Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51147 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

Worth the price of Oranges!
As in most collections of short stories, there are good ones, bad ones, indifferent ones, and plain odd ones.
A time-travel addict, I managed to find some rewarding tales here, and my favourites were:
Henry Kuttner's "TIME LOCKER".
Jack Finney's "I'M SCARED", which contained interesting mini-tales within it.
Richard Matheson's "DEATH SHIP", where inevitability rears its ugly head.
R A Lafferty's "RAINBIRD" was riveting, showing us a man re-visiting himself in order to improve his life's goals and successes.
Robert Silverberg's "SAILING TO BYZANTIUM" takes us on a fascinating journey to the fiftieth century, where we marvel as ancient cities, long since dead, are resurrected for mere pleasure.
But far and away my favourite of them all is Nancy Kress's "THE PRICE OF ORANGES", where an interfering grandfather finds a suitable suitor for his granddaughter, kidnapping the hapless chap from fifty years in the past. The end result is a majestic belly-laughing piece of poetic justice.
But it's the park bench discussions between the grandfather and his old friend Manny which tickled me, and it was a real shame that the story had to come to an end.
So, all in all, eighteen stories, six - top notch, seven or eight - so-so, and about four that were just odd.
That's pretty good, so I heartily recommend it.

A good collection of stories from across the genre
For over a century time travel has remained one of the most enduring categories of science fiction. Authors such as Mark Twain and H. G. Wells established many of the ideas that were subsequently encapsulated in numerous stories that have entertained millions of readers. This anthology bring together eighteen stories from many of the giants of the field. Some, such as Theodore Sturgeon's 'Yesterday was Monday' and Ray Bradbury's 'A Sound of Thunder' are true classics, while others like Connie Wills's 'Fire Watch' are destined to join them as among the greatest stories of the genre.

With a collection like this, it is easy to criticize some of the selections. Many longtime readers will complain about the exclusion of a favorite tale or the inclusion of one that they do not like (my personal complaint is with the inclusion of Robert Silverberg's 'Sailing to Byzantium', which while one of the best novellas ever written is not really a time travel story per se). Yet it is hard to complain about the collection as a whole, which has a good balance of stories from different premises, authors, and stories. Fans of the genre will find much to enjoy in this book, while anyone seeking to learn what the field has to offer will be impressed with the imagination and the writing contained within these pages.

Some Good Some Bad
Not what I was hoping for. I think I must have read all the great and good Time travel stories and took a punt on this which left me dissapointed overall. Some good stories and lots that were not.