The Man Who Folded Himself

The Man Who Folded Himself is a good book. It's not your standard time-traveling tale. Don't expect Marty-and-Doc-like adventures in the Old West or zooming back to the time when your parents were dating. Don't expect the hero to be chased by allosaurs or Huns or anything like that. This is a tale that focuses on the psychological effects and philosophical questions caused by time-travel (don't let that intimidate you). It's thus a good read: original and thoughtful, and avoids all of the clichés and pitfalls of the genre. Have an open mind and you'll have fun.

This was a fantastic book, one of the best on the subject of time travel and it took an ultra realistic viewpoint that really connets to the reader. It also incorporated several philosphical aspects of life, love, and happiness and how these things can be manipulated for better or worse.It's good to read books like these and recall the days when SF was intelligent and good instead of the watered down not even good cyberpunk that it is today.I give this book 5 stars because it is highly reccomended for fans of the real SF genre.Plus I would also say that in terms of plot quality surrounding time travel this one would be on par with Heinlein's "By his Bootstraps."A Must READ!

I found this book at a little magical used bookstore in Carmel. I'd never heard of it, but had read other works by Gerrold. That night, I read the entire thing, front to back. Simply amazing work, Gerrold, as a rather young man, sat down and thought out how time travel would (or could) work. Not the quantum mechanics, but what we would all do (at first) if someone gave us one of these things. Think about it: You'd immediately go out and make a bunch of money. Bored with that, you'd examine history, looking over the shoulder of Oswald and Booth. Then you'd be tempted to CHANGE history... but might not like the results. You'd go back and watch the Crucifixtion, but unless you spoke ancient Aramaic, you'd have a hard time understanding what happened. Well, pick up this book and you get to do all these things, along with our endlessly naive narrator Dan.Gerrold also gets points for creating a character who... how shall we say it... does something that a lot of us have suggested that others do, but was generally considered anatomically impossible. Read it, you'll see what I mean...

I just finished reading this book for the third time, and I loved it even more than before. Gerrold's handling of classic time-travel problems such as paradoxes by using the quantum bifurcation theory is brilliant, and the book actually reminded me a little of William Sleator's _Strange Attractors_. However, it is much better written, more grim, more wide-spanning, and, most strikingly, less innocent. It also has traces of Robert Heinlein's short story _All You Zombies_, but it much more fully fleshed out. Some passages I found incredibly moving, such as the narrator's description of when he has been ("I have seen Creation. I have seen Entropy"), and the ever-increasing age gap between himself and his female counterpart, Diane. The book depressed me to no end, and that's why I loved it.