Pulsar: The Time Traveler follows a man haunted by the destruction of his homeworld, who builds a time machine, sending him on an interstellar adventure that forces him to decide whether healing means changing history or moving beyond it. What inspired the setup of your story?

I think I’ve always wanted to write a science fiction story set in space.  I was fascinated with the idea of using time travel to escape a world on the brink of destruction, and I realized during the drafting process I could pair it with giving the main character the motivation to try and undo a loved one’s death.  That, combined with knowing the ending, kind of let the arc write itself.

I was inspired by a million stories that I loved both presently and growing up, but one of the most prominent was Avatar: The Last Airbender.  In that show, Aang is frozen in an iceberg for 100 years, and when he’s freed, he hasn’t aged a day.  In one episode, he meets Bumi, an old friend he met before he was frozen, who is now an old man.  They only spend an episode on that dynamic, and I thought, “What would it look like if they delved deeper into that?”  Because I felt that dynamic could carry an entire storyline.

How does Chase’s obsession with building a time machine affect his ability to recognize what he has in the present, and how does his understanding of what he actually wants from time travel change throughout the story?

His obsession absolutely blunts his ability to find happiness in the present: friends, opportunities, purpose, community, etc.  At the start, Chase wants his parents back, and he doesn’t think it through any further.  But as the story progresses, he realizes he just wants the pain caused by that traumatic event to go away.  And if time travel can’t give him that, he has to look elsewhere.  

I think when we look at our past and accept it and move past it, that requires a lot of self-love and self-acceptance in order to work.  Chase is motivated by very strong self-hatred at the start of the book, because he blames himself for their deaths.  Conversely, Coba, his brother, lived through the hundred or so years without him and built an entire life.  And he learned to accept what happened before we’re reintroduced to him in the present.  And the story is built on how the two interact with each other and the conclusion they both come to.

What interested you most about the consequences of changing history rather than simply the mechanics of traveling through it?

Small changes can lead to enormous consequences.  Some of these consequences play out in The Time Traveler, and others will play out in later books.  But while all this is going on, Chase stays stagnant.  The time machine renders him unable to grow, unable to move on.  The power that time travel provides makes him effectively a god, but it stunts any progress he can make in healing from his wound or maturing emotionally.  It’s the ultimate Faustian bargain.

Without giving too much away, where do you see Chase, Rachel, and Jason’s journey heading after the events of this novel?

I obviously don’t want to spoil what happens at the end of the novel.  But there are four Gifts that a Strani can learn, and throughout The Time Traveler, Chase can only use one: His ability to heal himself and others.  He will learn at least one other as the series goes on.  As for Jason and Rachel, they get a crash course in the intergalactic conflict with Nespis in both this book and the next, and they must decide how to navigate that.  The danger can only go up from here, and given what happens at the end of the book, it’s an incredibly difficult choice for the both of them what to do next.

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