From archive (archive) Subject: TIME AFTER TIME by Allen Appel From: ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (Evelyn C. Leeper) Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Date: 29 Jul 87 20:09:26 GMT TIME AFTER TIME by Allen Appel Dell, 1987 (1985c), ISBN 0-440-59116-3, $6.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper Alex Balfour has been blacking out and having strange dreams about the Romanovs, the Bolsheviks, and Rasputin. Or are they dreams? When he wakes up with mud on his shoes and Rasputin's coat on his back, he begins to have his doubts. This book is a mixed bag. The time travel aspect is not, shall we say, entirely new. Appel describes time travel accomplished without mechanisms; just as John Carter "wishes" himself to Mars, so is Balfour "wished" to Russia. But is he doing the wishing? Certainly the clues to the mystery, if mystery it is, are all laid out for the reader. The historical accuracy I am suspicious of. I cannot believe that the Okhrana would be as benign as Appel portrays them. Of course, it wouldn't do to have his main character killed off halfway through the novel, but still.... He also fails to convey the chaos of the times, at least as compared with, say, REDS. Rasputin serves no purpose but to give the reader something familiar to latch onto from that period. The Cossacks seem very stereotyped. What is the most annoying, though, is Appel's tendency to turn a historical novel into a cookbook. Several times in the first half, he lapses into passages such as: He ran the knife under the skin of a chicken breast, pulled it out at the top, then stripped the breast down. He severed the small tendon at the top of the meat, ran his thumb into the pockets between the two fillets, and cut the large one free. With two more quick cuts he removed the small fillet.... He put a cup of rice in a pan and added a cup and a half of chicken broth and a half a cup of the white wine he would use in the sauce and ultimately drink with the finished meal. He brought the mixture to a boil, let it bubble for a minute, then covered it and turned it to simmer. He now had exactly seventeen minutes to finish the rest of the meal.... He turned on the fire under an iron skillet and put in a tablespoon of butter and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. He floured the breasts and placed them gently in the pan when the oil and the butter stopped foaming. He filled a pot with water for the asparagus.... He turned over the chicken. A brown crust had formed. He pressed down on the thickest part of the breast with his fork. The meat should have exactly the same feel as the fleshy part of his thumb.... The chicken was done. He put it on an overproof plate and put it into the warm oven. He tossed the asparagus into the pan [sic] of rapidly boiling water. Into the pan in which he had fried the chicken, he put a half a cup of white wine and a half a cup of chicken broth. He turned up the fire, scraping the pan as the liquid foamed.... When the wine and the chicken broth had been reduced to around half, he took the asparagus out of their pan and threw them into the sauce. He checked the rice. Done. He put the rice on a serving dish, added the chicken from the oven, then poured the wine sauce with the asparagus over the whole thing. Now, could you cook a meal from that or what? Perhaps Appel was making some subtle joke on the fact that one of the reasons for the Russian Revolution was that the peasants were starving while the nobility ate at lavish banquets, but I doubt it. Happily, Appel leaves off from this tendency (though he slips back into it briefly in a description of how to make hot coffee in a prison cell with no cooking facilities). He does have the ability to convey emotion, as in his simple description of Balfour's reaction to a hot bath after spending a couple of months in prison: "Once, in college, he'd gone to bed with two women at the same time. That had been great, one of life's treasured memories. It didn't hold a candle to this." Towards the end, all is explained and the loose ends dealt with a moderately satisfactory way. Appel does not really come to terms with the implications of changing history, and that may be disappointing to people who are looking for that based on the book's blurb. This book has apparently gained much acclaim in mainstream literary circles (including THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, which is quoted extensively on the front and back covers and the first page). My reaction as a science fiction reader is much the same as my reaction to Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE: it is interesting not for what it says but for how it says it, not for bringing new and original ideas to the field but for bringing a new perspective to old ideas. I think it is important to read science fiction novels written "outside the ghetto," not (as some might think) to put on an aura of culture, but to look at a field we know from an outsider's perspective. And looking at things differently is, after all, what most of science fiction is about. (This book should not be confused with Karl Alexander's book TIME AFTER TIME (or the movie of the same name based on it). That one was about H. G. Wells traveling FORWARD in time to catch Jack the Ripper. Nor it it related to the 1986 John Gielgud movie TIME AFTER TIME which has nothing to do with science fiction. Nor is it Jack Finney's TIME AND AGAIN, which was made into SOMEWHERE IN TIME. Do you get the feeling that there's a shocking shortage of time travel titles?) Evelyn C. Leeper (201) 957-2070 UUCP: ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl ARPA: mtgzy!ecl@rutgers.rutgers.edu From rec.arts.sf-lovers Thu Mar 14 11:29:31 1991 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.sf-lovers:23228 rec.arts.books:9250 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!bellcore!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books Subject: TWICE UPON A TIME by Allen Appel Message-ID: <1991Mar13.152147.12572@cbnewsj.att.com> Date: 13 Mar 91 15:21:47 GMT Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 41 TWICE UPON A TIME by Allen Appel Dell, 1990 (1988c), ISBN 0-440-20576-X, $4.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper This book is a sequel to Appel's TIME AFTER TIME. In that, Alex Balfour found himself dreaming of Romanovs, Bolsheviks, and Rasputin--or were they dreams? When he wakes up with mud on his shoes and Rasputin's coat on his back, he realizes he is traveling in time. But this is a time travel without mechanisms, and apparently not under Balfour's conscious control (shades of Heinlein's JOB here). In this novel, Alex Balfour, time traveler, is now traveling back to 1890 where he finds himself drawn to the Battle of Little Big Horn. The characters he meets are better drawn than those in TIME AFTER TIME, though still, alas, prone to stereotypes. And there is some sloppiness that (I think) could have been cured quite easily. For example, Balfour finds himself back in 1890 and remarks (to himself) how lucky it is that he is wearing jeans with a button-fly instead of a zipper. But if he knows he could travel back at any time, wouldn't he pick that style just in case? And Appel still gives far too much detail to his character's cooking exploits. All in all, it's an enjoyable read, but is clearly a science fiction book aimed at a mainstream audience and does not do anything new or radical with the concepts of time travel or changing history. (Of the first novel, I said that it should not be confused with Karl Alexander's book TIME AFTER TIME (or the movie of the same name based on it). That one was about H. G. Wells traveling *forward* in time to catch Jack the Ripper. Nor is it related to the 1986 John Gielgud movie TIME AFTER TIME which has nothing to do with science fiction. Nor is it Jack Finney's TIME AND AGAIN, or Richard Matheson's BID TIME RETURN which was made into SOMEWHERE IN TIME. Now I must also add that this current work should not be confused with Charles L. Fontenay's TWICE UPON A TIME (an old Ace Double dealing with a space traveler staying young while his wife ages) or Manly Wade Wellman's TWICE IN TIME, in which a modern man travels back to 15th Century Florence. Can't someone think up some *new* titles?) Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com