Man Who Folded Himself: Amazon.ca: David Gerrold: Books

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Review

"Uncanny allegorical force . . . altogether most impressive." --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Publisher's Weekly

"Widely imaginative and mindbending" --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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IN THE BOX was a belt. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

20 Reviews

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

3.8 out of 5 stars (20 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Not the ultimate time travel story, April 22 2004

By	Eric James Stone (Eagle Mountain, UT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Man Who Folded Himself (Paperback)

I bought this book because I'd heard it was the ultimate time travel story, at least in terms of taking time travel to its logical conclusion.

While well-written, I don't feel it lives up to the hype. Robert Heinlein's short stories "All You Zombies" and "By His Bootstraps" do a better job of taking the logic of the basic concept to its inevitable conclusion.

Gerrold also leaves open a major flaw in the time-travel logic of this novel: the time travel device loops infinitely through time without wearing out. (Merely the friction from being touched would eventually wear it away; look at what happens to old statues that are rubbed for luck.) He is hardly unique in making this mistake (although Heinlein avoided it in both stories mentioned above), and it is not of tremendous significance within the plot. Still, the flaw is important enough to keep this from being as thorough and logical a story as some of its admirers claim.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Time travel as a venue for narcissistic eroticism, Mar 27 2004

By	tvgaz "tvgaz" (Tucson, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Folded Himself (Paperback)

A thoroughly disappointing (and disjointed) enterprise. Each explanation for time-travel paradoxes (or lack of them) was eradicated by a later episode of the main characters' (yes, that's plural) ramblings.

And, concepts that offered genuine intrigue (meeting and interacting with a version of oneself who happens to be the opposite sex; bringing getaway estates wholly constructed to locations that predate the dawn of man) were left to flounder for lack of viable explanations as to how such events might have come to be.

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2.0 out of 5 stars What's up with the sex?, Mar 24 2004

By	Santos Medrano (Phoenix, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Man Who Folded Himself (Paperback)

This book had a fascinating premise and some pretty neat twists and concepts. However, it was pretty much ruined by the inclusion of sex, both gay and straight. Now, I have nothing against sex or depictions of it (in either film or literature), but it just felt so wrong here. I expected a science fiction story and instead I got soft core porn.

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars A somewhat misleading title...don't read it to your kids!
I enjoyed the beginning of the story and the exploration of some of the paradoxical theories of time travel. Read more

Published on Mar 18 2004 by Benjamin Gordon

2.0 out of 5 stars Highly overrated
While I can't say that I didn't like this book at all, I can say that it was hardly a work of literary genius. Read more

Published on Feb 17 2004 by kiku-chan

5.0 out of 5 stars The Quest for your Essential Being
Sometime in the last year Toby Johnson and his partner Kip Dollar were over for supper one evening and the subject turned to science-fiction. Read more

Published on Feb 5 2004 by whitecranejournal

5.0 out of 5 stars An important time travel story
This is a short novel, reprinted again after some 30 years. It's an important and classic time travel story, dealing seriously with the subject in a realistic way, being bold in... Read more

Published on Feb 2 2004