Time and Again
by Jack Finney
This is a fascinating time travel novel, by a master fantasist. Artist Si Morley gets involved in a secret government project to prove that someone can be sent backwards in time and then return to the present day. The "science" is hokey -- using hypnosis and the environmental equivalent of a sensory deprivation chamber -- and the novel only remotely deals with potential time travel paradoxes. However, this book is a love poem to Victoriana -- Finney's extremely detailed descriptions of everything the characters encounter in the novel give a real sense of place, and the reader can easily find themselves falling in love with 1880s New York. This novel, in many ways, inspired the Jane Seymour/Christopher Reeve time-travel romance film, Somewhere in Time (even though that was written by Richard Matheson). If you liked that film, you'll probably enjoy this novel, too. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library
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2 comments:
I thought Time and Again was a great story. I loved traveling back to the New York of that period and Finney does a great job of really making you feel you're there. Si is an artist, which allows him to use his skills in an earlier period. (One wonders how the book would have had to change if Si was a computer scientist.) And, if you liked this, Finney followed it up with another, Time and Time Again, I think. Anyway, check out anything by Finney and you'll be pleased.
There are even rumors that Finney was working on a third novel to feature time-traveling Si, which remained unfinished at the time of Finney's death.
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