Rating: 
Summary: Fun story, ended prematurely
Review: The story was a very enjoyable read, a very soft science (no explanation) tale about time travel that for the most part is consistent within itself. The story is more about the relationships between the people and how they deal with the events rather than any kind of sci-fi type plot (the time travel is just a tool for plot and not the plot itself).
However, there's no denouement. The author builds all the conflict up to a grand "so what happens next?" spot and then just ends it, in a place that seems pretty arbitrary, as if the author himself had no idea how to wind the story down and decided it was easier to simply cut it off abruptly. This was disappointing after a good story.
Rating: 
Summary: Be careful where you run in the rain . . .
Review: There are basically two kinds of time travel stories. There's the Sprague DeCamp/Robert Silverberg kind of story, full of large, historymaking events, and the Time Patrol to protect the continuum, and knowledgeable time travelers making things happen. And there's the Jack Finney kind of story, about ordinary people dealing with small-scale events in out-of-the-way towns and trying hard simply to cope with things that happen to them willy-nilly. Dickinson has written a warm, funny, affecting example of the second kind of story. Josh Winkler is a somewhat feckless artist living in Euclid Heights, Illinois, where crosswise shortcut paths known as "perp walks" disturb the town's gridded layout. He's married to a doctor, the sister of his brother Kurt's best friend when they were kids, before her brother drowned in the town pool and Kurt suffered permanent brain damage. Their fifteen-year-old daughter, Penny -- the best-drawn character in the book, I think -- is about all that's still keeping them together. Then Josh gets caught riding his bike in a storm on one of the perp walks and is tossed fifteen minutes into the past. But young Constance, who appears soon after, has a worse time of it, dragged into our own era from 1908. Can she get back? Can she adapt to our world? And what happens if someone else becomes an unintentional time traveler? Dickinson's style is quiet and thoughtful; he almost lets the story tell itself. An excellent piece of work.
Rating:
Summary: Original and interesting; delightfully peculiar
Review: There are no new time travel plots -- I think that's pretty much been proven. And in fact, the time travel & causality portion of the plot here are a bit like the movie Back to the Future as it might have been written by Charles DeLint. And yet Dickinson has arranged familiar elements in a completely new fashion. I've never read anything like it (including DeLint). A Shortcut in Time is the strangest and most interesting novel I've read in a long time, and probably the strangest and most original time travel book ever written, and has a most unexpected ending. The book is filled with genuine characters and genuine emotion. It's weird, and I loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: Why was this published?
Review: This book started very well. It had me interested, curious, thinking ahead. Good signs for a book. But then some holes start to appear and they slowly get bigger and bigger. And then after 287 pages it just ends on page 288. How did this get past the editors? Was this a joke by the publisher? "Hey lets see how many people will buy a incomplete book?"
The story was very interesting until he gets back to his "second time around" life. There are lots of hints leading you to think there is more to it. But nothing leads anywhere and all of a sudden it is over. What about the brother? How can there be a daughter if there was never a union with the mother? Time travel flaw!!
I just can't get past how angry I am about the way this just fizzled out! I don't understand how others can give it a good review. It started strong and just FIZZLED and then THUD!!!!
I am P#$$ed Off!
Rating: 
Summary: Boring and disjointed
Review: This book was a bitter disappointment. I made it through to see if it ever got any better. The characters were not "normal" in any way, and it was impossible to identify with any of them. It is a strange book that is completely unbelievable. I did not find it in the least entertaining.
I don't like to write negative reviews, but I wish the ones I had read hadn't been so glowing...I'd have saved my money!
Rating:
Summary: Time travel for non-sci-fi fans
Review: Though the premise - time travel - is a sci-fi staple, Dickinson's latest ("Rumor Has It," "The Widows' Adventures") is more psychological than speculative. What speculation there is revolves around the role of fate in our lives and how small actions can have unforeseen consequences. But mostly this is the story of a man's mid-life self-assessment, the role grief and guilt have played in his life, and the man he might have been.Shakily married to Flo, his childhood sweetheart and now a hard-working pediatrician, Josh Winkler is an unsuccessful artist beginning to face up to his mediocrity - by avoiding work as much as possible. It's a summer of storms in Euclid, Illinois, the only place either has ever lived, and their teenage daughter is making her first real break for independence. The marital tension, fueled by Josh's growing unreliability, goes back to the roots of their relationship - an "accident" that left Flo's brother dead and Josh's permanently brain damaged. Then one day, running the path behind his house in a storm, Josh slips 15 minutes into the past. Which prepares him to believe and help the desperate young girl who claims to be from 1908 and whose plight becomes more desperate with every moment she's gone. As the town - and Josh's marriage - roils with believers and non-believers, Dickinson explores how a jolt out of the accustomed tracks of life can change a person in unanticipated ways. Dickinson's complex characters reveal themselves in sometimes surprising, but reasonable ways. Examining the paradoxes of time travel and the inevitable consequent ripples, Dickinson also speculates on how circumstances may be shaped by chance, but the essential tenor of a life depends more on the nature of the person. A well-written, thoughtful, understated novel which should add to Dickinson's readership.
Rating: 
Summary: Short Review
Review: Time travel is always a fun subject for a novel and this short romp is quite entertaining. It all starts when a rather ordinary man finds he's moved back in time 15 minutes. From there, the plot thickens and I hate to spoil it with details. The novel centers around a swirl of events around a few of the main characters moving through time - with no control over how far, or which direction they go. The story is fast paced and at is a real page turner. I could hardly put it down. The main flaw is ending, which doesn't quite make total sense logically. But I do admit this is a book a thought about long after reading it.
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