Customer Reviews

The Young Oxford Book of Timewarp Stories (Young Oxford Books)

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I picked this one up for two reasons. One, I thought my son might enjoy it, and two, it had Jack Finney's Love Letters in it. Love Letters isn't available anywhere else that I know of and can only be found in this specific book. I hadn't read this story and have wanted to, as I've enjoyed all of Jack Finney's novels and short stories.

This book is an excellent anthology of short stories that involve time travel. Admittedly, I was a teeny bit disappointed with Love Letters, but I was more than impressed with most of the other stories. As I was wallpapering my living room today, every time I'd take a break, I'd read a short story. Most are less than 15 pages long, so they were perfect for a diet coke or coffee break!

The Picnic was interesting-- reminded me of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery a bit. Room 409 was an eerie ghost story-- the kind you might have heard around the campfire growing up. The Silver Box was more unusual than I expected and Time Shift was truly disturbing.

Stories by Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke are among the better-known authors here, but there are a wide variety of authors, styles, and stories. This was a lot of fun.

An excellent anthology of time travel stories. All of the stories are classics. This mix of authors and stories seems to be perfectly chosen because they are still contemporary and speak to today's more selective readers. A reader of any age will enjoy this compilation. Younger readers will find this broad range of stories especially tasty. The best one in my opinion is the "Love Letter" by Jack Finney. This story captured my imagination when I was in grade school and its sense of adventure, magic and romance never left me. That was something I have been able to pass along to my child because of this very nice anthology.

Just about everyone has an interest in time warp stories, especially if they are science fiction fans, and the Oxford University Press has been very kind to create a short-story collection of time travel stories. Don't let the "young" in the title fool you; this is clearly a book for any lover of time travel stories of any age.

Two renowned science fiction writers make their presence known here: Ray Bradbury, with a story about a safari company that will take you back to any period in history (in this case, dinosaurs) and let you "bag" any animals you want; and Arthur C. Clarke, whose story entails a magical bracelet brought from the future, which can essentially stop time to less than a crawl so a perfect robbery can be carried out on the British Museum. There is even a story about a travel agency that will take you to any time in history for a vacation, and in this story a group of people go back to the crucifixion, where a surprising reality is revealed: that it is not the Jews that condemn Christ to death, but the group of "time tourists."

The book is an entertaining read with stories of different lengths and types that make it a really great collection, and is recommended to a reader of any age who has a penchant for time travel.

Originally published on May 12th, 2003.

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