Customer Reviews

Time on My Hands

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Peter Delacort's Time on My Hands is a very successful time travel story in the tradition of Jack Finney and Richard Matheson. Unlike them, however, Peter chooses to add a controversial element -- the presidency of Ronald Reagan and what things might be like if his political career were stopped before it began. This is dangerous stuff for a time travel novel -- Reagan's supporters are legion, and they remember the old man with great affection. I was more than doubtful when I purchased the book for this very reason. While not a Reaganite myself, I respect Reagan as a past president who accomplished things. Still, even though Delacort's take on the Reagan presidency is not as kind as mine, he treats Dutch in such a way that you begin to like him as a character - flawed, it is true, but human and admirable. This novel's great strength is its recreation of 1930s Hollywood. Here Delacort shines like no other time travel novelist. He describes my native Los Angeles as no Angeleno ever has - and Peter's from our sister city to the north, San Francisco, whose denizens have not always been kind to the City of Angels. Peter Delacort recreates Malibu of the '30s, Warner Bros. (for whom I worked for 25 years, and so know quite well), the times, the people, the water they swim in, the political and social climate of a city that lays in wait for the archaeologist's spade and brush. In short, this is a great read on a number of levels. I can't recommend it more.

I can't believe how many of the reviewers didn't like the end. The end is fabulous and chilling.

As someone below warns, this book is about a man travelling back in time to prevent Ronald Reagan from being president. My politics lean to the left, so initially I was not offended by the thought. Later on, I did start to get offended. But that is part of what makes this book so great. It gives you a lot to chew on.

Think about this: You can change any bit of history you want, and this guy chooses to prevent Reagan from becoming president. Why? Why not Nixon? He arguably did more harm. Why not prevent one of the wars or prevent one of the assassinations in the 1960s or save a child's life or do something to improve economic conditions in one of the poorer nations? They do give a bit of explanation for this at the front of the book, but there's something that occurs later in the book that discounts the explanation.

So read this book even if you do lean to the right. Think about if you had a time machine, what would you do?

I love time travel stories and I love political stories. I should have loved Time on My Hands, but I didn't. Far from it, I found its characters, other than its hero Gabriel Prince, unidimensional, espcially the 27-year-old Ronald Reagan, who's portrayed as a near-retarded simpleton. In addition, the treatment of time-travel is confusing and unsatisfying. A truly great time travel story, in my opinion, is one where the time traveler acts in such a way that I'm prompted to say, "Yes! That's exactly what I'd do." Prince is the complete opposite. He's got a time machine, and can go whenever he wants, yet he rushes every decision. In addition, after doing a lot of very interesting things with prince in the 1930's, it seems Delacorte gives up at the end, and can't adequately resolve it. I finished this book feeling genuinely uncomfortable and upset. I don't think this book had a soul, and I think that the last fifty pages should never have gotten past Delacorte's editor. If you're a sucker for time-travel, as I am, you'll still read it in one or two sittings, because it's gripping, but if you're at all like me, it'll be something of an unpleasant experience.

This book reminds me irresistably of Jack Finney's _Time_and_Again_, and yet it is completely different. For the first three-quarters of the book, it is a stylish, tightly-woven narrative with believable characters and plausible (if unpredictable) plot twists. Then in the last quarter, it falls apart into a more self-indulgent narrative. I'm hoping for a sequel, since the book seemed fundamentally unfinished.

I'd give it five stars if it ended as well as it began.

I had a very big dilemma about writing this review. On one hand, I think the book is very good. Creative, superbly written, realistic characters. However, I really didn't like the end. I'd say this book is a part of sub-genre inside the "Time travel" genre. I'm a time travel fanatic, I read any time-travel book I could get my hands on, And I've noticed that many of these books tend to concentrate on historic facts, as if to make the story "come alive". Well, "Time on my hands" is definitely the best. (MUCH MUCH better than Joshua Dann's series). The story has some unusual twists. But again, the ending somewhat ruined the book for me. It seemed to be a homage to H.G. Wells' classic story, "The time machine", which also had a bad ending in my opinion...pity. I just hope the author will live up to his promise, and write a sequel. And if that happens, I guess this review should be upgraded to 5 stars :)

I thought this was an excellent book, just short of perfect actually. There are a number of plot twists and they were all appreciated. The theory of time travel seems to have a few loose ends, but I think that was intended - it makes you think about it. The ending seemed perfectly suited toward there being a sequel, which I hope we see. Be warned that the reason the protagonist travels back in time is to prevent Reagan from becoming President, so if your politics lean to the right you may not enjoy Delacorte's political viewpoint. For me, the politics were right on.

This was a total blast. Except for a very short meandering spot midway through I smiled at our hero's adventures for the better part of a week. What's to say - except that if you're a "time travel" nut who is more into plot twists & "story" rather than techno-physics stuff you'll eat this one up. Perhaps the ending is a bit maddening. On the other hand it makes one cry for the sequel. If one IS in the works I hope that he's thinking of Bush this time. - Oooh, if it were only possible!

After reading Ken Grimwood's Replay, I developed an abiding interest in the subject of time travel. Left cold by Hollywood's most recent version, I returned easily to the realm of the novel. I stumbled upon Delacorte's book on Amazon, and couldn't be more glad that I did. As a fan of both early hollywood and politics, this novel could not have been more up my alley. However, you need not be a fan of both. The novel's plot, summarized several times over on this page, is original and fun. The story flows well, the characters are intriguing and well drawn. The joy of Delacorte's novel is in the details. It gets them just so. He spent a good deal of time on the novel and it shows. It is warm, witty, and geniunely original. I couldn't recommend this comic novel more highly. Dutch, Gabriel, Jasper, and Lorna are worth the read. It poses ethical questions to be sure and does not (despite what the whiny Kirkus Review says) supply answers. As any good ethicist knows, it is not possible to answer these questions. The ending, of which I will say nothing, is tantalzing. Delacorte has said he would like to write a sequel. It is now 5 years later and we're still waiting. Can I travel ahead in the future on the time machine to find out when it is coming out?

Mr. Delacorte's creation reads on a totally different tangent from other, more conventional time-travel works because of the localization of the scale of temporal involvement by the story's protagonist, Gabriel Prince. His original intentions certainly reek of grandeur - and it even appears, on his first trip to his own time, that he succeeds in his mission to make the world a better place without Ronald "Dutch" Reagan as President. In actuality, the book gradually becomes a story of personal tragedy, with Gabriel pitting his wit, effort and some limited 1990s technology against an inexorable inertia of Timestream to save not the country or the world, but the woman he loves and the man he comes to consider his friend. All characters are well-developed, with fascinatingly complex personalitites. Theory of time travel is underdeveloped, and even the contemplation of the nature of time are muddled, but it appears the author purposefully draws the readers' attention away from this so they can fully appreciate the drama that makes the novel such a pleasure to read.

This book (Peter Delacorte, Time On My Hands, 1997) is a time travel story which is well written. The characterizations and story is interesting. The concept (that each time a traveler went back in time, a new time line starts) is fascinating.