Time and Again
The 50th anniversary edition of the beloved classic that Stephen King has called “THE great time-travel story.” Featuring a brand-new introduction by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion, Blake Crouch.
When advertising artist Si Morley is recruited to join a covert government operation exploring the possibility of time travel, he jumps at the chance to leave his mundane 20th-century existence and step into the past. But he also has another motivation for going back in time: a half-burned letter that tells of a mysterious, tragic death and ominously of “fire which will destroy the whole world.”
Traveling to New York City in January 1882 to investigate, he finds a Manhattan teeming with a different kind of life, the waterfront unimpeded by skyscrapers, open-air markets packed with activity, Central Park bustling with horse drawn sleighs—a city on the precipice of great things. At first, Si welcomes these trips as a temporary escape but when he falls in love with a woman he meets in the past, he must choose whether to return to modern life or live in 1882 for good.
“Pure New York fun” (Alice Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author), Time and Again is meticulous recreation of New York in the late nineteenth century, exploring the possibilities of time travel to tell an ageless story of love, longing, and adventure. Finney’s magnum opus has been a source of inspiration for countless science fiction writers since its first publication in 1970.
When advertising artist Si Morley is recruited to join a covert government operation exploring the possibility of time travel, he jumps at the chance to leave his mundane 20th-century existence and step into the past. But he also has another motivation for going back in time: a half-burned letter that tells of a mysterious, tragic death and ominously of “fire which will destroy the whole world.”
Traveling to New York City in January 1882 to investigate, he finds a Manhattan teeming with a different kind of life, the waterfront unimpeded by skyscrapers, open-air markets packed with activity, Central Park bustling with horse drawn sleighs—a city on the precipice of great things. At first, Si welcomes these trips as a temporary escape but when he falls in love with a woman he meets in the past, he must choose whether to return to modern life or live in 1882 for good.
“Pure New York fun” (Alice Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author), Time and Again is meticulous recreation of New York in the late nineteenth century, exploring the possibilities of time travel to tell an ageless story of love, longing, and adventure. Finney’s magnum opus has been a source of inspiration for countless science fiction writers since its first publication in 1970.
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Community Reviews
The author skillfully chips away at a puzzling mystery, while reveling in waves of nostalgia for the simpler lifestyles of the 19th century. The narrative is aimed specifically at residents of Manhattan, piling on references to buildings, institutions, fashions, and prejudices as they are now and were in 1882, backed up with drawings and photographs of that by-gone era. I am not a Manhattanite, so much of the allure probably flew over my head.
Still the reader of a certain age can identify with some of it. His descriptions of stereoscopes brought back memories of playing with one I discovered in my great-grandmother's attic as a child. Like many historical novels, he introduced 'facts' that I questioned and had to look up:
* New York had elevated trains in the 19th century,
* Farmers tended crops on Manhattan island,
* The right arm of the Statue of Liberty went on display in Madison Square Park while the rest of the statue was being assembled.
All these turned out to be historically accurate.
It is not much of a spoiler to admit that time travel is involved and the way the characters went about it was so tedious and needlessly slow, burdened by elaborate description, that the first third of the book was really hard to get through. He made up for that in the last third where the suspense made it hard to put down. I was also dissatisfied with the conclusion which relied on too many suspensions of disbelief for the average reader to swallow, especially his attempt to confront the 'grandfather paradox.'
I tried to read this when I was a kid and I wasn't able to get through because I got bored, but the beautiful images of a man in long-ago New York stayed with me for decades, calling me back to finish it. I'm so glad I finally did.
It's a little weird as it requires no time machine or superpower to travel in time. And I was a little disappointed by the myopic view that the 1960s and 70s were so terrible compared with the 1880s when people constantly died of diseases and mishaps that were very much curable in the 1970s. But overall, it's full of so many beautiful descriptions of New York City, especially considering the 1960s descriptions are just as foreign to me as the 1880s descriptions. And there was some action and adventure about 2/3rds of the way through the book to keep it hopping. And the final ending was so casually twisted. I loved it.
It's a little weird as it requires no time machine or superpower to travel in time. And I was a little disappointed by the myopic view that the 1960s and 70s were so terrible compared with the 1880s when people constantly died of diseases and mishaps that were very much curable in the 1970s. But overall, it's full of so many beautiful descriptions of New York City, especially considering the 1960s descriptions are just as foreign to me as the 1880s descriptions. And there was some action and adventure about 2/3rds of the way through the book to keep it hopping. And the final ending was so casually twisted. I loved it.
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