Rating: 
Summary: The time-travel pioneer's classic shorts
Review: Jack Finney, writing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was hardly the first writer who explored time travel; after all, H.G. Wells wrote "The Time Machine" more than half a century earlier, and that classic was already being turned into a movie as Finney was writing his short stories. But Finney defined the time-travel story as no other writer has. When you read these stories, they will seem familiar to you--perhaps because you have read them before, as many of them have appeared in other anthologies; but perhaps because so many other writers have imitated Finney, all without surpassing him.Here you will find "The Third Level," about a mysterious platform in Grand Central Station that leads into another world (a precursor of "Level Nine and Three-quarters" in the "Harry Potter" books). And "Of Missing Persons," the classic tale of lost faith and missed opportunities. And "The Coin Collector," about alternate realities, where "a Woodrow Wilson dime" reveals that "every once in a while something from one of these worlds . . . will stray into another one." Jack Finney wasn't the first, but he was the best. His stories weave together O. Henry's story-telling talent (and surprise-twist endings), Rod Serling's imagination, and Ray Bradbury's skill at juxtaposing the familiar with the slightly terrifying. This book's stories are a treat.
Rating:
Summary: The time-travel pioneer's classic shorts
Review: Jack Finney, writing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was hardly the first writer who explored time travel; after all, H.G. Wells wrote "The Time Machine" more than half a century earlier, and that classic was already being turned into a movie as Finney was writing his short stories. But Finney defined the time-travel story as no other writer has. When you read these stories, they will seem familiar to you--perhaps because you have read them before, as many of them have appeared in other anthologies; but perhaps because so many other writers have imitated Finney, all without surpassing him. Here you will find "The Third Level," about a mysterious platform in Grand Central Station that leads into another world (a precursor of "Level Nine and Three-quarters" in the "Harry Potter" books). And "Of Missing Persons," the classic tale of lost faith and missed opportunities. And "The Coin Collector," about alternate realities, where "a Woodrow Wilson dime" reveals that "every once in a while something from one of these worlds . . . will stray into another one." Jack Finney wasn't the first, but he was the best. His stories weave together O. Henry's story-telling talent (and surprise-twist endings), Rod Serling's imagination, and Ray Bradbury's skill at juxtaposing the familiar with the slightly terrifying. This book's stories are a treat.
Rating: 
Summary: A collection of clever stories
Review: The twelve stories in this collection by the author of Invasion of the Body Snatchers were originally published in 1957 and 1962. The stories are similar to Finney's classic novel Time and Again--in which the book's protagonist travels back to late 19th-century New York--both because nearly all of them have to do with time travel ("Lunch-Hour Magic" and "Home Alone" are exceptions) and because many of the characters express their dissatisfaction with the modern world and wish to escape from it. Usually this flight from modernity is to be achieved by time travel, but it can also take the form of interplanetary migration ("Of Missing Persons") or balloon flight ("Home Alone"). Time travel in these stories is achieved almost effortlessly, when the "thousand invisible chains" that keep us in the present--modern coins and manufactured items, apartment buildings--are, for a moment, loosed. If there's nothing on you that wouldn't belong in the world fifty or sixty or seventy years ago, and if you're in a place that hasn't been altered much in all that time, and if you're in the right frame of mind, you can slip into the past, easy as can be. Just so, the car-obsessed college student of Finney's "Second Chance," while driving along an old highway in his restored Jordan Playboy, finds himself sharing the road with Model T's. His brief presence in the past has the effect of altering history in a way that will influence his own future. Al and his wife Nell of Finney's "Such Intersting Neighbors" find the Hellenbeks, who have just moved into their California neighborhood, strange but pleasant. Ted Hellenbek is an inventor, an intelligent guy who was born and raised in the U.S., and yet he fumbles with his money, unable to count it out himself, when he has to pay the driver of his cab upon his arrival in town. Alfred Pullen buys a paper with a 1958 Wilson dime in "The Coin Collector" and finds himself at once in an alternative universe where such coins exist--and where he has married a different woman. In "Where the Cluetts Are" an architect helps a couple build a house following blueprints that belonged to his grandfather. The house, with its peaked roof and many gables, is an anachronism, and it has a curious effect on its inhabitants. In "Lunch-Hour Magic" an advertising agency employee buys a pair of glasses that allow him to see through women's clothes: "I kept the glasses on nearly all afternoon, wandering around the office with a sheaf of papers in my hand, and strangely it was Mrs. Humphrey, our middle-aged overweight bookkeeper, that I stared at longest. Last year, I knew, she'd celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of her marriage to her husband, Harvey. But there, unmistakably, tattooed on her left hip, was a four-inch high red heart inside which, in a slanted blue script, was inscribed Ralph, and I wondered if she'd had the fearsome job of hiding it from Harvey for a quarter of a century." Finney writes well--that "fearsome job" is quite good--and his stories are clever. If they are not quite as well done as his novels, this collection nevertheless makes a pleasant and easy read.
Rating:
Summary: A fun read! (Even if you don't like sci-fi)
Review: These 12 short stories represent a large variety of genres: history, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, ect. And you don't have to be familiar with the conventions of science fiction to read them. The characters are everyday people faced with unusual circumstances. Often this involves time travel, but in most cases, the transportation to another time is accidental. I also liked the historical "flags" within the stories. It's fun to read the clues Finney gives us and guess the time period the story is set in. All in all, this book can be taken as a whole or as 12 individual stories. It's great for a quick 15 minute break or a long car trip. Give it a try!
Rating:
Summary: Gentle Journeys into Nostalgia
Review: This collection of stories represent a longing for a gentler, simpler time. Each explores the elements of "what might have been", whether it be in the protagonist's own life, or the difference of ages. One story explores what might have been, if a man had made different choices in his own life and through that journey, he finds contentment in the life he did choose. Another explores trust and what might have been if only modern man could learn to believe. How much can be lost because we cannot. Others deal with the link that places and things may have with our past and the wonder of discovering such links. Taken together, the anthology offers something for all . . . nostalgia, philosophy, near future 'end of the world' scenarios, etc. This collection is not for the hard science fiction reader, but for the gentle reader who dares to ask "what if".
Rating:
Summary: Delightful, Interesting Stories!
Review: This is a marvelous little book, full of delightful stories playing (mostly) on the time theme. Each story is very interesting and often with the twists of an Alfred Hitchcock story. We picked this up for a plane trip and it was perfect - except for fighting over it!!!
Rating:
Summary: Delightful, Interesting Stories!
Review: This is a marvelous little book, full of delightful stories playing (mostly) on the time theme. Each story is very interesting and often with the twists of an Alfred Hitchcock story. We picked this up for a plane trip and it was perfect - except for fighting over it!!!
Rating:
Summary: The Master of Time Travel Stories
Review: When I was very young, I read in a high school textbook the story "The Third Level," about a man who discovers a floor of Grand Central Station that leads to the 1800's. He comes home to get his family and buy money from the era, but he soon finds he can't find the level again although he spends his free time trying. It has been my favorite story since, and it is supported here by eleven other tales of equal quality. Finney handles the subject of time travel with tenderness and whimsy, and pulls it off every time. "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" (later expanded into a novel) is another favorite, about a man who finds a strange dime when he buys a newspaper and comes home to find a different wife, who he falls in love with. When he tires of his lifestyle, he finds a Roosevelt dime and goes back to his other wife. The story proposes the question of whether or not you are cheating on your spouse if your spouse doesn't exist in that reality. The story about the strange new neighbor who posseses a newspaper from the future is a tongue-in-cheek classic, and the one about the antique car is not to be missed. If you liked his novels "Time and Again" and "From Time to Time," you'll love this one. Also recommended are "The Mirror" by Marylis Millhiser and "Lightning" by Dean Koontz.
Rating:
Summary: The Master of Time Travel Stories
Review: When I was very young, I read in a high school textbook the story "The Third Level," about a man who discovers a floor of Grand Central Station that leads to the 1800's. He comes home to get his family and buy money from the era, but he soon finds he can't find the level again although he spends his free time trying. It has been my favorite story since, and it is supported here by eleven other tales of equal quality. Finney handles the subject of time travel with tenderness and whimsy, and pulls it off every time. "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" (later expanded into a novel) is another favorite, about a man who finds a strange dime when he buys a newspaper and comes home to find a different wife, who he falls in love with. When he tires of his lifestyle, he finds a Roosevelt dime and goes back to his other wife. The story proposes the question of whether or not you are cheating on your spouse if your spouse doesn't exist in that reality. The story about the strange new neighbor who posseses a newspaper from the future is a tongue-in-cheek classic, and the one about the antique car is not to be missed. If you liked his novels "Time and Again" and "From Time to Time," you'll love this one. Also recommended are "The Mirror" by Marlys Millhiser and "Lightning" by Dean Koontz.
Rating:
Summary: The Master of Time Travel Stories
Review: When I was very young, I read in a high school textbook the story "The Third Level," about a man who discovers a floor of Grand Central Station that leads to the 1800's. He comes home to get his family and buy money from the era, but he soon finds he can't find the level again although he spends his free time trying. It has been my favorite story since, and it is supported here by eleven other tales of equal quality. Finney handles the subject of time travel with tenderness and whimsy, and pulls it off every time. "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" (later expanded into a novel) is another favorite, about a man who finds a strange dime when he buys a newspaper and comes home to find a different wife, who he falls in love with. When he tires of his lifestyle, he finds a Roosevelt dime and goes back to his other wife. The story proposes the question of whether or not you are cheating on your spouse if your spouse doesn't exist in that reality. The story about the strange new neighbor who posseses a newspaper from the future is a tongue-in-cheek classic, and the one about the antique car is not to be missed. If you liked his novels "Time and Again" and "From Time to Time," you'll love this one. Also recommended are "The Mirror" by Marlys Millhiser and "Lightning" by Dean Koontz.
|
