Time and Again (The Classic Illustrated Novel) (original 1970; edition 1995)

ersatz-time travel story; government project recreates historical milieu so accurately that trained, hypnotized subjects can return to the past; Simon Morley returns to 1880s New York and falls in love

*note to self.copy from Al.

My oldest son's dad, who was a bookstore owner, loved this book beyond any other and used to stock it in great stacks in the 70's. I think he personally put it into the hands of just about every customer we had.
And when our son grew up, it was one of his favorites as well.
It is charming, romantic, and tender. And it has pictures. What more could you desire? ( )

I rather liked Replay,by Ken Grimwood, which I read 10 Nov 2004, so it was suggested I read this book. It starts slow, and since Iordianrly dn' think much of Sci fi and this was in the sci fi section at the library, I was leery about finishing it. But after a while one gets caught up in the story as Simon Morley is able to enter the 1882 world of New York. He meets up with Julia, whose well-being is threatened by Jake Pickering--who is trying to blackmail a prominent New Yorker. Simon and Julis aim to thwart the scheme and get involved in a huge fire which did actually occur in New York on Feb 1, 1882. Simon and Julia are subjected police harassment which makes one grateful for the decisions of the Warren Court. They escape 1882 New York, come to 1970 New York--and the contrast between the two times is kind of deftly drawn. But the book I did not think as detly done as Replay--and the events entirely aside from the time travel were too grossly improbable. But I did not mind the book too much. ( )

There was very little I liked about this book. It has a very intriguing premise which showed it had some promise, but even that fell short with novel. In the end I was glad to be finally done with the book.

The writing made the book hard to slog through. Every little action and observation was over explained, it took paragraphs to explain the simple act of being handed a piece of paper and pen. The writing also felt monotonous - even in action scenes I felt like a robot was retelling me the story, rather than the protagonist tell a story of his adventure. The story itself doesn't fit together either, I get it's speculative, but the whole theory of time travel in this book doesn't make sense, it's never properly explained and an event near the end of the book is so unrealistic, it destroyed what little redeeming qualities the book had.

Characterization was also bad. They were cookie cutter characters at best, no development, their reactions to certain events didn't add up to the time, or the events at hand. The character Julia, in the even near the end is an example of this. I get a time travel book, being speculative has the ability to take a lot of liberties, but this was utterly ridiculous.

In the end, the book was not one for me, it was one I had high hopes for and they fell way under my expectations

Also found on my book review blog Jules' Book Reviews - Time and Again ( )