From Publishers Weekly
Devotees of SF and literary mystery will enjoy this fast-paced, well-thought-out adventure that takes a college professor and Hemingway scholar on an eerie journey to coexisting universes. Nebula and Hugo Award-winner Haldeman ( The Forever War ) has written a tale that twists upon itself like a Moebius strip, with characters reenacting their lives in each slightly different, slightly worse universe. In a Key West bar, Baird is conned into writing a story in Hemingway's 1920s style, which could be passed off as one of the contents of the famous valise left on a train by Hemingway's then-wife Hadley. Returning to Key West from the Hemingway collection at the Kennedy Library, Baird suddenly finds Ernest Hemingway sitting opposite him in the train compartment. This is, however, a nonhuman who can take on any form, and who has come to warn Baird not to finish the Hemingway pastiche. In a lively, philosophical conversation, the temporal policeman explains that if Baird continues in his plan he will be killed. As each attempt to murder him fails, Baird finds himself in a slightly altered universe--and in one of these supernatural worlds, Baird evolves into Hemingway himself. Haldeman has injected humor and philosophy into what turns out to be an intriguingly existential drama.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The plot of this mixed-up little novel revolves around the scheme of Hemingway scholar David Baird, his two-timing wife, and a con man to forge one of Ernesto's famous "lost manuscripts" stolen in a Parisian train station in 1921. After things get rolling, Baird is terrorized by a "being" who can travel through time and between alternate universes, and who, in the guise of Hemingway in various stages of his life from infancy through headless corpse, tells Baird he must stop the forgery because it will cause nuclear Armageddon sometime in the future. Sound stupid? For the most part, it is. In addition to the far-fetched plot, the characters show more grace under pressure than is believable. While Haldeman's respect and affection for Hemingway are sincere enough, those who are not aficionados will miss a lot of the subtle references and generally won't care about the whole. This could have worked as either a hardcore sf piece or a neat caper story, but combined, the two elements clash and end up a mess.
- Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
