Joseph Eckert Talks The Traveler
Joseph Eckert’s debut novel The Traveler follows Scott, an average Midwestern dad whose car vanishes around him one ordinary commute — and who discovers he’s been thrown 24 hours into the future. The twist: it keeps happening, and each jump doubles, flinging him two days forward, then four, then eight, sixteen, and on, while his brilliant son Lyle grows obsessed with figuring out the math behind his father’s disappearances and finding a way to bring him home. He stopped by the show to speak about the novel.
In our conversation, Eckert traced his time-travel influences back to a college paper comparing Terminator 2, Time Cop, and Back to the Future — and explained why he built his own story around forward motion instead of the backward paradoxes those films wrestle with.
We dig into what makes the book hit harder than a typical high-concept premise is its personal nature. Eckert started writing it 15 years ago, identifying with the son, but returned to it as a father himself, reshaping Scott’s interiority (with help from his editors and agent) to capture the specific horror of missing your child’s life in irreversible leaps. He also softened the marriage at the story’s center, moving away from his own experience as the child of divorce toward a more tragic, loving portrait of what a good relationship looks like under impossible strain. The Traveler is out now from Tor Books!
About The Traveler
The Traveler is the story of a reluctant time-traveler and his extraordinary son, and the bond between them that even millennia cannot break. An adventure full of heartbreak, hope, and futures beyond imagination.
It’s a day like any other when Scott Treder first jumps forward through time. One moment, he’s on his way to work, fingers drumming the steering wheel. The next, he’s tumbling headlong down the road, his car gone, a dozen panicked voicemails from his wife waiting on his cell.
7:51 am. Monday, April 13th.
A blink of an eye.
7:52 am. Tuesday, April 14th.
An entire 24 hours, gone.
This one moment—this first spontaneous slip—marks a change in the course not only of Scott’s future, but that of the world. From this point on, at precisely 7:52 am every morning, Scott inexplicably travels forward in time in ever-doubling intervals. First one day lost in a blink, then two, then four, until weeks, even years, are passing him by in an instant.
Meanwhile, his wife is left alone to pick up the pieces of the life they once shared together, and, before long, Lyle, Scott’s genius seven-year-old son, will surpass him in age.
Because while his dad is rocketing forward in time, Lyle is growing up–graduating early, studying at Berkeley, becoming the foremost scholar of quantum physics, all in an attempt to bring his father back…
Meet an extraordinary father and son in this captivating, heart-wrenching speculative debut.
About Joseph Eckert
Joseph is an avid photographer, father, and husband. He has a master’s degree in Political Science and an eclectic professional background. He loves video games, films and novels, friendly dogs, grumpy cats, cooking, and imagination.
Joseph’s work crosses genres but generally hews closer to speculative fiction and fantasy with a sprinkling of horror and a dusting of philosophical musings. Character remains paramount: tossing a character into the proverbial tree and throwing rocks at them to see what they do is most interesting when the reader cares about them.
