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Grandpa's crazy. Or at least that's what teens Max, Kyle, and Emma think when he tells them about the time machine in his basement. But when Emma is kidnapped precisely as Grandpa predicted, it's up to Max, Kyle, and their new pal Petra to save her. Using Grandpa's Chronal Engine, the three must commandeer a VW Bug to the Cretaceous period, navigate past car-crushing sauropods and the bloodthirsty T. rex, locate Emma, and get everyone back home in one piece.
Chronal Engine, the action-jammed prehistoric time-travel adventure from Greg Leitich Smith—also author of Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo (Little, Brown, 2003) and its follow-up Tofu and T. rex (Little, Brown, 2005)—is sure to elicit thumbs-up from adolescent survival-story fans and dinosaur buffs. Kirkus calls it "a Back to the Future-style romp through time" with "action and enthusiasm aplenty."
“...I still remember those books (showing mid-century conceptions of dinosaurs as sluggish, oversized, and dumb).” —LEITICH SMITH
AUTHORLINK:How did Chronal Engine come about?
LEITICH SMITH: When I was little, my parents used to take my brother and me to the Field Museum of Natural History regularly and gave us a set of books on dinosaurs. I’ve been interested in them ever since. And I still remember those books (showing mid-century conceptions of dinosaurs as sluggish, oversized, and dumb). When I was older, I remember reading The Enormous Egg in grade school and loving it. In the '80s, when Robert Bakker’s Dinosaur Heresies came out and the notion that birds are dinosaurs was going more mainstream, I remember thinking, “Of course dinosaurs are like birds. Haven’t they read The Enormous Egg?” So, when I was working on my second novel, I had a character who was a fan of dinosaurs, as well.
Flash-forward to when I was finishing up my last novel: I remember thinking it would be great to write a time-travel dinosaur book, but that it would take an extraordinary amount of research, which I did not want to do and didn’t really have the time to do anyway (even then, I wanted to portray dinosaurs as realistically as possible). But I kept coming back to it. So, when I had finished a draft of another manuscript and was letting it sit, I decided to consider the dinosaurs again. And at that point, I decided, well, how much research could it really take…?
Incidentally, oddly enough, two of my novels now have covers with Tyrannosaurus rex on them.
AUTHORLINK: So what kind of research did you end up doing, and how long did it actually take? Did you research and write simultaneously? How long before you had a first draft?
LEITICH SMITH:The research never really ended.
I went into the project thinking that I wanted to be able to portray the dinosaurs as real animals in a real ecosystem, and in a manner as close to the current understanding of their behavior as possible. I started with nonfiction picture books and popular dinosaur encyclopedias. Then I went on to college texts and books by professional paleontologists both for “intelligent lay readers”(as Indiana University Press bills its Life of the Past series) and professional paleontologists. From there, I joined some paleontologist listservs and began following the professional literature. Nearly every day there are posts about a new article or study, many of which are free online (and often when they’re not, at least the abstracts are) or available via library subscription. Because there was so much of it, I put together a document that is now about 75,000 words long, with around 3,000 footnotes (basically, every sentence is footnoted to identify the source, and I have three or four hundred sources). And although I went into it thinking it was all about the dinosaurs, a good third of it is about the rest of the ecosystem—turtles, crocodilians, birds, beetles, worms, crayfish, ferns, cycads, etc.
I wrote the first draft of Chronal Engine in around five weeks. Now, this was not anything remotely resembling a complete, polished manuscript that I would be willing to put my name on and send to my agent. This was very rough, sort of a long concept sketch (about 90 pages, maybe 20,000 words). For that draft, I only did a basic amount of research; I tossed in dinosaurs that existed at around the same period, but without concern for whether they actually existed together on the same continent.
Once I had that first draft, though, I got serious and realized I had to pick a time and place and ecosystem. Fortunately, I knew enough by then that Texas had a terrific Late Cretaceous dinosaur population including tyrannosaurs and some of the last sauropods, like Alamosaurus. It also had some amazing non-dinosaur fauna. I did end up taking one or two liberties, but nothing too egregious, and I don’t think I’ve contradicted the fossil record.
After that, I dived back into the writing and started putting the research all together into the big document. From then on, the research and writing went on simultaneously and it took another three months or so to finish a draft I was willing to send to my agent.
AUTHORLINK: How different is the finished book from the first draft? How much revising did you do? What changes did you make and where in the process did they take place?
“I think the only thing that remains from the initial drafts is the name Chronal Engine and the early encounter with the sauropods.” —LEITICH SMITH
LEITICH SMITH: The book went through many, many interim drafts along the way and maybe two or three different polished drafts. The biggest change is that the first draft(s) were sort of Breakfast Club meets Land of the Lost—a group of disparate teens is together on a field trip and ends up getting transported back to the Late Cretaceous. Some of the drafts were alternating point of view from each of the teens. Max was always a character, though, and he was the geek whom the others have to start paying attention to if they want to survive.
While they were fun and all, these drafts lacked a certain heart. The manuscript didn’t really come together in that way until I made Max the sole protagonist and made it a sibling story and tossed in the kidnapping and family mystery. I think the only thing that remains from the initial drafts is the name Chronal Engine and the early encounter with the sauropods.
AUTHORLINK: Please talk about "Robinsonades"—what they are, why you enjoy them, how they inspired you in the writing of Chronal Engine.
LEITICH SMITH: Robinsonades are named after Robinson Crusoe, which appears to have been the first novel in the English language. It was so popular, it spawned an entire genre: books about people cast ashore on a desert isle, with only their wits about them, and they have to survive months or even years cut off from the rest of humanity. In that time, of course, they bring civilization to their places of habitation.
Swiss Family Robinson was one of my favorite books as a kid (and I always vaguely wondered why it was called that, since Robinson is not really a Swiss name). I’d also always been fascinated by the notion of surviving without the modern conveniences. My parents and grandparents had stories about life without indoor plumbing or electricity or air conditioning. And I’d read books like the Little House series and knew things could be very, very different. Also, I wore glasses (I was and am very nearsighted) and living and reading without them would be very difficult, so I was very conscious of the fact that they are a product of modern civilization, if you will.
So the early drafts of Chronal Engine were very Robinsonade-like; the teens come together and survive together against the dinosaurs and strange environment (sort of an anti-Lord of the Flies). As I said, though, the book evolved in a somewhat different direction, with Emma’s kidnapping, etc.
AUTHORLINK: Who needs to read this book, or whom did you have in mind as your reader as you wrote it?
LEITICH SMITH: I think with all my books, I have in mind the sort of book I would’ve liked to have read as a middle grader. With this one, I wanted a character-driven adventure with more or less realistic depictions of dinosaurs, not as slavering monsters or slapstick/cheesy tropes. Basically, I think Chronal Engine is for anyone who likes dinosaurs and/or action-and-adventure with a bit each of humor and heart, and it would probably appeal particularly to those young readers who like Jurassic Park or Terra Nova.
AUTHORLINK: It seems editors are always clamoring for books for boys—was Chronal Engine an easy sell?
“...one of the things that came up was that publishers didn’t want to compete with their already existing or under-contract projects.”
—LEITICH SMITH
LEITICH SMITH: Yes and no. The book made it past editorial and up to the acquisition committee (this one includes marketing and sales and the publisher and corporate muckety-mucks) a couple of times. But one of the things that came up was that publishers didn’t want to compete with their already existing or under-contract projects. Now, even though there really aren’t any dinosaur time-travel books, there are a lot of time travel books. Most of these were action-adventures that center on important historical events or famous people rather than prehistory, but there was a sense that the books would compete for the same group of young readers, which I assume means boys.
AUTHORLINK: Your wife is Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of the Tantalize series (Candlewick) for young adults, plus many other books for younger readers. What's it like being married to another writer? Competitive? Collaborative? Hey, instant crit partner!
“We don’t actually seem to have time for a critique group any more, but we each read the other’s drafts at least a couple times in the process.”
—LEITICH SMITH
LEITICH SMITH:Collaborative, really. Texas is a community property state, after all...
We’re each others' first readers, and we are always available to brainstorm on the manuscript and pick up the slack on the housecleaning. We don’t actually seem to have time for a critique group any more, but we each read the other’s drafts at least a couple times in the process.
We also do a read-aloud of each manuscript before we send it to our agent (you’d be surprised at how many hidden typos and how much clunky prose you catch that way).
AUTHORLINK: What are you working on next?
LEITICH SMITH: I have another science fiction project for which we have agreed to terms, but my agent hasn’t received the actual paperwork yet. I expect to make an official announcement soon. I’m also working on a fantasy/science fiction piece involving a ranch here in Texas.
Greg Leitich Smith is an author of novels, picture books, and short stories for young readers. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, author Cynthia Leitich Smith, and four cats. His website is http://www.gregleitichsmith.com and he blogs at http://greglsblog.blogspot.com.
About Susan VanHecke
Susan VanHecke is an author and editor of books for adults and children. Her titles for young people include Raggin' Jazzin' Rockin': A History of American Musical Instrument Makers (Boyds Mills, 2011), Rock 'N' Roll Soldier (HarperCollins, 2009), and An Apple Pie For Dinner (Cavendish, 2009). To find out more about Susan and her books, visit www.susanvanhecke.com and www.susanvanheckeeditorial.com.
