Time Tunnel [Paperback]

murray leinster (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: London: Sidgwick & Jackson (1971)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002OCD8YM
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A clever twist to resolve the paradox!, March 25, 2007

By 

Paul Weiss (Dundas, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

From the very birth of the conception of time travel, sci-fi authors and scientists alike have wrestled with the difficulties of time travel paradoxes most commonly expressed in the question of what would happen if you killed your grandfather during your trip to the past. In "Time Tunnel", Murray Leinster has treated his readers to what was probably the first (and quite possibly the best) instance of the infuriating mental tangles that one can encounter when the immutability of the progression of real time collides with the flexibility of time travel.

Leinster has crafted a positively ingenious combination of characters into a fascinating novel of high adventure that will both delight and fascinate his fans - a scientist who felt compelled to change the past in order to rescue the future from an impending atomic war between China and the US; young lovers who, fearing for their lives in a war-torn modern world, felt compelled to flee to a safer past; a 20th century burglar and con artist who realized the early 19th century was ripe for the plucking; and a playboy who was horrified to watch his grandfather die unmarried and childless.

The story begins in 1964 when Harrison, completing research for his PhD thesis in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, discovers long-buried correspondence showing that, in 1805, a gentleman named de Bassompierre had written to certain scientists handing out modern knowledge long before its acknowledged discovery. In one case, for example, "He wrote to Laplace, the astronomer, assuring him that Mars had two moons, very small and very close to its surface. He also said that there were three planets beyond Saturn, and that the one next out had a period of eighty-four years and two moons, one retrograde. He suggested that it should be called Uranus. He added that in the year 1808 there would be a nova in Persis, (which there was!) and he signed himself very respectfully, de Bassompierre." When Harrison and his friend, Pepe Ybarra, reach the conclusion that de Bassompierre was a time traveler who is attempting to change the future by handing out modern ideas before their time, the high jinks begin in earnest and the time travel conundrums drop into the readers' laps at a dizzying pace.

And the ending ... sigh! What a wonderfully clever simultaneous resolution of both the adventure plot-lines and the time travel paradoxes.

Recommended as a scintillating addition to the library of any reader who savours classic sci-fi from the pulp era.

Paul Weiss

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars different book, March 30, 2007

By 

Richard Slawsky - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Actually, the book pictured here is Leinster's 1967 "The Time Tunnel," a novelization of the Irwin Allen television series which ran on ABC from 1966-67. Mr. Weiss' review is of Leinster's 1964 "Time Tunnel," which may have served as the inspiration for the series but had a different plot and characters.

I read this book as a child, and although I don't recall enough of the details to give an accurate summation of the story line, I do recall it being an enjoyable read.

5.0 out of 5 stars different books with same title & author, December 18, 2011

By 

The Doctor - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Time Tunnel (Pyramid SF, R-1522) (Mass Market Paperback)

Well it certainly took you guys long enough to get me the right book three times and even after I gave you the code on the book. Well 1 out of 12 is still an excellent run.