In answer to his least favorite question, James Hogan explained (in the Jan 2006
Analog) that the idea for this novel came from an all night conversation with Charles
Sheffield about the classic time-travel paradox of what happens if you send something back in
time and the arrival of that thing is the very cause of you not sending said thing back in
time. Much of the novel is a similar conversation between physicist Murdoch Ross, his friend
Lee, and Murdoch’s Nobel Prize winning grandfather Charles who has invented a way to send
messages through time.
Suppose your grandfather’s right. What happens to free will? If you can send
information backward through time, you can tell me what I did even before I get around to
doing it. So suppose I choose not to?