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The Golden Hour
A time traveler is stranded in a small town. This story appears in SOMEONE IN TIME: TALES OF TIME-CROSSED ROMANCE, published by Solaris.
1 pages, Audiobook
First published May 10, 2022
About the author
Jeffrey Ford
245 books518 followersJeffrey Ford is an American writer in the Fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.
He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.
He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 29, 2024
The story follows a man who is very preoccupied with time travel. He has been practicing it for many years. As he grows older, he starts facing problems with his ability to transcend time and space.
Another man wants to write a story. An encounter between the two men takes place.
The Golden Hour is lyrical with beautiful nostalgic undertones. It captures the beauty of life in its elusiveness and fleetingness. You probably have to listen to it twice to get all of its intricacies and subtleties. This tale can make you look at the things and people surrounding you in a somewhat different, softer light.
It can give small, mundane actions, such as sitting in a park, enjoying the weather, and looking at passersby, an additional layer of meaning.
The story has a perfect title. The golden hour refers to a time in the day that occurs twice, after sunrise and before sunset. It is also seen as a metaphor for special moments that happen in one's life. As long as memory serves us, we can rewind time, return to those moments, and, in a way, experience them again. The story subtly reminds us that some portion of magic can be found within us.
I thank my friend Chantel for drawing my attention to this story. You can find a link to it narrated by LeVar Burton in her brilliant review.
Another man wants to write a story. An encounter between the two men takes place.
The Golden Hour is lyrical with beautiful nostalgic undertones. It captures the beauty of life in its elusiveness and fleetingness. You probably have to listen to it twice to get all of its intricacies and subtleties. This tale can make you look at the things and people surrounding you in a somewhat different, softer light.
It can give small, mundane actions, such as sitting in a park, enjoying the weather, and looking at passersby, an additional layer of meaning.
The story has a perfect title. The golden hour refers to a time in the day that occurs twice, after sunrise and before sunset. It is also seen as a metaphor for special moments that happen in one's life. As long as memory serves us, we can rewind time, return to those moments, and, in a way, experience them again. The story subtly reminds us that some portion of magic can be found within us.
I thank my friend Chantel for drawing my attention to this story. You can find a link to it narrated by LeVar Burton in her brilliant review.
January 25, 2024
It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on grief, suicide, the death of a loved one, & others.
I have visited this story twice. It brought me into the room with immense sadness cocooned between my shoulder blades. On both such occasions I questioned myself; What drew blood from the stone? I pride myself on asking questions while I read & it is important to me to find words to describe my experience with a story & yet, in both instances, it seems to me; that the river, soothing & strong, of such a delicate nature, fostered my journey down the waterway & no effort to canoe a row would explain away the pull of its practice.
When readers are met with such stories they are luckier than the clover hidden away in the field, undisturbed by ravens. One is met with the beauty beheld in storytelling & its mass impact on the species when nestled into idioms of such a delicate nature. The author did not employ any flowers in his garden of sentences & structured timelines; his story spoke depth into itself. Through the dedicated hum of his expression, the premise became the real nature of human life.
In its essence, this is a story about a man who is trying to write. He meets a strange elderly man in the town in which he is staying during his hiatus. The elderly man is kind & eccentric in the timidest manner, & our narrator becomes enthralled with he who claims to possess the ability to travel through time. Beyond this relationship, the story explores the nature of impact that our memories hold over our person. Whether these events circumvent the person we wish to be & how we grow past times of old.
I will not shy away from admitting that I find the task of reviewing this story daunting. The plot is very simple & yet, listening to the tranquil sound of the decomposing world around these characters as the brain died, was so moving I was dethroned of my habitual stability. LeVar Burton’s narration of stories remains among my all-time favourites. He inserts such a tender tone to reveal intimacy in language; I remain ever grateful for his efforts.
While enrapturing in its simplicity, this story is rather morbid. Everyone in this story dies. That is not to say that I think of death as the destroyer of worlds, but rather, this knowledge keys the lock of elemental confidentiality between the reader & the narrator, one would be validated in feeling winded by the end. This leaves me to wonder at the purpose of this story. In all things natural & profound, the keen observer grovels for their place.
Readers may interpret this story as a romantic wandering in which the death of the time-traveller is no sad thing. His suicide is but the finality of this memory. On the other hand, one might read this tale & wonder how gravelly we are impacted by the obelisk of an Atlantis in our minds. This review will not seek to lay claim to a superior deduction; I am more inclined to feel comfort in the knowledge that the world & its people will absorb finality in ways that will grant both eternity & closure to them.
When trying to express what it was about this story that brought me to the forefront of such emotions I find I am inadequately equipped to express my own inclinations. The tendency to feel a connection to the time-traveller was not adopted by me in my reading. Every character exists as a unit independent of the other. Their plight was something I was both apathetic & sympathetic toward. I knew that this story would end & yet, though my heart halted its palpitated sadness, their death did not feel like an eternal parting.
In the next chapter of this life, just as the reader saw with the time-traveller, something else will be living in plenitude; a garden is blooming, rain clouds are snuggling, & people are stationing themselves in the bizarre exchange that is our maladapted community. I am left to feel, as might have been the author’s intention, that the reader is not meant to feel the weight of desecration. The world ends, yes—this is true.
The world ends many times for many people, in a multitude of ways, in actuality & metaphorically. However, the eyes that lock in contact or the perfumed aroma of a silky serendipitous apposition, leave me with more hope than despair, that tomorrow, the world that vanishes around me like a painful; an old; a titanous; or perhaps just unexceptional memory, one that is not meant to debase the fulsome crevices of the mind, will call into the wind, a whistle to set the soul at ease.
As I am not one to revel in the serrated edge of my person; existing with a wounded need to remain unknown; the villainy in my sudden sadness will remain submerged in the soil of my mind. In that same breath, I reiterate the ease with which the reader might notch themselves to the timber of the falling wood; one does not need to be explicit to be clear.
Ultimately, what makes this story so memorable is its gentle sway. On the surface, this is a story about love. At its core, this story remains the tomb in which love goes to die; the heart of humankind. Both of these truths exist in tandem, allowing the other to flourish like the rising dawn adorning a soft sun. Readers who endeavour to decipher this story when it is time will be met with a traveller whose Odysseus’ eagerness for life & lore brought him to the foreign shore of his own life where he was, at last, approached by Charon.
It is lovely to stand alone in a room & feel the walls around you ache with the hum of a fictional story in which the layers of life unknown creep in tangible fashion along your skin, piercing the tender flesh like the scabby wounds of the boulder carried by the eternally remembering man on the hill.
If you would like to listen to this story, please visit this •LINK•
I have visited this story twice. It brought me into the room with immense sadness cocooned between my shoulder blades. On both such occasions I questioned myself; What drew blood from the stone? I pride myself on asking questions while I read & it is important to me to find words to describe my experience with a story & yet, in both instances, it seems to me; that the river, soothing & strong, of such a delicate nature, fostered my journey down the waterway & no effort to canoe a row would explain away the pull of its practice.
When readers are met with such stories they are luckier than the clover hidden away in the field, undisturbed by ravens. One is met with the beauty beheld in storytelling & its mass impact on the species when nestled into idioms of such a delicate nature. The author did not employ any flowers in his garden of sentences & structured timelines; his story spoke depth into itself. Through the dedicated hum of his expression, the premise became the real nature of human life.
In its essence, this is a story about a man who is trying to write. He meets a strange elderly man in the town in which he is staying during his hiatus. The elderly man is kind & eccentric in the timidest manner, & our narrator becomes enthralled with he who claims to possess the ability to travel through time. Beyond this relationship, the story explores the nature of impact that our memories hold over our person. Whether these events circumvent the person we wish to be & how we grow past times of old.
I will not shy away from admitting that I find the task of reviewing this story daunting. The plot is very simple & yet, listening to the tranquil sound of the decomposing world around these characters as the brain died, was so moving I was dethroned of my habitual stability. LeVar Burton’s narration of stories remains among my all-time favourites. He inserts such a tender tone to reveal intimacy in language; I remain ever grateful for his efforts.
While enrapturing in its simplicity, this story is rather morbid. Everyone in this story dies. That is not to say that I think of death as the destroyer of worlds, but rather, this knowledge keys the lock of elemental confidentiality between the reader & the narrator, one would be validated in feeling winded by the end. This leaves me to wonder at the purpose of this story. In all things natural & profound, the keen observer grovels for their place.
Readers may interpret this story as a romantic wandering in which the death of the time-traveller is no sad thing. His suicide is but the finality of this memory. On the other hand, one might read this tale & wonder how gravelly we are impacted by the obelisk of an Atlantis in our minds. This review will not seek to lay claim to a superior deduction; I am more inclined to feel comfort in the knowledge that the world & its people will absorb finality in ways that will grant both eternity & closure to them.
When trying to express what it was about this story that brought me to the forefront of such emotions I find I am inadequately equipped to express my own inclinations. The tendency to feel a connection to the time-traveller was not adopted by me in my reading. Every character exists as a unit independent of the other. Their plight was something I was both apathetic & sympathetic toward. I knew that this story would end & yet, though my heart halted its palpitated sadness, their death did not feel like an eternal parting.
In the next chapter of this life, just as the reader saw with the time-traveller, something else will be living in plenitude; a garden is blooming, rain clouds are snuggling, & people are stationing themselves in the bizarre exchange that is our maladapted community. I am left to feel, as might have been the author’s intention, that the reader is not meant to feel the weight of desecration. The world ends, yes—this is true.
The world ends many times for many people, in a multitude of ways, in actuality & metaphorically. However, the eyes that lock in contact or the perfumed aroma of a silky serendipitous apposition, leave me with more hope than despair, that tomorrow, the world that vanishes around me like a painful; an old; a titanous; or perhaps just unexceptional memory, one that is not meant to debase the fulsome crevices of the mind, will call into the wind, a whistle to set the soul at ease.
As I am not one to revel in the serrated edge of my person; existing with a wounded need to remain unknown; the villainy in my sudden sadness will remain submerged in the soil of my mind. In that same breath, I reiterate the ease with which the reader might notch themselves to the timber of the falling wood; one does not need to be explicit to be clear.
Ultimately, what makes this story so memorable is its gentle sway. On the surface, this is a story about love. At its core, this story remains the tomb in which love goes to die; the heart of humankind. Both of these truths exist in tandem, allowing the other to flourish like the rising dawn adorning a soft sun. Readers who endeavour to decipher this story when it is time will be met with a traveller whose Odysseus’ eagerness for life & lore brought him to the foreign shore of his own life where he was, at last, approached by Charon.
It is lovely to stand alone in a room & feel the walls around you ache with the hum of a fictional story in which the layers of life unknown creep in tangible fashion along your skin, piercing the tender flesh like the scabby wounds of the boulder carried by the eternally remembering man on the hill.
If you would like to listen to this story, please visit this •LINK•
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 14, 2024
"Empathy for everyday evil" ... now there's a preface. I'm a sucker for time travel, and if you throw romance into the mix, I'm hooped. I didn't really grasp how the time travel worked or why but okay.
July 2, 2024
Great slow burner of a story, which is funny to say about a short story! But it takes its time to get there, and was a really beautiful journey.
December 9, 2023
3.5⭐“I’m losing focus and energy as I grow old. Time Travel is for the young.”
**mild content spoilers**
♡ LBR 2023 ♡
I am so, SO happy to plug in with these stories again on LeVar Burton Reads. I took a couple years to get my associate, and I can’t begin to express how difficult it was to find a free half hour in a day. I’m out of the woods, at least for a little while, and when I saw the new season update, my heart skipped a beat. Feels like a homecoming, and here I am, late to the party.
This was terribly romantic. Sad of course, but so full of hope. Hard to believe it compresses into a story of this length. It doesn’t hit me as hard as others, but it’s still one of the meaty stories you come to expect from this podcast. LBR doesn’t miss.
Thanks for reading and if you wanna chat about the latest LBR episodes, come join us at the LeVar Burton Reads Official Community.
- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.
**mild content spoilers**
♡ LBR 2023 ♡
I am so, SO happy to plug in with these stories again on LeVar Burton Reads. I took a couple years to get my associate, and I can’t begin to express how difficult it was to find a free half hour in a day. I’m out of the woods, at least for a little while, and when I saw the new season update, my heart skipped a beat. Feels like a homecoming, and here I am, late to the party.
This was terribly romantic. Sad of course, but so full of hope. Hard to believe it compresses into a story of this length. It doesn’t hit me as hard as others, but it’s still one of the meaty stories you come to expect from this podcast. LBR doesn’t miss.
Thanks for reading and if you wanna chat about the latest LBR episodes, come join us at the LeVar Burton Reads Official Community.
- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.
May 12, 2025
Lovely writing and imagery with good sound design plus strong themes of time, memory, and life.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews