FROM TIME TO TIME

Rating:
Summary: A terrible let down
Review: The original book was wonderful, spell binding. This book is terrible. Poorly written, padded, inconsistent, and poorly plotted. The author attempts to provide motivation for Si to go back to 1912, but never provides the plant for his supposed reason for going back. What is this book? A man with a camera wandering around. It seems like half the book is just quotes from old newspaper articles of 1912. Bad!

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Story
Review: There are some sequels that you ask yourself, why were they made? This book fall into that category. Granted the original classic left a few loose ends, such as how did Simon and Julia escape the clutches of Julia's estranged fiancée? And if Simon and Julia ended up getting married? The first question is still not answered though we see the second is. Getting beyond that the book is boring and lacks the interesting characters and intriguing plot that the first book so rightly produced.

Ruben Prien is able to reverse the interference that Si produced at the end of the first book to restore the present to what it was. The Project however, ran out of funding and was shut down. Si takes a trip back to the present out of curiosity and meets up with Rube again. Rube presents him with a lame argument as to why World War I needs to be prevented. Si accepts the assignment and goes back to 1912.

While in 1912 there are several chapters where Si goes around taking photos (which the author includes in the book). This style worked brilliantly in the first book, while here it seems like it was forced. The photos add nothing to the story or in enabling the reader to get a better flavor of 1912 New York.

Si then goes about trying to locate a man that Rube only knew as "Z." Z was working on some sort of European pact but disappeared shortly thereafter. Rube felt that had Z not disappeared, the pact would have been in place thus preventing the War. Si's 1912 associates turn out to be dull (the main one is a woman that Si calls the Jotta Girl). When Si finally figures out who Z is, it turns out that Z is just as dull as the other lifeless characters in this book.

I found myself skimming over several chapters of the book. One of these chapters explains an entire play that Si attends. What bearing it had on the story, I had no clue.

Towards the end of the book Rube sends Si back on another try to stop World War I by letting Si know that his own son will be killed in the war. I would have felt it a lot easier for Si to just try to save his son directly and not try to change the course of world events. Someone as intelligent as Si, should have come up with the same conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: Why Was This Book Written?
Review: There are some sequels that you ask yourself, why were they made? This book fall into that category. Granted the original classic left a few loose ends, such as how did Simon and Julia escape the clutches of Julia's estranged fiancée? And if Simon and Julia ended up getting married? The first question is still not answered though we see the second is. Getting beyond that the book is boring and lacks the interesting characters and intriguing plot that the first book so rightly produced.

Ruben Prien is able to reverse the interference that Si produced at the end of the first book to restore the present to what it was. The Project however, ran out of funding and was shut down. Si takes a trip back to the present out of curiosity and meets up with Rube again. Rube presents him with a lame argument as to why World War I needs to be prevented. Si accepts the assignment and goes back to 1912.

While in 1912 there are several chapters where Si goes around taking photos (which the author includes in the book). This style worked brilliantly in the first book, while here it seems like it was forced. The photos add nothing to the story or in enabling the reader to get a better flavor of 1912 New York.

Si then goes about trying to locate a man that Rube only knew as "Z." Z was working on some sort of European pact but disappeared shortly thereafter. Rube felt that had Z not disappeared, the pact would have been in place thus preventing the War. Si's 1912 associates turn out to be dull (the main one is a woman that Si calls the Jotta Girl). When Si finally figures out who Z is, it turns out that Z is just as dull as the other lifeless characters in this book.

I found myself skimming over several chapters of the book. One of these chapters explains an entire play that Si attends. What bearing it had on the story, I had no clue.

Towards the end of the book Rube sends Si back on another try to stop World War I by letting Si know that his own son will be killed in the war. I would have felt it a lot easier for Si to just try to save his son directly and not try to change the course of world events. Someone as intelligent as Si, should have come up with the same conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing Sequel to a wonderful book
Review: Time and Again is a charming glimpse into the past and is one of my all-time favorite books. Buy it! I've re-read it several times, so when this supposed sequel came out, I immediately bought it. I just tried reading it again. It's an un-charming, disjointed, unhappy excuse for a sequel. The cover art is nice.

Unlike other "reviewers" who imply that one of the strengths of this novel is its pleasant "what-if" journey into the past, I found it boring and scanned through many, many pages in hopes of finding the excitement of discovering a new era. I love historical fiction! Instead I was "treated" to lengthy ramblings on vaudeville and a potentially sad Christmas in 1918. Yuuk! I even miss good old Jake!

I sincerely hope that Mr Finney will write another (and better) Simon Morley sequel, but I'll read the reviews first.

Rating:
Summary: Not nearly as good as Time and Again
Review: Time and Again was good because if you accepted the single premise, that one could be self-hypnotized into going into the past, the rest followed logically.

Here, the reader is called upon to suspend his disbelief almost continuously. That the seemingly airtight way Time and Again was ended could be reversed, for example. That Morley, given being sent to 1912 to prevent World War I and save his son, would not instead look up his 1912 self (surely still alive and not yet sixty) or at least Julia, and have them find a way to save his (their?) son. That would be an insurance policy in case Si failed in his mission, and Si is bright and curious enough to come up with this or a similar scheme--after all, it is not unlike the plot resolution to Time and Again.

Even though Finney was dying as this was published, I still have the feeling that the book is a setup for a never-written third book of a trilogy. The final chapter seems unresolved. Possibly, it was due to Finney's illness. But he was a great, if underrated writer--but this could have been better. Maybe he was writing to augment his estate.

I also feel that there is an excess of detail, that Finney is sort of showing off with the level of his knowledge (or research) about the past. Take the play to which a chapter is devoted, or the dances, etc.

Just an offhand thought--isn't Si sort of wasting himself in the 1880s by working as an illustrator? Why isn't he trying to invent the zipper or writing Gone With The Wind or doing something else that will assure his and his family's financial security?

Rating:
Summary: A teen point of view
Review: Well I don't read many book often but this book sounded nice so I start reading it, I think the story line was pretty good and I realy enjoyed it altough I never had the chance to read "Time and Time again", but the book mostly has nothing to do with the main story line that I loved, for exaple try to count how many pages Finney wrote about the act called "Tessie and Ted". It was kind of annoying and boring. Also I must say Finney just had to write details about every little tiny thing and that buged me. Well in conclusion I must say the author should had write more about the main story line and much more interensting, if he would had done that I must say I would had give the book 4 stars at least

Rating:
Summary: Not as electrifying as the original, but good nonetheless
Review: While not as strong as the original, From Time to Time paints an accurate picture of 19th and early 20th century NYC in an enjoyable and pleasant style. Time and Again is superb, and it appears that [e-mail] missed the point. Time and Again is the grandfather of the current crops of NYC historical novels, and while Finney'style may not be as good as Doctorow's, he is miles ahead of Caleb Carr.