dialogue with obscure cant.

If you could travel to any time, what would it be?

Personally, I’d love to visit the ancient world, mostly the great cities. Rome in different eras (Republican, Imperial, etc.). Egypt during the peak of the New Kingdom. Pericles’ Athens. Justinian’s Constantinople. Alexander in Babylon. All good stuff. We can bet that Charlie will be heading downtime sometime in the future… uh, his meta-future that is.

Just for fun:

Past or present? Past.

Favorite food: Spicettes, the funny flavored gumdrops. And I’m a consummate foodie!

What song best fits this book? I’m not sure, but while writing it I listened a hell of a lot to the Daft Punk Tron Legacy album. It seems to fit.

Thanks, Gavin!

If you want to check out Gavin's book, you can find it in paperback or on Kindle. And here's a giveaway as part of the blog tour:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

So, what do you think of the book?