Bring Back Yesterday

The Rim World #3

by A. Bertram Chandler, Peter Elson (Illustrator)

Haunted by the past, John Petersen would give anything to turn back the clock...or would he?

When Lightning blasts off without him, Second Officer John Petersen is finished as far as Trans-Galactic Clippers are concerned. Branded a deserter, stranded on Carinthia and desperate for a job, there are very few places left to go. The Rim Runners would have him - they'll have anyone who's still warm and can flash some kind of certificate. But there may be a less than unpleasant alternative...

Private detective Steve Vynalek needs Petersen. Has a fanatical scientist on the planet Wenceslaus really found a way to beat the time travel problem, a way to bring back yesterday? The Presidents of Carinthia and Vynalek are convinced that Petersen is the only man for the job. In the airless wastes of Wenceslaus, Petersen finds himself reliving the past, trapped in a terrible cycle of familiarity - a cycle that only he can break.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Arthur Bertram Chandler (28 March 1912–6 June 1984) was an Australian science fiction author. He also wrote under the pseudonyms George Whitley, George Whitely, Paul T. Sherman, Andrew Dunstan, and S.H.M.

He was born in Aldershot, England. He was a merchant marine officer, sailing the world in everything from tramp steamers to troopships. He emigrated to Australia in 1956 and became an Australian citizen. He commanded various ships in the Australian and New Zealand merchant navies, and was the last master of the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne as the law required that it have an officer on board while it was laid up waiting to be towed to China to be broken up.

Reviews

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was great until the action-packed ending. I found the time travel device, and its incorporation into the plot, confusing. The romance didn’t do much for me either. But hey: Chandler writes well, generally. On the sentence- and page-levels he’s unimpeachable.

I’ll give him a few more tries — I remember liking one or two of his stories when I read them in my teen years.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review at my blog: http://www.skjam.com/2015/09/26/book-...

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Chandler, and it shows.

Not a detective story. Poor space opera. Confused time-trick plot. Major characters are introduced and fade-away long before the repetitive finish. Interesting sci-fi gimmicks (infinitely-deep dust, the several types of time-peepers, sand-sleds) worked out but not ripened. And occasionally awkward sentences, something later Chandler handled much much better.

More than worth a buck to e-read. Marginal at two bucks. Not worth shipping paper books.

[Mike Jurist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic

[Jerimy Stoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow starter. The first four chapters were rather bland, and I thought to myself that it might take me a while to read this short book and that I might rate it a solid two stars, but by the fourth chapter there was a small spark of interest. I boldly read on with some hope. I have read a few of A. Bertram Chandler's books and as a fellow sailor found a lot of his fiction interesting, so I kept turning pages. By chapter 8 the plot had thickened like a vat of cold gelatinized gravy. The hook was deeply set and it was all I could do to set the book down to eat and use the restroom. This sci-fi is written in a unique fashion as it is written somewhat like a hardboiled detective novel with a sci-fi setting. This was a first for me, and I have to admit that I liked it. I give this book a solid four stars and caution a reader to expect a bland start, but with a little patience, one can expect a nice turnaround as events begin to unfold, and plots get twisted like the mind of Edgar Allen Poe.