Short Story Review – Needle in a Timestack
Book Details
“Needle in a Timestack” by Robert Silverberg | The Time Traveler’s Almanac collection
Editors: Ann VanderMeer, Jeff VanderMeer
Total Pages in the collection: 960
Published: March 18, 2014 by Tor Books
My Review
Folks, Needle in a Timestack has left me with unanswered questions and with slight dissatisfaction. Okay, more than slight, so let’s get to it.
It had a promising beginning. The author throws you into the middle of Nick Mikkelson panicking over the fact that his time track (aka timeline, or past) has been tampered with. The culprit? Tommy Hambleton, his wife Janine’s ex-husband.
Tommy desperately wants Janine back, even though they divorced a dozen years ago, and he has been known to tamper with Janine’s time track via a time travel method known as “time jaunting.”
Okay, very interesting so far, but then I started having questions. You see, time jaunting is presented on the one hand as something in that world as common as we have cell phones. People go about their day, encountering so many “phasings”–that is, tamperings–that eventually they chalk it up to a mere annoyance. Another thing is that apparently it’s nearly impossible to prove a specific person has been phasing you.
So…why the heck is almost anyone with a credit card allowed to time jaunt? I would imagine either this would be a tool strictly used by the government, and even if the wealthy could buy their way into this technology, it would still be heavily policed. It just didn’t sit well with me how people had the power to wreck and fundamentally change other people’s lives through time jaunting, and yet there were no real safeguards or repercussions for doing so.
Okay, back to our throuple–Janine, Nick, and Tommy.
Nick confronts Tommy about some previous phasings–friends from their past who were lost, their pets suddenly disappearing or having different names, and even Nick and Janine’s wedding being postponed by five months. Tommy, as slick and smooth as the Devil, assures Nick that he has no clue what’s going on: Here, let me buy you a drink, old buddy. You’re having marital problems? Someone’s phasing you? Awww, let’s talk about it, mmmkay?
Yeah, and by the time Nick reaches his house, another phasing hits him and he’s no longer married to Janine. And his two little girls are erased. Nick doesn’t want to forget Janine, he doesn’t want his memories and mind to completely merge with a life without her. He scribbles down every bit of information he remembers from his past life and manages to call Janine on a screen/video phone. Janine has already given up, Tommy won, and she tries to get Nick to give up as well. She ends the phone call, saying one last sorrowful goodbye.
The story should’ve ended there.
But Nick refuses to let it end there, so he puts in a quick application with a time jaunting service (it only takes 5 minutes to get approval to travel back in time), gives them his credit card, and even gets a makeup job. He heads back into the past to a time when he and Janine, and Tommy and friends were all young and carefree.
Nick convinces Tommy to date a girl named Yvonne and sends his younger self a cryptic note telling him to watch out for Janine. He goes back into the present, confident that Tommy will remain with Yvonne and Janine will be his again.
Except, Tommy is with Yvonne and Janine is not even in the picture.
Doh!
But that’s when our dear author must’ve said “Eh, screw it,” and has Janine show up at a party, immediately drawn to Nick. Their gazes meet, they approach each other, and talk:
Janine: I think I’ve met you somewhere before.
Nick: (wriggling eyebrows) why yes, yes you have.
The End.
That was not satisfying at all! I would rather the story end with the phone call between Janine and Nick, or Nick travel back in time to kill Tommy.
I’m interested in reading what my fellow review group members have to say about this one.
My Rating:
2 out of 5
About The Time Traveler’s Almanac
The Time Traveler’s Almanac is the largest and most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this book compiles more than a century’s worth of literary travels into the past and the future that will serve to reacquaint readers with beloved classics of the time travel genre and introduce them to thrilling contemporary innovations.
This marvelous volume includes nearly seventy journeys through time from authors such as Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, and Connie Willis, as well as helpful non-fiction articles original to this volume (such as Charles Yu’s “Top Ten Tips For Time Travelers”).
The Time Traveler’s Almanac Review Group
This review is part of an on-going review series. We’re trying to review a short story per week from The Time Traveler’s Almanac. Please join us and share your thoughts! My partners in crime on this reading adventure includes the following authors and bloggers. Check out their reviews as well:
Last week and this week show why we are doing this group. Everyone sees the story different. I loved this story. I was starting to lose hope in this anthology until this story. The first story was good until the end. The second story was just awful. But this story I loved. Head on over to my blog and see why I loved it so much.
https://leighgendarium.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/needle-in-a-timestack-by-robert-silverberg-the-time-travelers-almanac/
So true, Preston. I love how we each bring our different perspectives to the group. I’m glad you enjoyed the story!
I had trouble with the time travel meddling, too, but I actually liked the ending. It gave the idea that because there is so much free reign, the ending could change again. It presents thousands of possible endings, which really intrigued me. I would have liked to know more about Janine, why she was the love to two men’s lives. Even at the end, Tommy still looks upon her with a little awe. That suggests that another ending might be in store, that the fight might live on. I like the uncertainty of it. I get your frustrations, though. They just didn’t bother me as much, I think, which is neat to see. 🙂
I did like the characters, but the world building tripped me up. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this!
YES! Exactly! Who is their right mind would let time-travel be that readily available!? I mean, the number of problems that would arise from that. It’d be one thing if they traveled to the past of an alternate time-line or even what Dirac Sea did, but this is all on the same time-line. And it not one person, it the WHOLE planet. People would phasing in and out all day and night, the whole world as we know we it would constantly be undergoing a change. People would literally be dying and coming back into existence every second… If someone killed my dad and thus killed me form existence, but then someone else went back and killed that person before my father’s murders – does that mean for the next two hours I remember I was dead?
When I was reading, it didn’t bother me though – I just it let it go – but when these story was done, none of the problems (which there are oh so many) never got dressed, I just couldn’t let it go. Simply way too unbelievable.
YES, DJ!