Customer Reviews

Crosstime Traffic

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Lawrence Watt-Evans is an excellent author, writing in a number of genres, but most known for his science-fiction and fantasy stories. This book is a collection of some nineteen of his short stories. Some of the stories are indeed crosstime - dealing with the movement between parallel universes. The rest are either fantasy or science-fiction or a bit unclassifiable.

Some of the stories are quite short, coming in at under two pages(!), but the rest are of a more descent length. In general I really like the stories, especially the crosstime ones - I wish that he had written more of them. The story Storm Trooper is probably the best of the lot, but The Drifter was very interesting, and The Final Folly of Captain Dancy was quite entertaining.

So, if you are a fan of good science-fiction and fantasy, then you will like this book. And, if you are a fan of Lawrence Watt-Evans, as I am, then I can guarantee that you will love it!

I'm not a big sci-fi buff. I mean I LOVE sci-fi, but not the HEAVY stuff. I may get there one day, but for now, the "Ender series" is more or less the most "hardcore" science-fiction books I've read.
Now, this said, it maybe explains why my most favorite theme is time-travel/parallel universes.
Too bad it's one of those less written-about sub-genres in science-fiction.

Anyhow, I think it was almost 10 years ago (I think I was about 16) when I picked an issue of "Amazing Stories", and fell in love with a certain short story there. It was called "The Drifter", written by Lawrence Watt-Evans; A beautiful, parallel-universe short story. It was the best short sci-fi story I ever read. (Again, I never read those "heavy" Asimov stories and the likes..). I liked it a lot, put the magazine away someplace, and didn't give it much thought for a few years.

A few months ago, I found the magazine and read the story. And it rekindled my love for it. But now - I've got Amazon. I logged in and searched for Lawrence Watt-Evans items.

And among various novels he's written, I've found this book - a collection of short stories. One of which is the Drifter!!! Wow... Moreover, there are a couple of stories here that actually won the Hugo award!
I had to have this book!

I got it, I read it, and I enjoyed. All the stories were just right for my love of "soft core" science-fiction and fantasy. Twenty of them.

I enjoyed most of the stories very much. There were a couple of very bad stories as well (Luckily they were very short), that the author himself describe as his early, premature, work.

In short, I can recommend this book. If you want to remember the stories that got you hooked on it as a kid. If you love short, science fiction and fantasy stories, dealing with different aspects not always touched by other writers, time-travel, parallel-worlds, and other cool stuff - buy this book!

This is perhaps the best collection I've ever read of short stories on time travel and alternate universes -- all by the same author. In my opinion, some of the tales are as good as anything written by Ray Bradbury.

Imagine an infinite number of universes, an infinite number of parallel Earths. Time isn't always constant, some have space-travel, other realities are blending and invading others. These represent my favorite (and little explored) possibilities inside science fiction.

In this collection of twenty stories, fifteen have a unique riff on inter-reality travel, communication, or merging. A couple won major awards like the Hugo. Even if you don't normally go for short stories, if you like cross-reality traffic, you'll enjoy this collection.

Stories Included: Paranoid Fantasy #1, Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers, A Flying Saucer with Minnesota Plates, An Infinity of Karen, The Drifter, Storm Trooper, One-Shot, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way," Real Time, New Works, One Night at a Local Bar, Science Fiction, Watching New York Melt (with Julie Evans), Monster Kidnaps Girl at Mad Scientist's Command!, Windwagon Smith and the Martians, The Rune and the Dragon, The Palace of the al-Tir al-Abtan, The Final Folly of Captain Dancy, After the Dragon is Dead.

A book I'm glad to own.