The Man Who Folded Himself

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Summary: A new meaning for "self-discovery"
Review: This book provides a fascinating look at the nature of time and the possibility of time travel. The concept of infinitely branching time streams helps to resolve the apparent paradoxes of time travel, and creates some mind boggling-possibilities. The descriptions of time travel and the fabric of time are probably the greatest strengths of this book.

Unfortunately, rather than use time travel as a tool to explore history or to improve the human condition, the main character turns inward. His relationships with the other time travelling versions of himself bring a whole new meaning to narcissism. This extreme level of self-centeredness is unattractive and it was difficult to feel sympathetic towards him. This concept of time travel had great potential, but the selfishness of the main character weakens the story. Also, the sexual content of this story definitely makes this a book for a mature reader, and might be offensive to some readers.

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Summary: Amazing book!
Review: This book reconciles the apparent paradox of the age-old argument between whether we are creatures of free-will or predestined to live out fixed life paths. A wonderful book to ponder.

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Summary: An important time travel story
Review: This is a short novel, reprinted again after some 30 years. It's an important and classic time travel story, dealing seriously with the subject in a realistic way, being bold in some ways that most stories avoid. This book isn't going to deal with every ramification of time travel in fully dramatized scenes, but it is going to deal with some issues of time travel in a straightforward way that most do not. Mind expanding, thoughtful, and worth the money.

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Summary: The absolute ultimate time travel book
Review: This is a wonderful book! If you were one of the people who thought that Back to the Future Part II was OK, but didn't have enough paradoxes, then this book is for you! I'm a big time travel nut, and have read a lot of time travel fiction, and this one takes the cake. Everything you thought was cool and neat about time travel is in this book.

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Summary: The Ultimate Time Travel Book
Review: This is an excellent book and hard to put down and since is it rather short (in my opinion) you can read it on some day when you have nothing to do. A young man's uncle dies leaving him only a belt when the young man had expected to inherit millions. The belt is no ordinary belt...

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Summary: Excellent Story of Time-Travel Effect on an Individual
Review: This is an incredible (and credible) story of a man coming to terms with the power of personal time-travel device and the ability to alter the entire world on a whim. If you liked this I strongly recommend JUMPER by Steven Gould, a similiar story about a young man who discovers he has the ability to teleport (like in "The Stars My Destination").

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Summary: A fast and entertaining read!
Review: This is an interesting time travel book but it is difficult to say anything about the plot without creating spoilers. I really enjoyed it though it was riddled with paradoxes that seemed to make it difficult at times to understand the timeline of Daniel Eakin, the main character.

Daniel inherits a time travel belt from his Uncle Jim. He uses it to travel through time constantly and through paradoxes, create thousands of versions of himself. Daniel ends up living his life with these different versions as his companions (in more ways than one).

Throughout the book there are a lot of philosophical arguments as to what Daniel and his multi versions of himself (Don, Danny, etc.) do. It all leads up to a big surprise ending!



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Summary: FANTASTIC!
Review: This is by far my favorite David Gerrold novel, and that's saying something considering that his Chtorr novels are some of the greatest sci-fi books ever written. Like many SF novels published in the 1970s The Man Who Folded Himself has sort of a grim, dystopian feel to it, and I think that's part of its power. The time travel aspects are completely believable in Gerrold's capable hands. The opening of the novel sort of reminds me of Robert Heinlein's 'Have Spacesuit, Will Travel', substituting a time belt for a spacesuit, obviously. Once you get it in your head that a time travel device actually exists, the story is so compelling you truly believe everything you read. Like another reviewer mentioned, some of the lines in this novel are really heartfelt and moving. What's so amazing is how much better this novel is than Gerrold's 'Space Skimmer', an okay sci-fi novel, but nothing compared to this one. From the same era, 'When HARLIE was One' also towers over 'Space Skimmer', although I don't think it quite matches this book for sheer impact. I think this book should have won the Hugo award for best novel (at least it was nominated). I own the SF Book Club hard cover. This book was reprinted (and very slightly updated) around 1992 I think. I totally recommend this if you enjoy science fiction (or just good books in general). If you can find a used copy for under $[money] it's worth every cent.

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Summary: interesting theories on time travel
Review: This is the kind of book that takes me two hours to read but 5 hours to think about later. I consider this book to be one of my favorites. The main character is not well developed but the book is still awesome

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Summary: Ultimate Time Travel Explanation
Review: This is THE ultimate time travel book. It confronts all the problems and answers all the questions. I read this back in high school and it has haunted me since (20 years!) It will get ahold of your imagination and never let go!