Beyond Time

by Sandra Ley (editor), Frederik Pohl (Introduction)

Anthology of new work. Includes: "The Cliometricon" by George Zebrowski; "The Rising of the Sun" by Gordon Eklund; "Jupiter Laughs" by Edmund Cooper; "Worlds Enough" by Don Thompson; "Assault on Fat Mountain" by R. A. Lafferty; "O Brave Old World!" by Avram Davidson; "Hail to the Chief" by Lucy Cores; Soy la Libertad by Robert Coulson; T"he Devil and the Deep Blue Sky" by Rob Chilson; "A Class with Dr. Chang" by Ward Moore; "Unscheduled Flight" by Juanita Coulson; "Alternate Universe" (poems) by Thomas M. Disch; "Polonaise" by Alan Dean Foster; "U-Genie SX-1-Human Entrepreneur: Naturally Rapacious Yankee" by Dimitri V. Gat; "Letter from America" by H. R. Percy; "The Napoleonic Wars" by Felix C. Gotschalk; "Checkmate in Six Moves" by Olga Ley; "Many Rubicons" by Michael Orgill; "The Fellini Beggar" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro; "All Possible Worlds" by Laurence M. Janifer.

Genres: Science Fiction

268 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Craig]

I recently stumbled across this obscure anthology from 1976 in a used book store. It only had a single printing. It has a rather striking cover by Harry Bennett, a nice introduction by Frederik Pohl, and was edited by Sandra Ley, who was the daughter of the famous rocket scientist Willy Ley. I believe it was her only genre publication. One of the more interesting stories was written by her mother, Olga Ley. It includes good stories by Gordon Eklund, Robert Coulson, Juanita Coulson, Avram Davidson, R.A. Lafferty, Alan Dean Foster, Robert Chilson, and others, as well as some nice poetry by Tom Disch. The theme is alternate history, and it is explored in some interesting and unusual ways. (This was before Harry Turtledove and the Resnick Alternate books, remember.) A few of the stories near the end of the book seemed a bit on the ponderous and boring side, but I enjoyed it overall. My favorite story was Jupiter Laughs by Edmond Cooper. There's an unusual error on the copyright page: it says that all of the stories are reprinted from 1975 issues of Amazing Stories Magazine. In fact, only one, the first, by George Zebrowski had ever been in print prior to this book. (Or maybe the others appeared there on an alternate Earth...)

[Mark]

Alternate history has been around for decades, yet it seems that only recently has it come into its own as a genre. Thanks to authors like Harry Turtledove and Eric Flint, people nowadays can't seem to get enough of alternate history. This is one of the reasons why Sandra Ley's collection of short stories makes for such enjoyable reading. Originally published in 1976, it offers a wide-ranging collection of alternate history tales written before the genre became clogged with endless rehashings of the Confederates triumphing over the Union or Nazis winning World War II. While Ley's collection does contain a couple of stories spawned by those settings (such as Ward Moore's "A Class with Dr. Chang"), most of the stories have a freshness of premise that often seems lacking today.

This freshness results in a diverse collection of stories, from Edmund Cooper's "Jupiter Laughs" (in which a troop of Roman soldiers hunts down a young Jewish couple and their newborn baby) to Avram Davidson's "O Brave Old World!" (where the decision to send an ailing Prince Frederick to America to recuperate leads to a very different revolution). A few stories show their age (most notably Lucy Cores's "Hail to the Chief," which comes across as a product of its time), but most make for entertaining reading for fans of alternate history, especially those who are curious to see a different focus than the ones which seem to dominate the genre today.