About Time: 12 Short Stories [Paperback]

Time travel in these stories is achieved almost effortlessly, when the "thousand invisible chains" that keep us in the present--modern coins and manufactured items, apartment buildings--are, for a moment, loosed. If there's nothing on you that wouldn't belong in the world fifty or sixty or seventy years ago, and if you're in a place that hasn't been altered much in all that time, and if you're in the right frame of mind, you can slip into the past, easy as can be. Just so, the car-obsessed college student of Finney's "Second Chance," while driving along an old highway in his restored Jordan Playboy, finds himself sharing the road with Model T's. His brief presence in the past has the effect of altering history in a way that will influence his own future.

Al and his wife Nell of Finney's "Such Intersting Neighbors" find the Hellenbeks, who have just moved into their California neighborhood, strange but pleasant. Ted Hellenbek is an inventor, an intelligent guy who was born and raised in the U.S., and yet he fumbles with his money, unable to count it out himself, when he has to pay the driver of his cab upon his arrival in town. Alfred Pullen buys a paper with a 1958 Wilson dime in "The Coin Collector" and finds himself at once in an alternative universe where such coins exist--and where he has married a different woman. In "Where the Cluetts Are" an architect helps a couple build a house following blueprints that belonged to his grandfather. The house, with its peaked roof and many gables, is an anachronism, and it has a curious effect on its inhabitants. In "Lunch-Hour Magic" an advertising agency employee buys a pair of glasses that allow him to see through women's clothes:

"I kept the glasses on nearly all afternoon, wandering around the office with a sheaf of papers in my hand, and strangely it was Mrs. Humphrey, our middle-aged overweight bookkeeper, that I stared at longest. Last year, I knew, she'd celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of her marriage to her husband, Harvey. But there, unmistakably, tattooed on her left hip, was a four-inch high red heart inside which, in a slanted blue script, was inscribed Ralph, and I wondered if she'd had the fearsome job of hiding it from Harvey for a quarter of a century."

Finney writes well--that "fearsome job" is quite good--and his stories are clever. If they are not quite as well done as his novels, this collection nevertheless makes a pleasant and easy read.

These 12 stories are a lot of fun. While I think Finney, writing circa 1950s, excelled in the novel(la) format because he could fully indulge his gift for description, these shorts are enjoyable because they make great reads when you have less time -- in more ways than one.

These stories were originally collected in two anthologies: The Third Level (1957/1976) and I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1962), though those collections may be difficult to find. All are great, but my favorites are: "Such Interesting Neighbors", about the rather strange Hellenbek family who lives next door; "Lunch-Hour Magic", about the lengths one will go to find love (or lust); "The Face in the Photo", about a novel escape for criminals; and "Of Missing Persons", about getting a second chance at Paradise. "The Third Level" is a classic that you may well have read in other anthologies, and "The Coin Collector" was later expanded into novella-length "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" -- a treatment most of these wonderful stories could sustain. The latter features a wonderful passage about books written by authors, including Mark Twain, who lived longer in the alternate reality in which the narrator finds himself. Each story ends with a twist that would roll off Rod Serling's tongue.

If you enjoy time travel stories (though not hard sf), great storytelling or endings with a wink, this is a collection you must have. Finney is a marvel! Give yourself a treat!