Customer Reviews

Time Machines: The Greatest Time Travel Stories Ever Written

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As the editorial review mentions, these stories are not necessarily the ones you'd see up for the Hugo Awards -- this isn't really a "best of" kind of anthology. However, this is exactly the reason why I enjoyed this book so much. I've already read the "best of" stories, and I was looking for something new. This book did a wonderful job of combining some of my favorite short stories in the genre with other excellent stories I'd never even heard of before. I originally purchased the book solely to get my hands on a copy of the story "Star, Bright" by Mark Clifton (one of my favorites since childhood), but thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the book as well.

As an aside, I've also found these stories to be well read and enjoyed by the junior and senior high students I teach. Short stories are a great way to introduce them to the genre of science fiction!

As the other reviewers state, this is hardly the "best" time travel stories. Some of them are quite lame. And the cover is a lie! It says the book features a list of authors, including H.G. Wells, but there is nothing in there by H.G. Wells! I was extremely disappointed by the stories included. When I read the story written by the editor, Bill Adler, Jr., I thought that was one of the worst, which may explain the poor selections. In conclusion, this was a great idea, but poorly executed.

I would not say that these are the "best" timemachine stories ever written. However there are some popular authors included, and Star, Bright is included. Ray Bradbury has a very overrated story in here. Since I am writing a timemachine story myself, I decided to check this book out. It is not a total waste of money, but this book is overrated. Sorry for using the same adjective twice. Serling has a story in here, but everyone has seen the story before on Twlight Zone before. The publisher even puts one his own stories in it, (filler?).

Anyway, the book is not easy to find, and not all the stories are that easy to find either. In that aspect it is worth purchasing if you really want to have a copy of Star, Bright.

DH