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Time Twisters
A new anthology by some of the top names in the genre.
Time travel and the dangers of altering the time stream continue to fascinate readers. This book offers 17 new stories of daring adventurers who meddle with time a science fiction fan who warded off an alien invasion of Earth through contemporary culture...Joan of Arc's training in future history...and an FBI hunt for a Mafia don who found his way back to the age of knighthood.
Time travel and the dangers of altering the time stream continue to fascinate readers. This book offers 17 new stories of daring adventurers who meddle with time a science fiction fan who warded off an alien invasion of Earth through contemporary culture...Joan of Arc's training in future history...and an FBI hunt for a Mafia don who found his way back to the age of knighthood.
306 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 2, 2007
70 people want to read
About the author
Jean Rabe
206 books157 followersWhen I am not writing, I toss tennis balls to my cadre of dogs. My house is filled with books and dogs, you can smell both when you walk in the front door. It's a good smell.
I have 36 published novels and am currently writing in the mystery genre. My latest mystery, The Dead of Winter, was a finalist for the Claymore Award and is the first in the Piper Blackwell series.
I live in a tiny town in the middle of Illinois that has a Dollar General, a pizza place with exceedingly slow service, a veterinarian (good thing, eh?), and train tracks...lots of train tracks.
I have 36 published novels and am currently writing in the mystery genre. My latest mystery, The Dead of Winter, was a finalist for the Claymore Award and is the first in the Piper Blackwell series.
I live in a tiny town in the middle of Illinois that has a Dollar General, a pizza place with exceedingly slow service, a veterinarian (good thing, eh?), and train tracks...lots of train tracks.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 10, 2024
This collection of seventeen stories contained some mediocre and dragging tales, but there were lots of readable tales. Those tales, with elemens of some fantasy and snappy charm, kept me going. My favourites were~
1. Kevin J. Anderson's 'Mundane Lane';
2. James M. Ward's 'Downtown Knight';
3. Donald J. Bingle's 'Standing Still';
4. Skip and Penny Williams' 'One Rainy Day in Paris';
5. Pierce Askegren's 'Try and Try Again';
6. Wen Nicholson's 'Three Power Play'.
Other tales were mostly too full of themselves. But overall, the experience was good.
1. Kevin J. Anderson's 'Mundane Lane';
2. James M. Ward's 'Downtown Knight';
3. Donald J. Bingle's 'Standing Still';
4. Skip and Penny Williams' 'One Rainy Day in Paris';
5. Pierce Askegren's 'Try and Try Again';
6. Wen Nicholson's 'Three Power Play'.
Other tales were mostly too full of themselves. But overall, the experience was good.
January 24, 2026
Who does not love a good story about time travel or alternate realities? I do. Unfortunately, there were just not enough good stories here to justify reading this collection. There were just a few gems here amongst the more mediocre works. If you come across a cheap copy of this book, I would recommend cherry picking the few best stories here and then moving on.
As usual with short story collections, I noted my thoughts in a couple of sentences after reading each one, and have compiled them below.
Pruning the Tree by Chris Pierson. A somewhat mundane "going back in time to change history" sort of story. Not bad, but it feels like something that I, not being a writer, could come up with. There was one piece of this story that, in my opinion, could make for the basis of an interesting novel or novella, but I think that the Terminator movies have already explored that too. I do like the story title though.
Occupation Duty by Harry Turtledove. One of the few authors featured in this book with which I was already familiar. This is not what I would exactly consider a time twister, but I suppose it is an alternate history, where ancient people of the Middle East (Philistines, Moabites, etc.) are in conflict in the modern era. Perhaps more interesting if you are a scholar of ancient history.
Mundane Lane by Kevin J. Anderson. A man from a different reality where science fiction never took hold has to time travel back to various points in history in order to "revive" the genre and thereby hopefully save the world. A bit of a self-indulgent story, but enjoyable.
The Power and the Glory by Robert E. Vardeman. An alternate history story about Nikolai Tesla and the lead up to the first world war. It started out as too much of an exercise in name-dropping of famous people from the late nineteenth century, but eventually became a story with enough depth to warrant the reading.
Voices by Jackie Cassada. Some scientists of the future find a way to go back and rescue Joan of Arc from the past and bring her to their time, so that she can help save a world that is in peril. It is an interesting concept but I was pretty disappointed with the story. It was extremely brief. A longer work would have allowed for more detail about the world's crisis and Joan's reaction to the world of the future.
Downtown Knight by James M. Ward. This story definitely took some inspiration from Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, except with Italian mafia characters. Somewhat fun, but more than anything it felt like a showcase for some characters to go around talking like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas while the medieval knights stand around bewildered.
Parsley Sage, Rosemary, and Time by Jon L. Breen. I am not familiar with the author, but this was a fun mystery story about a group of amateur writers who hold weekly reading. Saying more than that might spoil some of the discovery of the story, so I will leave it there.
A Better Place by Linda P. Baker. A story about the nature of treasure and the nature of people in a post-apocalyptic United States. Quite a well-realized world for a short story of only 20 pages, but I am unsure how this one really qualifies as a "time twister". Alternate history I suppose?
Chaos Theory by Stephen Leigh. Well, this had all the makings of the beginning of amateur erotica or male fantasy. It had one main talking point, historical determinism, so I am not sure that I would even classify the story as science fiction. Pretty unmemorable.
The Man in Cell 91 by Gene DeWeese. A condemned man is forced to experience dreams/visions with the hope that it will cause him to change his views and help to alter the course of humanity. It was okay. I was not familiar with this author, but it appears that he has written predominately Star Trek and some other shared world fiction.
Oyer and Terminer by Joe Masdon. This is a story set during the Salem witch trials. Honestly, it did nothing for me. Also, oddly, it had a lot of typos, which has not been the case with any of the other stories in this collection.
Standing Still by Donald J. Bingle. This one starts as a rather implausible that I was certain would be fairly predictable and bland. However, it took some dark and surprising turns toward the end that elevated the story quite a bit. This is another time-traveling, history-altering story that has some similarities to the first story in this collection, Pierson's "Pruning the Tree."
One Rainy Day in Paris by Skip and Penny Williams. This is a time travel/time alteration story about Marie Curie, the discovery of radiation, and its weaponization. Not a particularly memorable story, but I found it pretty entertaining and interesting after a somewhat of a slow start.
Try and Try Again by Pierce Askegren. Somewhat of a sub-par time travel story where different people travel to the same time/place and nothing really happens? I probably missed something important.
Yeshua's Choice by Nancy Virginia Varian. This is an alternate history of sorts about Jesus Christ, had things gone differently for him. Somewhat interesting for that reason, but over all, rather underwhelming in my opinion.
Three Power Play by Wes Nicholson. This is an alternate history simulation story that basically says, how would history play out differently had Japan attacked southeast Asia instead of Pearl Harbor during World War II. I am skeptical as to the way that the author envisioned this playing out, but it was an interesting story, especially for anyone knowledgeable on that period in history.
One Time Around? by John Helfers. A pretty basic and uninspired time machine/time travel story.
As usual with short story collections, I noted my thoughts in a couple of sentences after reading each one, and have compiled them below.
Pruning the Tree by Chris Pierson. A somewhat mundane "going back in time to change history" sort of story. Not bad, but it feels like something that I, not being a writer, could come up with. There was one piece of this story that, in my opinion, could make for the basis of an interesting novel or novella, but I think that the Terminator movies have already explored that too. I do like the story title though.
Occupation Duty by Harry Turtledove. One of the few authors featured in this book with which I was already familiar. This is not what I would exactly consider a time twister, but I suppose it is an alternate history, where ancient people of the Middle East (Philistines, Moabites, etc.) are in conflict in the modern era. Perhaps more interesting if you are a scholar of ancient history.
Mundane Lane by Kevin J. Anderson. A man from a different reality where science fiction never took hold has to time travel back to various points in history in order to "revive" the genre and thereby hopefully save the world. A bit of a self-indulgent story, but enjoyable.
The Power and the Glory by Robert E. Vardeman. An alternate history story about Nikolai Tesla and the lead up to the first world war. It started out as too much of an exercise in name-dropping of famous people from the late nineteenth century, but eventually became a story with enough depth to warrant the reading.
Voices by Jackie Cassada. Some scientists of the future find a way to go back and rescue Joan of Arc from the past and bring her to their time, so that she can help save a world that is in peril. It is an interesting concept but I was pretty disappointed with the story. It was extremely brief. A longer work would have allowed for more detail about the world's crisis and Joan's reaction to the world of the future.
Downtown Knight by James M. Ward. This story definitely took some inspiration from Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, except with Italian mafia characters. Somewhat fun, but more than anything it felt like a showcase for some characters to go around talking like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas while the medieval knights stand around bewildered.
Parsley Sage, Rosemary, and Time by Jon L. Breen. I am not familiar with the author, but this was a fun mystery story about a group of amateur writers who hold weekly reading. Saying more than that might spoil some of the discovery of the story, so I will leave it there.
A Better Place by Linda P. Baker. A story about the nature of treasure and the nature of people in a post-apocalyptic United States. Quite a well-realized world for a short story of only 20 pages, but I am unsure how this one really qualifies as a "time twister". Alternate history I suppose?
Chaos Theory by Stephen Leigh. Well, this had all the makings of the beginning of amateur erotica or male fantasy. It had one main talking point, historical determinism, so I am not sure that I would even classify the story as science fiction. Pretty unmemorable.
The Man in Cell 91 by Gene DeWeese. A condemned man is forced to experience dreams/visions with the hope that it will cause him to change his views and help to alter the course of humanity. It was okay. I was not familiar with this author, but it appears that he has written predominately Star Trek and some other shared world fiction.
Oyer and Terminer by Joe Masdon. This is a story set during the Salem witch trials. Honestly, it did nothing for me. Also, oddly, it had a lot of typos, which has not been the case with any of the other stories in this collection.
Standing Still by Donald J. Bingle. This one starts as a rather implausible that I was certain would be fairly predictable and bland. However, it took some dark and surprising turns toward the end that elevated the story quite a bit. This is another time-traveling, history-altering story that has some similarities to the first story in this collection, Pierson's "Pruning the Tree."
One Rainy Day in Paris by Skip and Penny Williams. This is a time travel/time alteration story about Marie Curie, the discovery of radiation, and its weaponization. Not a particularly memorable story, but I found it pretty entertaining and interesting after a somewhat of a slow start.
Try and Try Again by Pierce Askegren. Somewhat of a sub-par time travel story where different people travel to the same time/place and nothing really happens? I probably missed something important.
Yeshua's Choice by Nancy Virginia Varian. This is an alternate history of sorts about Jesus Christ, had things gone differently for him. Somewhat interesting for that reason, but over all, rather underwhelming in my opinion.
Three Power Play by Wes Nicholson. This is an alternate history simulation story that basically says, how would history play out differently had Japan attacked southeast Asia instead of Pearl Harbor during World War II. I am skeptical as to the way that the author envisioned this playing out, but it was an interesting story, especially for anyone knowledgeable on that period in history.
One Time Around? by John Helfers. A pretty basic and uninspired time machine/time travel story.
February 11, 2016
Most of these short stories weren't that great, but a few did stand out to me. "Occupation Duty" was an interesting alternate history short about what the world would be like if the Jews didn't exist thousands of years ago and the Phillistines took over instead. "Standing Still' was a cool short about some of the further consequences of having a 'time war' and one man's way of getting out of it. Oh, and 'Try and Try Again' was a nifty short about what might happen if someone were sent back in time to change history, if he were part of a 'fixed event' in time. Good stuff. The rest were way too long, even for short stories. It was as if there was really only a paragraph worth of idea that they padded out with boringness.
February 1, 2014
Time travel and alternate history stories have always interested me, and this collection of short stories provides more good than bad stories overall. With any collection, you have to take the great with the good and the bad. I'd have to say that this is one of the better collected anthologies of science fiction that I've read in a while that aren't of the same author. Kudos, editors.
The stories I consider "Five Star" from this collection are:
"Mundane Lane" - Kevin J. Anderson
"Voices" - Jackie Cassada
"Downtown Knight" - James M. Ward
"Parsley, Sage, and Time" - Jon L. Breen
"A Better Place" - Linda P. Baker
"Chaos Theory" - Stephen Leigh
"Standing Still" - Donald L. Bingle
The stories I consider "Five Star" from this collection are:
"Mundane Lane" - Kevin J. Anderson
"Voices" - Jackie Cassada
"Downtown Knight" - James M. Ward
"Parsley, Sage, and Time" - Jon L. Breen
"A Better Place" - Linda P. Baker
"Chaos Theory" - Stephen Leigh
"Standing Still" - Donald L. Bingle
April 5, 2016
A book of short stories on time travel is like porn to a reader with a time travel fetish. If only all the stories delivered. Almost half of the stories here are NOT about time travel, but depict a post-apocalyptic earth--an alternate reality, some would call it. Which isn't exactly my cup of SF tea.
owned-unread
May 9, 2010I bought this in ebook format at fictionwise.com, but the publisher decided they wanted more money, so I couldn't download it.
Fictionwise refunded my money after a few weeks, so now I have to decide if I'll ever buy this again.
Unlikely.
Fictionwise refunded my money after a few weeks, so now I have to decide if I'll ever buy this again.
Unlikely.
September 19, 2009
I just love the conundrums of time...
Read
August 28, 2012"Standing Still" is one of my favorite stories to do at author readings.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews