From Time to Time

I bought this book because I had read it years ago and no longer had it in my library. It's a great time-travel drama/romance. Very sweet, very imaginative. And I don't normally like sci-fi.

If you read Time and Again, enjoyed it, and want more, this is the book for you. It was for me. I wasn't disappointed. Otherwise, skip it. Read the other reviews.

I reread both this novel, as well as, the original _Time and Again_, in order at the same time. I was amazed at how well the two books flowed into each other almost seamlessly. I noticed no lack on continuity or deterioration of narrative or style. Simply put, I loved the first book, and this sequel is every bit as good. Of course, I might be biased here. Finney develops a theme that I've toyed with for years, namely, how much better the 20th century would have been for the vast majority of mankind if WWI never would have occurred. Think about it, no WWI means no Soviet Union, no Nazi Germany, no defacto American Empire.... Moreover, there most probably would have been no overriding pressure to develop an atomic bomb. Things would have flowed along much more orderly and civlized lines. For that matter, Palestine would still be under the firm control of the Ottoman Empire. It is somewhat eerie to read the main characters discussing the first book. Several times I have been tempted to search Manhattan for a Beekey Bros. warehouse.... As for those that hold that it is totally unbelievable that the government could ever establish any thing as preposterous as The Project, well, I guess they never heard of a little military intelligence project called Project Stargate with a directive to develop mental techniques to transcend time and space. Of course back in 1970 when Finney wrote the first book there was no Project Stargate- or at least no public knowlege of it.

It is rare to read as divergent reviews as are seen here for this book and its predecessor. The key seems to be that if you are a science-fiction reader looking for a story about time travel, you'll be dissappointed. This novel and its predecessor are light and thoroughly non-convincing on the 'science' of time travel; that topic is shunted off as expeditiously as possible. Rather, these novels are about what it would feel like if a 1990's person with a love and awe of the past (you) were to find yourself in New York City in the late 1800's to early 1900's. They are about Finney's mastery at painting scenes that take you there. That is, they should not be judged as novels ABOUT time travel, they should be judged by how they succeed AS time machines. In the tens of thousands of scenes that have been painted in the thousands of novels read in a lifetime, nothing compares to the palpability of Finney's Titanic pulling up to the dock after successfully crossing the Atlantic.