Time on My Hands (Paperback)

by Peter Delacorte (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Here's a genre you don't run into every day--a political time-travel novel. If you enjoyed A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, or Back to the Future you'll definitely want to give this a tumble. A brilliant physicist has discovered a time machine from the 22d century languishing in an obscure Paris technical museum, but is too old to try it out himself. Fortunately he meets up with a bored travel writer (our hero) who is up for the mission. The physicist, a political liberal, has only one request of him: when you go back in time, divert B-movie actor Ronald Reagan from becoming president. The writer makes the trip (several times), meets Reagan (several times), but ... well, let's just say changing the entire course of modern American politics isn't easy. And there's the additional problem of falling in love with a luscious blonde who's been dead since 1938. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Delacorte's third novel (following Games of Chance, LJ 11/15/80) features clever, amiable Gabriel Prince, who like Jack Finney's protagonist in Time and Again is a firm believer in his own personal destiny. Travel writer Prince meets eccentric Jasper Hudnut, a disaffected ex-physics professor with an H.G. Wellsian time machine and a single-minded obsession to change history's course by preventing Ronald Reagan from becoming president. Soon, Prince is undertaking the ultimate journey?back to 1938 Hollywood?to steer young actor Dutch Reagan into a different career path. Complicating his plan are the beautiful young starlet with whom he falls in love; a suspicious, malevolent screenwriter; and two murderous Frenchmen from the 22nd century intent on recovering their stolen property: a time machine that is beginning to malfunction dangerously. The downbeat ending may disappoint some readers, but this is a memorable, extraordinarily intelligent piece of fiction writing with a strong sense of time(s) and place(s).?Jo Manning, Miami Beach, Fla.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671023241
• ISBN-13: 978-0671023249
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,224,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lost Time Evocatively Recreated, October 10, 2000

By	Richard Taylor "WRITER" (Cambria, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it and think, April 28, 2000

By A Customer

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?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Time and Again, or maybe not, April 24, 2000

By	Marcy L. Thompson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.