From Booklist
The nine fantasies in this collection firmly establish Hoffman's versatility and gifts. The time travelers of the title appear in "Mint Condition," traveling back from a polluted future in search of collectible comic books--and open sky. The ghosts show up in "Haunted Humans," in which a team of them shares the consciousness of a young man drawn into a desperate struggle to save a young woman from a serial killer; it is dark fantasy of a very high order. Not much below it are "The Skeleton Key," in which the god Hermes rescues a victim of Satanists, and "Unleashed," in which two werecreatures form a partnership when a single weremother needs a baby-sitter during her change. Satires on hand include "Toobychubbies" and "Objects of Desire," nominally about alien invasions; "Night Life," about princesses spending their nights in the land of Faerie; and "Entertaining Possibilities," about a very weird family that considers a son-in-law unworthy of them. With nary a purple or ill-chosen word in sight, this is contemporary short fantasy at its best.
Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
