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Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape
In this thematic sequel to Gregory Benford’s award-winning bestseller Timescape , a history professor finds that he is able travel back to 1968, the year he was sixteen—here, he finds a slew of mentors with the same ability, including Robert Heinlein, Albert Einstein, and Philip K. Dick and becomes a successful Hollywood screenwriter until some wicked time travelers try to subvert him.
It’s 2002, and Charlie, in his late forties, is a bit of a sad-sack professor of history going through an unpleasant divorce. While flipping the cassette of an audiobook he gets into a car accident with a truck, and wakes up, fully aware as his adult mind, in his sixteen-year-old body in 1968.
Charlie does the thing we all he takes what he remembers of the future and uses it for himself in his present, the past. He becomes a screenwriter, anticipating the careers of Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg, and then, in a 1980s life of excess, he dies, and wakes up again in his bedroom at sixteen in 1968.
Charlie realizes things he didn’t see the first that there are others like him, like Albert Einstein, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein. In fact, there is a society of folks who loop through time to change the world for their agenda. Now, Charlie knows he has to do something other than be self-indulgent and he tries to change one of the events of 1968 in this clever thriller.
It’s 2002, and Charlie, in his late forties, is a bit of a sad-sack professor of history going through an unpleasant divorce. While flipping the cassette of an audiobook he gets into a car accident with a truck, and wakes up, fully aware as his adult mind, in his sixteen-year-old body in 1968.
Charlie does the thing we all he takes what he remembers of the future and uses it for himself in his present, the past. He becomes a screenwriter, anticipating the careers of Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg, and then, in a 1980s life of excess, he dies, and wakes up again in his bedroom at sixteen in 1968.
Charlie realizes things he didn’t see the first that there are others like him, like Albert Einstein, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein. In fact, there is a society of folks who loop through time to change the world for their agenda. Now, Charlie knows he has to do something other than be self-indulgent and he tries to change one of the events of 1968 in this clever thriller.
360 pages, Hardcover
First published November 27, 2018
99 people are currently reading
420 people want to read
About the author
Gregory Benford
565 books615 followersGregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.
As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.
As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
February 6, 2019
Disaffected, middle-aged college professor Charlie Moment suffers what should be a fatal car accident in the year 2000, but instead wakes up as his 16-year-old self in 1968, with all his previous memories intact. So he does what anyone would do with a second chance at his adult life: he steals ideas for yet-to-be-made movies and becomes a rich Hollywood mogul. Along the way he meets other (famous) people who have had the same experience—including Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, Albert Einstein, Casanova—and becomes enmeshed in a conflict between competing factions who want to shape history to their liking.
Rewrite gives hard SF stalwart Gregory Benford the opportunity to revisit the premise of his most famous novel, Timescape, where scientists use faster-than-light tachyons to send messages about an impending disaster to the past, while trying to tip-toe around the Grandfather Paradox. At one point, Charlie meets with James Benford, the author’s real-life twin brother (who is the author of Timescape in this rewrite of history), seeking an explanation of how his own mind could transfer to his past self. At one point Charlie suggests that he would prefer to adapt Timescape without all the complicated scientific explanations, to which the physicist replies “Then what would be left?” The irony of this is, that in acknowledging its debt to similar “if I knew then what I know now” time travel stories like Peggy Sue Got Married and Ken Grimwood’s Replay, Rewrite posits that these plots work just fine when they hand wave past the science and focus on character and action.
On the downside, while the action and science in Rewrite work, the character doesn’t. Charlie’s cynicism in his approach to reinventing his life—and the world—is not unexpected for a middle-aged divorcee, but the novel doesn’t bother offering any critical distance from it. Charlie steals ideas from actual creative minds and produces successful facsimiles without consequence as if the idea divested from its author is interchangeable with its source. This callousness infects every aspect of his life. With a satirical approach, Benford may have been able to get away with having such an unlikeable character as his hero. That's not how it plays out. While Charlie learns and grows by the end and takes steps to correct his mistakes, I had little sympathy for him by then and no desire to absolve him of them.
Rewrite gives hard SF stalwart Gregory Benford the opportunity to revisit the premise of his most famous novel, Timescape, where scientists use faster-than-light tachyons to send messages about an impending disaster to the past, while trying to tip-toe around the Grandfather Paradox. At one point, Charlie meets with James Benford, the author’s real-life twin brother (who is the author of Timescape in this rewrite of history), seeking an explanation of how his own mind could transfer to his past self. At one point Charlie suggests that he would prefer to adapt Timescape without all the complicated scientific explanations, to which the physicist replies “Then what would be left?” The irony of this is, that in acknowledging its debt to similar “if I knew then what I know now” time travel stories like Peggy Sue Got Married and Ken Grimwood’s Replay, Rewrite posits that these plots work just fine when they hand wave past the science and focus on character and action.
On the downside, while the action and science in Rewrite work, the character doesn’t. Charlie’s cynicism in his approach to reinventing his life—and the world—is not unexpected for a middle-aged divorcee, but the novel doesn’t bother offering any critical distance from it. Charlie steals ideas from actual creative minds and produces successful facsimiles without consequence as if the idea divested from its author is interchangeable with its source. This callousness infects every aspect of his life. With a satirical approach, Benford may have been able to get away with having such an unlikeable character as his hero. That's not how it plays out. While Charlie learns and grows by the end and takes steps to correct his mistakes, I had little sympathy for him by then and no desire to absolve him of them.
March 31, 2020
This one worked well for me. As always, read the publishers description (above) first). Benford gives a half-reasonable quantum-physics explanation for his braided parallel-worlds backstory. Even the reincarnation stuff maybe could work -- there's limited time-travel (of sorts) to the 22nd century, where this was worked out.
I found Charlie, the MC, more sympathetic than I was expecting. He gets some knocks here for remaking movies he half-remembers from his earlier life, but hey, this is a different strand in the braid. And if that is confusing -- well, it may be impossible to write a really sensible parallel-world plus time-travel story. But it's made for some fine stories!
Principal characters and other reincarnates include Casanova, Einstein, and Heinlein -- the latter two are both sympathetic, well-developed characters. PK Dick has a supporting role. I'm not enough of a movie buff to judge if Benford got the movie-making process right, but it works as a plot-device, and the Industry history seems accurate.
The Bad Guys (and girls) aren't very convincing, and I found the ending incoherent. But chaos is part of our past, and will be in the future too.
Read in (basically) two sittings, so it moves right along. One of Benford's better novels, I thought. Strong four stars. If you liked "Replay", you may like this one too.
By far the best professional review I saw was Gary K Wolfe's at Locus, https://locusmag.com/2019/04/gary-k-w...
It's not really spoilery, but if you don't like to read a lot of detail before you read a novel, you may want to save it for after. But, if you are on the fence....
The book "asks, among other things, what Back to the Future might have been like if Robert A. Heinlein and Albert Einstein had been involved in its production." How can you resist? Might even be worth a re-read, a few years down the line.
And, in a cool afterword, "Benford makes it clear that he’s aware he’s working in a very specific tradition of time-loop tales, mentioning Jack Finney’s Time and Again, Ken Grimwood’s Replay (in which the protagonist also dies and wakes up in his teenage body in the 1960s...." (GKW quote)
================== Earlier stuff =============
Tom Shippey at the WSJ liked lit:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/science-... (paywalled)
..." he wakes up, in his parents’ home, on his 16th birthday—but he remembers the life he’s lost.
Girls hold no fear for him now, nor teachers. He attracts attention by the maturity of his writing, he makes contacts, he’s off to Hollywood. There, not only is he cool, he has the great advantage of knowing what’s going to be cool next. He knows about the hit movies no one predicted—“2001,” “The Godfather,” “Jaws”—and the ideas no one’s had yet, like “Back to the Future.”
Like all the best sci-fi authors, Mr. Benford really means it. The quantum world, he insists, is the real world. In the logic of quantum causal loops there is no disqualifying “grandfather paradox.” If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you live on in that universe, and a grandchild disappears in the original universe. Now, can quantum entanglement allow minds to skate between the layers of space-time? Well, maybe. "
I note that it gets mixed reviews here, and that Mr. Shippey's taste & mine often don't agree. Still, when the library gets it, I'll give it a spin.
I found Charlie, the MC, more sympathetic than I was expecting. He gets some knocks here for remaking movies he half-remembers from his earlier life, but hey, this is a different strand in the braid. And if that is confusing -- well, it may be impossible to write a really sensible parallel-world plus time-travel story. But it's made for some fine stories!
Principal characters and other reincarnates include Casanova, Einstein, and Heinlein -- the latter two are both sympathetic, well-developed characters. PK Dick has a supporting role. I'm not enough of a movie buff to judge if Benford got the movie-making process right, but it works as a plot-device, and the Industry history seems accurate.
The Bad Guys (and girls) aren't very convincing, and I found the ending incoherent. But chaos is part of our past, and will be in the future too.
Read in (basically) two sittings, so it moves right along. One of Benford's better novels, I thought. Strong four stars. If you liked "Replay", you may like this one too.
By far the best professional review I saw was Gary K Wolfe's at Locus, https://locusmag.com/2019/04/gary-k-w...
It's not really spoilery, but if you don't like to read a lot of detail before you read a novel, you may want to save it for after. But, if you are on the fence....
The book "asks, among other things, what Back to the Future might have been like if Robert A. Heinlein and Albert Einstein had been involved in its production." How can you resist? Might even be worth a re-read, a few years down the line.
And, in a cool afterword, "Benford makes it clear that he’s aware he’s working in a very specific tradition of time-loop tales, mentioning Jack Finney’s Time and Again, Ken Grimwood’s Replay (in which the protagonist also dies and wakes up in his teenage body in the 1960s...." (GKW quote)
================== Earlier stuff =============
Tom Shippey at the WSJ liked lit:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/science-... (paywalled)
..." he wakes up, in his parents’ home, on his 16th birthday—but he remembers the life he’s lost.
Girls hold no fear for him now, nor teachers. He attracts attention by the maturity of his writing, he makes contacts, he’s off to Hollywood. There, not only is he cool, he has the great advantage of knowing what’s going to be cool next. He knows about the hit movies no one predicted—“2001,” “The Godfather,” “Jaws”—and the ideas no one’s had yet, like “Back to the Future.”
Like all the best sci-fi authors, Mr. Benford really means it. The quantum world, he insists, is the real world. In the logic of quantum causal loops there is no disqualifying “grandfather paradox.” If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you live on in that universe, and a grandchild disappears in the original universe. Now, can quantum entanglement allow minds to skate between the layers of space-time? Well, maybe. "
I note that it gets mixed reviews here, and that Mr. Shippey's taste & mine often don't agree. Still, when the library gets it, I'll give it a spin.
September 27, 2018
Huh. Maybe at some point authors should stop writing books. Maybe not. I remember liking Timescape, not loving it, but thinking it a worthwhile award-winner. I really liked Replay. Heck I even read Into the Deep which is basically the book version of the movie that Replay's main character makes with Spielberg on his second? third reincarnation? So having Benford rewrite Replay was jarring. And to have a character spend their entire second life making movies but not funding it with any previous knowledge was also just weird. And then the book takes a right-turn. And we get Robert Heinlein and Albert Einstein and a version of Benford himself as characters. And then the book gets weird. Okay we do see Philip K. Dick and Spielberg and Lucas but that's barely surprising. Is this good? Not really. But is it interesting in and oddly different take on at least half of the book? Well maybe. Though it also has enough of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August that even that part isn't original. So no. Read Replay. Read Timescape. Heck even read the First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Read classic Heinlein. Give this book a pass. Or not. Just being unoriginal didn't make it bad. I just expected better. From an ARC - Advance Reader Copy.
Read
January 21, 2019The first half sets up an interesting premise and some drama, which collapses in a muddle in the middle.
February 2, 2019
Infinity may manifest in manifold guises, one of them being "the sheer dizzying whirl of the timescape" explored by Gregory Benford in his latest novel, Rewrite, a thematic rather than a direct sequel to his titular award-winning book from 1980. In the year 2000, an unhappily middle-aged Charlie Moment--the irony of whose name immediately declares this book's playfulness and metanarrative friskiness--dies in a car accident, only to wake up back in 1968, inside his own sixteen-year-old body. Possessing the knowledge of his "past" three decades, Charlie now has the chance to recompose his autobiography. Will his actions prove Oscar Wilde's famous dictum that "youth is wasted on the young," or will Charlie (who sardonically riffs on Wilde, musing, "Maybe education is wasted on the young") instead commit a new series of follies that will leave him stranded in a parallel future no better than that from whence he arose? Six of one tachyon, and half a dozen of the other, as it turns out--at least on Charlie's first, that is to say, second, go-around.
Given the literally transcendent nature of his experience, one would be sympathetic if Charlie, following in the temporal footsteps of John Donne's line "we say there shall be a sudden death, and a sudden resurrection; in raptu, in transitu, in ictu oculi," were tempted towards the theological. But Charlie's religious inclinations are nil, and though he dabbles in metaphysics, mostly Hindu doctrines of reincarnation, he remains unconvinced. During a trip through LAX, Charlie encounters "a band of saffron-robed, shaved-head types with their 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare' on the sidewalk coming out of baggage claim." His reaction? "Charlie smiles; he knows more about reincarnation than they ever will." Indeed, other characters in the novel display a similar lack of interest in the mystical. Much later on, in fact, Einstein himself says, "I have problems with this word, 'transcendence'--it lies only a few doors down the street from 'incoherence,' and it's easy to get the wrong address." Very well, then. Another possibility would be for Charlie to launch upon a scientific investigation of his bizarre circumstances. This he sort of does, going to the library and reading up on Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. But then Charlie stalls on this project, and follows a different, more immediately satisfying trajectory--one involving a lot of sex and a burgeoning role as a Hollywood screenwriter and producer who is able to cannily craft "hits" using his prior timeline's filmic knowledge. An expensive lifestyle, the consumption of insalubrious substances, and a general sense of despairing ennui follow.
If that doesn't sound entirely original, it's because it ain't. Ken Grimwood's award-winning novel Replay (1986) exploited the same premise to similar debauched, and ultimately moving, effect. Ah, but Benford is a step ahead of us. Within the novel, Charlie discovers this subgenre of time-loop literature, which includes Grimwood's famous tale, along with Jack Finney's Time and Again (1970), and even, most curiously, Timescape, not by Gregory but by James Benford (in our timestream, Jim is Greg's identical twin). Following this trail, Charlie makes contact with a society of others who, like him, are "reincarnates." This cadre includes Casanova, Einstein, Robert A. Heinlein and possibly Philip K. Dick.
Charlie's journey through his second life starts with great vigor and sensitivity. In fact, early scenes in which Charlie regards his middle-aged parents, remembering their declines and deaths, are quite poignant. But things soon become desultory. Part of the problem is Charlie himself. Invariably quick-witted, and almost as often quick-quipped, nothing seems to make much of a dent on him. His relationships with women, in particular, are characterized by insidious utilitarianism and an abiding lack of self-awareness. Sure, we can understand that adolescent hormones in overdrive would lead to numerous trysts ("his body strumming with pleasure," "his body hummed with joy," etc.) but thoughts like, "He knows that women think that way," or "Why was his first life filled with controlling women?," and "knowing the vagaries of women only too well," suggest thick blinders, or worse, willful contempt. The ambiance of Hollywood sleaziness, well evoked by Benford, doesn't help matters, and there's something particularly grating about how the majority of women characters in the novel immediately want to have sex with Charlie. "Distraction beats abstraction, every time," apparently one of Charlie's guiding principles, points at the problem.
Fortunately, roughly halfway through the book events speed up as Charlie becomes embroiled in a complex and often fascinating rivalry between various reincarnate factions, who wish to mold history in accordance with their own wishes. While the ultimate villain is somewhat clichéd, Charlie's exchanges with Einstein, Heinlein and others make for diverting, philosophically droll reading. The last-act thrillerish hijinks offer pulpy fun, but I was more intrigued by the gradually unveiled physics model that might account for consciousness relooping. These ideas involve a "memory space" conservation addition to Everett's notions--one which neatly truncates Everett's "bloated ontology"--and an innovative use of q-bit entanglement. I'm less convinced by the proposed answer to the question, "What's special about minds?," but arguing against that answer itself provides a measure of fun.
Besides the aforementioned characters based on real-life people, there are also walk-on parts for the likes of Steven Spielberg, Roger Ebert and other cameos, as well as references to, for instance, "a buddy named Rotsler." The tendency to overstuff the narrative with these allusions is nicely counterbalanced by Benford's robust, occasionally trenchant, style, and his well-honed sense of pacing. A landlord's attempt to impress Charlie with a line about Raymond Chandler results in this response: "Charlie knows that Chandler was an oil executive in the 1920s who read Black Mask magazine and never lived in a dump like this." Clearly, Benford knows this too, and has internalized certain cues from the old master.
At the start of the three Time Odyssey novels written by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, Clarke coined the term "orthoquel," a kind of perpendicular re-engagement with the ideas and themes of the original work under consideration. Following suit, we might describe Rewrite as a tangenquel (indeed, the first section is titled "Tangent to the Sequel of Life") to Timescape. To the storytelling precursors of which Rewrite is itself aware we may adjoin others, such as Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series, particularly its final entry, The Gods of Riverworld (1983), which like this novel includes reincarnating characters real and imagined in a somewhat madcap plot involving far-reaching plans, the film The Butterfly Effect (2004), and Stephen King's 11/22/63 (2011). Paul Simon's 2011 song "Rewrite," with its haunting refrain ("I said / Help me, help me / Help me, help me / Ohh / Thank you / I'd no idea / That you were there") also comes to mind. The concept of a rewrite is ultimately a hopeful proposition, and despite Rewrite's more prosaic wish-fulfillment elements, it's heartening to see Benford infuse it with such gusto. Speaking of literary precursors, we may at last have a science fiction novel equal parts grave and gravy--or perhaps in this case, grave and groovy.
Given the literally transcendent nature of his experience, one would be sympathetic if Charlie, following in the temporal footsteps of John Donne's line "we say there shall be a sudden death, and a sudden resurrection; in raptu, in transitu, in ictu oculi," were tempted towards the theological. But Charlie's religious inclinations are nil, and though he dabbles in metaphysics, mostly Hindu doctrines of reincarnation, he remains unconvinced. During a trip through LAX, Charlie encounters "a band of saffron-robed, shaved-head types with their 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare' on the sidewalk coming out of baggage claim." His reaction? "Charlie smiles; he knows more about reincarnation than they ever will." Indeed, other characters in the novel display a similar lack of interest in the mystical. Much later on, in fact, Einstein himself says, "I have problems with this word, 'transcendence'--it lies only a few doors down the street from 'incoherence,' and it's easy to get the wrong address." Very well, then. Another possibility would be for Charlie to launch upon a scientific investigation of his bizarre circumstances. This he sort of does, going to the library and reading up on Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. But then Charlie stalls on this project, and follows a different, more immediately satisfying trajectory--one involving a lot of sex and a burgeoning role as a Hollywood screenwriter and producer who is able to cannily craft "hits" using his prior timeline's filmic knowledge. An expensive lifestyle, the consumption of insalubrious substances, and a general sense of despairing ennui follow.
If that doesn't sound entirely original, it's because it ain't. Ken Grimwood's award-winning novel Replay (1986) exploited the same premise to similar debauched, and ultimately moving, effect. Ah, but Benford is a step ahead of us. Within the novel, Charlie discovers this subgenre of time-loop literature, which includes Grimwood's famous tale, along with Jack Finney's Time and Again (1970), and even, most curiously, Timescape, not by Gregory but by James Benford (in our timestream, Jim is Greg's identical twin). Following this trail, Charlie makes contact with a society of others who, like him, are "reincarnates." This cadre includes Casanova, Einstein, Robert A. Heinlein and possibly Philip K. Dick.
Charlie's journey through his second life starts with great vigor and sensitivity. In fact, early scenes in which Charlie regards his middle-aged parents, remembering their declines and deaths, are quite poignant. But things soon become desultory. Part of the problem is Charlie himself. Invariably quick-witted, and almost as often quick-quipped, nothing seems to make much of a dent on him. His relationships with women, in particular, are characterized by insidious utilitarianism and an abiding lack of self-awareness. Sure, we can understand that adolescent hormones in overdrive would lead to numerous trysts ("his body strumming with pleasure," "his body hummed with joy," etc.) but thoughts like, "He knows that women think that way," or "Why was his first life filled with controlling women?," and "knowing the vagaries of women only too well," suggest thick blinders, or worse, willful contempt. The ambiance of Hollywood sleaziness, well evoked by Benford, doesn't help matters, and there's something particularly grating about how the majority of women characters in the novel immediately want to have sex with Charlie. "Distraction beats abstraction, every time," apparently one of Charlie's guiding principles, points at the problem.
Fortunately, roughly halfway through the book events speed up as Charlie becomes embroiled in a complex and often fascinating rivalry between various reincarnate factions, who wish to mold history in accordance with their own wishes. While the ultimate villain is somewhat clichéd, Charlie's exchanges with Einstein, Heinlein and others make for diverting, philosophically droll reading. The last-act thrillerish hijinks offer pulpy fun, but I was more intrigued by the gradually unveiled physics model that might account for consciousness relooping. These ideas involve a "memory space" conservation addition to Everett's notions--one which neatly truncates Everett's "bloated ontology"--and an innovative use of q-bit entanglement. I'm less convinced by the proposed answer to the question, "What's special about minds?," but arguing against that answer itself provides a measure of fun.
Besides the aforementioned characters based on real-life people, there are also walk-on parts for the likes of Steven Spielberg, Roger Ebert and other cameos, as well as references to, for instance, "a buddy named Rotsler." The tendency to overstuff the narrative with these allusions is nicely counterbalanced by Benford's robust, occasionally trenchant, style, and his well-honed sense of pacing. A landlord's attempt to impress Charlie with a line about Raymond Chandler results in this response: "Charlie knows that Chandler was an oil executive in the 1920s who read Black Mask magazine and never lived in a dump like this." Clearly, Benford knows this too, and has internalized certain cues from the old master.
At the start of the three Time Odyssey novels written by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, Clarke coined the term "orthoquel," a kind of perpendicular re-engagement with the ideas and themes of the original work under consideration. Following suit, we might describe Rewrite as a tangenquel (indeed, the first section is titled "Tangent to the Sequel of Life") to Timescape. To the storytelling precursors of which Rewrite is itself aware we may adjoin others, such as Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series, particularly its final entry, The Gods of Riverworld (1983), which like this novel includes reincarnating characters real and imagined in a somewhat madcap plot involving far-reaching plans, the film The Butterfly Effect (2004), and Stephen King's 11/22/63 (2011). Paul Simon's 2011 song "Rewrite," with its haunting refrain ("I said / Help me, help me / Help me, help me / Ohh / Thank you / I'd no idea / That you were there") also comes to mind. The concept of a rewrite is ultimately a hopeful proposition, and despite Rewrite's more prosaic wish-fulfillment elements, it's heartening to see Benford infuse it with such gusto. Speaking of literary precursors, we may at last have a science fiction novel equal parts grave and gravy--or perhaps in this case, grave and groovy.
August 4, 2019
Professor Benford's career in science fiction is a long one, with decades of output but I have to admit that I have not read as many books in his catalog as I should've. The only one I am positive I read was his classic Timescape at some point in the 90's. This book is a thematic sequel, but you are fine reading this book as a stand-alone. Benford is a Physics professor at the University of California Irvine and most of his books take on a serious hard scientific stance. That said Rewrite might appear to be a departure. As it deals with issues of reincarnation, well sorta.
Don't get the wrong idea one writer's tale of reincarnation is this writer's tale of quantum entanglement and multi-verses. That is what we have here, I think this is not as scientific as some of Benford's work but what do I know? What I can tell you is the theme and idea are similar to Stephen King's 11/22/63 but more focused on the idea at its core while the SK novel was more about putting the characters through the idea. That is not to say that the characters are not good here, Charlie is well developed and many of the other characters are based on real-life friendships.
Rewrite is a true fantasy and the power of the first half of this novel is that the main character Charlie Moment gets a wish we all wish we had. A chance to go back and have a redo on life. He dies in a car accident in 2002 and wakes up on his sixteenth birthday in 1968. For the first half of the novel, Charlie stumbles through making the most of his second life. This time he has the memories and experiences of a full lifetime to draw upon. He becomes a better son, boyfriend and gets noticed as wise beyond his year's writer. Since Charlie was a movie buff in his former life he becomes a screenwriter and is back to write and develop many important films years. This means he also discovers Spielberg and becomes friends with several famous people and most exciting to this reader was Benford's real-life friends Philip K Dick and Robert Heinlein.
To me, the best elements of this novel are in the first half that plays with Charlie becoming very important in Hollywood. There is a light-hearted fun to Charlie's second life that the novel loses once we figure out what is going on. It is not that I don't like the second half. I liked the whole book but my favorite moments were Charlie Two enjoying the fun of getting a second chance. I think the less you know about the second half the better.
So I am going to try to dance around spoilers as best I can but once Charlie figures out he is not the only one to time loop he also discovers he can do it again. Of course, this is more time and multiverse hoping, than just time. This happens when he meets Albert Einstein who apparently has figured out ways to loop back from our future, this leads to a comical part of the book when Charlie and Einstein write their timelines version of Back to the Future.
As a PKD scholar, I like the Philip K Dick influences which are not just moments when he appears as a character. Charlie doesn't begin the book in our reality, some of the coolest moments in the book for me were tiny revelations that show us this. It is not super clear that Charlie was ever in our multi-verse but he is clearly trying to make a better reality to settle in. And again in that sense, the novel comes full circle back to wish fulfillment.
Don't get the wrong idea one writer's tale of reincarnation is this writer's tale of quantum entanglement and multi-verses. That is what we have here, I think this is not as scientific as some of Benford's work but what do I know? What I can tell you is the theme and idea are similar to Stephen King's 11/22/63 but more focused on the idea at its core while the SK novel was more about putting the characters through the idea. That is not to say that the characters are not good here, Charlie is well developed and many of the other characters are based on real-life friendships.
Rewrite is a true fantasy and the power of the first half of this novel is that the main character Charlie Moment gets a wish we all wish we had. A chance to go back and have a redo on life. He dies in a car accident in 2002 and wakes up on his sixteenth birthday in 1968. For the first half of the novel, Charlie stumbles through making the most of his second life. This time he has the memories and experiences of a full lifetime to draw upon. He becomes a better son, boyfriend and gets noticed as wise beyond his year's writer. Since Charlie was a movie buff in his former life he becomes a screenwriter and is back to write and develop many important films years. This means he also discovers Spielberg and becomes friends with several famous people and most exciting to this reader was Benford's real-life friends Philip K Dick and Robert Heinlein.
To me, the best elements of this novel are in the first half that plays with Charlie becoming very important in Hollywood. There is a light-hearted fun to Charlie's second life that the novel loses once we figure out what is going on. It is not that I don't like the second half. I liked the whole book but my favorite moments were Charlie Two enjoying the fun of getting a second chance. I think the less you know about the second half the better.
So I am going to try to dance around spoilers as best I can but once Charlie figures out he is not the only one to time loop he also discovers he can do it again. Of course, this is more time and multiverse hoping, than just time. This happens when he meets Albert Einstein who apparently has figured out ways to loop back from our future, this leads to a comical part of the book when Charlie and Einstein write their timelines version of Back to the Future.
As a PKD scholar, I like the Philip K Dick influences which are not just moments when he appears as a character. Charlie doesn't begin the book in our reality, some of the coolest moments in the book for me were tiny revelations that show us this. It is not super clear that Charlie was ever in our multi-verse but he is clearly trying to make a better reality to settle in. And again in that sense, the novel comes full circle back to wish fulfillment.
January 26, 2019
I love a good time travel story. This is not one of them.
The first half of "Rewrite" is OK with some original ideas on the typical time travel trope. The second half, not so much as it degenerates into a shoot-'em-up action adventure. Early on there are some interesting discussions on the physical possibilities of time travel (backwards only), general relativity and multiverses but at the same time there are also some simplistic contrivances in the plot that completely avoid the various paradoxes that would normally develop.
Frankly, I got bored with the story and had the sense the author was not quite sure how to wrap things up. He might have gotten bored as well.
The first half of "Rewrite" is OK with some original ideas on the typical time travel trope. The second half, not so much as it degenerates into a shoot-'em-up action adventure. Early on there are some interesting discussions on the physical possibilities of time travel (backwards only), general relativity and multiverses but at the same time there are also some simplistic contrivances in the plot that completely avoid the various paradoxes that would normally develop.
Frankly, I got bored with the story and had the sense the author was not quite sure how to wrap things up. He might have gotten bored as well.
February 20, 2019
Two other books came to mind while reading Gregory Benford's most recent novel: Robert Charles Wilson's A Bridge of Years and Stephen King's 11/22/63. But, while these did not focus on the scientific plausibility of the means through which their protagonist travels back in time, Benford, as anyone would expect him to do, tried to figure out a scientifically plausible explanation, bringing in quantum mechanics and reincarnation... And, as improbable as this pairing may sound, he pulls it off. Still, what I liked most about Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape was the way Charlie, the book's hero, acted and reacted to being teleported back in his 16-year-old body and in an apprently less complicated era. It was fascinating to watch him try and change his own life, while also avoiding the mistakes of his original self's youth. The cameos of several famous writers, movie directors and other luminaries of the era also made the book as delightful as it was. All in all, a very satisfying read.
February 11, 2019
A mishmash of everything: quantum mechanics, reincarnation, movie making, trying to change history, people trying to kill people who are trying to change history, and so on. Family members and friends from life one appear in life two, then their stories just seem to drop out of sight (or maybe I missed something since I started to skim). Lots of famous and not so famous names are part of the plot including Einstein, Spielberg, Heinlein and Philip K. Dick. The author even throws himself and his twin brother into the plot. To me the science, if you can call it that, was incomprehensible. I really think there was a germ of a good story here, but it didn’t grow into anything interesting and the book got worse as it plodded along.
January 21, 2020
Initially I had high hopes for this story as the premise was great. Imagine having the opportunity to go back in time to an earlier point in your life and 'rewrite' it. Think of the possibilities!
Unfortunately this book was unimaginably tedious and extremely boring. I got as far as page 114 and was slowly losing the will to live so gave up (which was a relief).
Needless to say, I did not particularly like or respect the protagonist whose choices (even the second time around) were shallow and self-centered.
It is possible that this book ends well, but I did not have the patience to see it through.
Unfortunately this book was unimaginably tedious and extremely boring. I got as far as page 114 and was slowly losing the will to live so gave up (which was a relief).
Needless to say, I did not particularly like or respect the protagonist whose choices (even the second time around) were shallow and self-centered.
It is possible that this book ends well, but I did not have the patience to see it through.
April 24, 2019
Did not finish. I could not spend any more time in the company of this main character.
April 22, 2020
Rewrite by Gregory Benford is a book I was excited to read. It plays around with an idea that I’ve read before that fascinates me, that of dying and reawakening earlier in your life with your memories intact. For this story, the setup is:
It’s 2002, and Charlie, in his late forties, … gets into a car accident with a truck, and wakes up, fully aware as his adult mind, in his sixteen-year-old body in 1968.
I was first introduced to this concept by the book Replay by Ken Grimwood. Later another author took a crack at this plot device in The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.
Grimwood’s story stays pretty focused on the main character and follows him through many iterations of his life as he comes to term with who he is, and the situation he finds himself in. It’s a very personal tale. While Ms. North’s book introduces a larger stage with the idea of a “society” of folks with the ability and how they choose to use it to reach their own goals.
Dr Benford includes both these ideas. The first is hard to ignore, waking up earlier in one’s life will have an effect on one’s protagonist and as a writer you need to show this and follow on with what they will do with this new found knowledge.
The second, of others with the ability and what they choose to do, is a plot point one can choose to add to the mix as he does. Fortunately, in his rendition he does add some unique twists thus keeping the story fresh and interesting. But, here his additions left me wanting more. I really wanted him to blow the lid off of things once he introduced the idea that a few could jump to other people’s lives? Travel up or down the chain of history? He hints at these, but then chooses to not follow up with them. Now, it wasn’t important to the main story, so his choices made sense, but I was curious…
Overall, an enjoyable book. I’m torn though, if I had this ability, I’d probably lead a calm and successful life like his main character Charlie. Though when I have a chance to read of others, I want them to take the more exciting path. Do what I wouldn’t do. Show me a roadmap of the extremes that can be done with it. (To be fair to the book, Charlie does some things I would never do. Won’t list them here as to not spoil anything.)
Lastly, in his Afterwards section Dr Benford discusses briefly the idea from physics that drove him in the direction he took with this book. While I don’t pretend to understand theoretical physics, it’s an interesting thought that, what if this is how the universe works? What if this is truer then we realize?
With that, my mind got blown a bit and that’s all I ask from science fiction, push my mind where it hasn’t been before. Expand the possibilities of our existence.
I do have one other book that plays with this idea that I have not read yet, but hopefully will this year, it’s Life After Life by Kate Atikinson. I’ll be excited to see her take on this idea that I’ve fallen for.
It’s 2002, and Charlie, in his late forties, … gets into a car accident with a truck, and wakes up, fully aware as his adult mind, in his sixteen-year-old body in 1968.
I was first introduced to this concept by the book Replay by Ken Grimwood. Later another author took a crack at this plot device in The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.
Grimwood’s story stays pretty focused on the main character and follows him through many iterations of his life as he comes to term with who he is, and the situation he finds himself in. It’s a very personal tale. While Ms. North’s book introduces a larger stage with the idea of a “society” of folks with the ability and how they choose to use it to reach their own goals.
Dr Benford includes both these ideas. The first is hard to ignore, waking up earlier in one’s life will have an effect on one’s protagonist and as a writer you need to show this and follow on with what they will do with this new found knowledge.
The second, of others with the ability and what they choose to do, is a plot point one can choose to add to the mix as he does. Fortunately, in his rendition he does add some unique twists thus keeping the story fresh and interesting. But, here his additions left me wanting more. I really wanted him to blow the lid off of things once he introduced the idea that a few could jump to other people’s lives? Travel up or down the chain of history? He hints at these, but then chooses to not follow up with them. Now, it wasn’t important to the main story, so his choices made sense, but I was curious…
Overall, an enjoyable book. I’m torn though, if I had this ability, I’d probably lead a calm and successful life like his main character Charlie. Though when I have a chance to read of others, I want them to take the more exciting path. Do what I wouldn’t do. Show me a roadmap of the extremes that can be done with it. (To be fair to the book, Charlie does some things I would never do. Won’t list them here as to not spoil anything.)
Lastly, in his Afterwards section Dr Benford discusses briefly the idea from physics that drove him in the direction he took with this book. While I don’t pretend to understand theoretical physics, it’s an interesting thought that, what if this is how the universe works? What if this is truer then we realize?
With that, my mind got blown a bit and that’s all I ask from science fiction, push my mind where it hasn’t been before. Expand the possibilities of our existence.
I do have one other book that plays with this idea that I have not read yet, but hopefully will this year, it’s Life After Life by Kate Atikinson. I’ll be excited to see her take on this idea that I’ve fallen for.
November 28, 2019
Started out fast and light, easy reading; got denser and slower as Charlie figured out what was going on. Benford is an actual physicist, and the physics behind the way this story works is quantum stuff, so trying to wrap my head around it was a challenge. So that's one level that slowed me down. The other was the story itself - Charlie's killed in a car crash and wakes up in 1968 on his 16th birthday. I was also 16 in 1968, which was a memorable year for all kinds of reasons, so my memories kept poking at me, raising questions like who is this guy Delgado - did I somehow forget him in the last 50 years? And the way he describes America in the 1990s - is he just perceiving things differently than I did, or is there something else going on?
"He has come to view the endless lines of people, tramping on stirring dust, from the outside. For them, life is a long march, an endless column of souls moving forward through surrounding dark. In that crowd nobody knows where they're going, but there is plenty of talk, and the fools, some called philosophers, pretend to understand more than they're saying. There is merry laughter, too, and somebody is always passing a bottle around. But now and then somebody stumbles, doesn't catch himself right, and falls back a ways. Or just lurches aside and is gone, left behind. The dead. For them, the march stops at that moment. Maybe they have a while longer, lying back there on the hard ground, already wreathed in fog - time to watch the parade dwindle away, carrying its lights and music and loud, fearful jokes."
It was fun meeting Heinlein and Phillip K Dick, who Benford knew, and in his afterword says he used some actual things they said in his depiction of them. There's a lot to think about, like what would you do if you got a do-over for yourself and maybe for changing the world, and of course all the quantum universes thing (at one point a character uses the word "bloated" to describe what you get if the universe splits every time there's more than one way something could play out, which is putting it mildly; you'd have infinite to the infinite power universes). It's mind boggling.
"He has come to view the endless lines of people, tramping on stirring dust, from the outside. For them, life is a long march, an endless column of souls moving forward through surrounding dark. In that crowd nobody knows where they're going, but there is plenty of talk, and the fools, some called philosophers, pretend to understand more than they're saying. There is merry laughter, too, and somebody is always passing a bottle around. But now and then somebody stumbles, doesn't catch himself right, and falls back a ways. Or just lurches aside and is gone, left behind. The dead. For them, the march stops at that moment. Maybe they have a while longer, lying back there on the hard ground, already wreathed in fog - time to watch the parade dwindle away, carrying its lights and music and loud, fearful jokes."
It was fun meeting Heinlein and Phillip K Dick, who Benford knew, and in his afterword says he used some actual things they said in his depiction of them. There's a lot to think about, like what would you do if you got a do-over for yourself and maybe for changing the world, and of course all the quantum universes thing (at one point a character uses the word "bloated" to describe what you get if the universe splits every time there's more than one way something could play out, which is putting it mildly; you'd have infinite to the infinite power universes). It's mind boggling.
March 25, 2019
I am not a fan of time travel stories - all too often the author posits highly improbable or definitely impossible ways to avoid the "dead grandfather" paradox, where someone goes to the past, kills their grandfather, and thus assures they will never be born. But then, they couldn't have killed their grandfather. As a physicist, Benford at least has a reasonably plausible work-around; he invokes Everett's "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this scenario, if someone kills their grandfather, the world in which they lived doesn't change; an entirely new world splits away from the original. I have no idea if this would work in practice, but I am not a physicist.
Anyway, Benford tells a good story, in which the protagonist, Charlie, attempts to revise the future of this new world he is in by intervening in some of the critical events of which he has foreknowledge. Unfortunately, a group of time travelers with their own motives are out to stop him. If you enjoy time travel tales, you should like this one. If you don't, but are willing to take a chance, you won't have wasted your time with this.
Anyway, Benford tells a good story, in which the protagonist, Charlie, attempts to revise the future of this new world he is in by intervening in some of the critical events of which he has foreknowledge. Unfortunately, a group of time travelers with their own motives are out to stop him. If you enjoy time travel tales, you should like this one. If you don't, but are willing to take a chance, you won't have wasted your time with this.
April 12, 2019
Charlie Moment dies in a car crash in the year 2000, and is immediately reincarnated in his 16 year old body back in 1968. Delighted to be alive--with his memory intact-- and reliving his life, Charlie forges a profitable career in Hollywood, anticipating and taking credit for conceiving and writing films he knows are coming. Things get more complicated when he learns that there are other "reincarnates" abroad in the world, and some of them, using their own knowledge of future events, have grand and evil schemes to change the history of the world they came from. Charlie, an idealist, sets out to thwart these efforts. The quantum science in the book, dealing with the theoretical possibility of multiple and/or parallel universes, is too complicated for my limited understanding, but one may enjoy the story on a more basic level as an adventure, and perhaps a meditation on lost innocence and human futility.
April 4, 2023
Meh. Not as good as Replay by Grimwood. And definitely not as good as Recursion by Crouch, or The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by North.
June 10, 2019
Kind of a hard sci-fi treatment of time travel & reincarnation. The book-jacket synopsis is somewhat deceptive, making Rewrite out to be much less thoughtful than it is. Rewrite is more about the possibilities physics of time & consciousness than aging, memory or nostalgia. Made the alternate timelines emotionally convincing. Kind of got slow in the end as more answers were revealed, so perhaps the ending revealed too much theory?
April 25, 2019
Charlie, a historian, is in his late 40s when he's in a car wreck and dies. He wakes to find his brain and consciousness in his younger self, on his 16th birthday to be precise, with all his memories and knowledge. What he does with that knowledge consumes the first half of the book, and the second is really focused on him learning about it and meeting others who have done the same. The first half dragged a bit, but the second was faster paced. Benford brings in a lot of science, of course, but also makes plenty of nods to other great time travel works, from Back to the Future to Replay and many more, with lots of cameos from sometime surpassing personages. Enjoyable novel, but not as gripping or surprising to this reader as Benford's earlier time travel novel, Timescape, was.
March 24, 2019
I don't usually comment on others' reviews in my own but in this case I just cannot resist. REWRITE: LOOPS IN THE TIMESCAPE (RLITT) has been panned by several reviewers as 'not a sequel to TIMESCAPE (it isn't supposed to be), a rip-off of Ken Grimwood's outstanding novel, REPLAY (it bears only a superficial plot resemblance if one really understands the novel), and devoid of Benford's usual hard physics-based sci-fi (there is plenty). I can sort of understand some readers' bemusement with RLITT as it is significantly different in tone than any of Benford's other novels (and I think I have read them all, beginning with the fantastic TIMESCAPE in 1980). There is more philosophical musing than usual, certainly far more PG-13 rated sex than I can recall in other novels, and the inclusion of real historical figures as well as the author himself as supporting characters.
In the first few pages, twice-divorced 48 year old George Washington University Prof. Charlie Moment (grins for the name) is driving home in the rain in 2000 and is momentarily distracted and crushed by a semi. He instantly awakes back in 1968 in his own 16 year old body in his boyhood home with all his memories intact. This, I will grant you, is very similar to the setup for REPLAY, as is Charlie's subsequent use of the near future to become a rich Hollywood producer as the creator of movies that he remembers. But divergences between the two novels become greater and greater past the first quarter of the book or so. Charlie begins searching for the explanation of what has actually happened to him, and how, and whether this has ever happened to anyone else before.
Through a series of interesting coincidences and circumstances Charlie meets Spielberg, Lucas, Casanova, Heinlein, Hugh Everett and most importantly, Albert Einstein. The Casanova, Heinlein and Einstein turn out to be "reincarnates" that remember their past lives like Charlie. Through dialogue with Einstein and some research of his own, Charlie learns about Everett's "Many Worlds Interpretation" of quantum mechanics.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS IN THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH
***********************************************************
This is where I fail to understand the criticism of those who panned the novel on the basis of it lacking in hard scientific verisimilitude. There are several sections where Everett's theory is described, debated and modified, and used as an explanation of the mechanics of what the characters refer to as "reincarnation". Einstein's idea (of course I mean Benford's) is that the complexity of the brain allows room temperature macro-entanglement that can cross multiverses. However, only certain people have brain structure or function that sustains entanglemen well enough to actually remember previous universes and lives. This method of time/multiverse travel is further discussed by Benford in an excellent and fairly detailed Afterword.
END SPOILERS
***************************************************************
There is a parallel plot or subplot dealing with Charlie and others' attempts to change the past. each time altering the multiverse in unpredictable ways.
While RLITT may not be a 5 star read (but it might be for certain readers) like TIMESCAPE, MOVING MARS or many of Benford's other now-classic works of hard sci-fi, the writing, pacing and plotting is typical excellent Benford and the science in the sci-fi is a strong and clearly laid out as is usual for this author. I enjoyed every second of this excellent novel and read the whole thing in two sittings.
Four strong stars.
Highly Recommended.
JM Tepper
In the first few pages, twice-divorced 48 year old George Washington University Prof. Charlie Moment (grins for the name) is driving home in the rain in 2000 and is momentarily distracted and crushed by a semi. He instantly awakes back in 1968 in his own 16 year old body in his boyhood home with all his memories intact. This, I will grant you, is very similar to the setup for REPLAY, as is Charlie's subsequent use of the near future to become a rich Hollywood producer as the creator of movies that he remembers. But divergences between the two novels become greater and greater past the first quarter of the book or so. Charlie begins searching for the explanation of what has actually happened to him, and how, and whether this has ever happened to anyone else before.
Through a series of interesting coincidences and circumstances Charlie meets Spielberg, Lucas, Casanova, Heinlein, Hugh Everett and most importantly, Albert Einstein. The Casanova, Heinlein and Einstein turn out to be "reincarnates" that remember their past lives like Charlie. Through dialogue with Einstein and some research of his own, Charlie learns about Everett's "Many Worlds Interpretation" of quantum mechanics.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS IN THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH
***********************************************************
This is where I fail to understand the criticism of those who panned the novel on the basis of it lacking in hard scientific verisimilitude. There are several sections where Everett's theory is described, debated and modified, and used as an explanation of the mechanics of what the characters refer to as "reincarnation". Einstein's idea (of course I mean Benford's) is that the complexity of the brain allows room temperature macro-entanglement that can cross multiverses. However, only certain people have brain structure or function that sustains entanglemen well enough to actually remember previous universes and lives. This method of time/multiverse travel is further discussed by Benford in an excellent and fairly detailed Afterword.
END SPOILERS
***************************************************************
There is a parallel plot or subplot dealing with Charlie and others' attempts to change the past. each time altering the multiverse in unpredictable ways.
While RLITT may not be a 5 star read (but it might be for certain readers) like TIMESCAPE, MOVING MARS or many of Benford's other now-classic works of hard sci-fi, the writing, pacing and plotting is typical excellent Benford and the science in the sci-fi is a strong and clearly laid out as is usual for this author. I enjoyed every second of this excellent novel and read the whole thing in two sittings.
Four strong stars.
Highly Recommended.
JM Tepper
April 27, 2019
Replay, by Ken Grimwood is a far better take on this theme. Skip this one and read Replay.
August 20, 2021
A man in his late forties dies... and finds himself back in his sixteen-year-old body in 1968. Gradually realizing that this is not a dream or hallucination, he goes on to make changes in his life and make it big in Hollywood and, hopefully, figure out more about what happened along the way. He comes to learn he's not the only one who's leaped back into his past life, though.
I've not yet read Replay, the earliest well-known example of this trope (at least, where it's not a one-off miracle). I have read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, a more recent example, and really enjoyed it. So I found this book on discount and, having enjoyed some Benford in the past, figured I'd give it a try.
Sadly, I was pretty disappointed and unsatisfied with it.
With a premise like this, being able to 'live your life over again', there's fundamentally a level of wish-fulfillment involved. The author might play with it to frustrate it, point out how it really wouldn't be that great in many ways, but I think inherently part of the fun, along the way of whatever particular story they want to tell, is to invite the reader to imagine what they might do if they were in a similar situation, able to revisit their own past with all the knowledge they acquired since.
Unfortunately, for me, the book gets lost too much in its own self-indulgent wish fulfillment fantasies, both involving time travel and of the author himself. It takes too long to move beyond that into an actual plot, and when it does it becomes a confused mess. Maybe the author sensed that and that was why he dawdled so long in the adventures of a teenager with the memories of an adult going to Hollywood.
And I'll be right up front, if I was sent back to my own past, especially if it was to happen again and again, making use of my future knowledge to make it big in Hollywood would probably be something I'd try. If I was just writing a story about it, I'd probably include that as an element. It's realistic. It'd certainly be worth briefly going over a loop or two where this happens.
I certainly did not need 200 pages of a character's Hollywood experiences as he laboriously tries to recreate famous Hollywood movies, cozy up to Spielberg and other big name directors, all in his second chance at life. That's literally what it felt like, the first 2/3 of the book were his first shot at a second life and aside from a little bit at the beginning coming to grips with his situation (and a little bit of the borderline skeevy pursuing of the relationship he had with his high school sweetheart), just an extended montage of making it big in Hollywood, and I don't really care. I never felt invested in his story or his adventures, it seemed just an excuse to trot out celebrities and Hollywood history and commentary, and if I wanted to read that, I wouldn't be reading science fiction.
Finally he gets a clue that there might be others with his situation, but even then it takes a while for him to do anything, it's mostly an excuse for the author to vicariously live out his fantasies (possibly memories, since Benford's been writing a while) of hanging out with various SF luminaries like Philip K. Dick or Robert Heinlein. Or Albert Einstein, who's also in this book, but not in his normal body, because apparently in addition to people jumping back to their own pasts, they also sometimes are able to jump into other people in the past or future. And Einstein himself is actually from the far future, but really, the only point of him being in the book is to give the main character a bit of info on how he might be looping in time, and to help him write movies. Yes, apparently hanging out with Albert Einstein involves a lot of also being in Hollywood remaking movies that already exist in other timelines.
But there's also other factions who want to alter history because... I guess they have their reasons. Honestly, my biggest problem with the book is that the rules of time travel feel almost slapdash and inconsistent... there's never any real attempt to consider what having multiple people who are not in their first life might mean. Or how it works when multiple people intersect. For example, Charlie, in his second life, meets somebody else who's part of the organization... who refers to having met him several times and explaining this very thing to him, in his own past lives. So... does that mean that no matter how many times Charlie loops, his opponents will never know anything they didn't know on his first loop? Seems like it by that interpretation. But then Charlie also takes care to make sure some of his enemies don't know who was operating against them, so if they reloop, there's no point, they won't be able to use it against him... he wouldn't ever experience them knowing that, because the next time he lives that life they wouldn't remember that interaction. Except if they do. But nobody cares to talk about what miThere's never any attempt that I could see to lay out or understand the rules. No loops where he discovers his experiences are suddenly because people before him in the past have been doing different things and, say, killed one president and replaced it with another. I mean, I get it, time travel's complicated, but if you're not going to plot out in advance how it works, what's the point? Particularly if you're known as a hard SF author like Benford.
Maybe I'm thinking about this too hard. It is, after all, a wish-fulfillment type of story, going back into the past. Maybe it's enough to hang around with famous historical figures and copy Hollywood movies. But it's not good enough for me, and I don't think it makes an especially good story beyond letting you do the thought experiment for yourself.
I put it somewhere between 1 and 2 stars, really, but I think the low end on that is because the waste of potential, and making me slog through extensive Hollywood remakes. ReadThe First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, it's a much better take.
I've not yet read Replay, the earliest well-known example of this trope (at least, where it's not a one-off miracle). I have read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, a more recent example, and really enjoyed it. So I found this book on discount and, having enjoyed some Benford in the past, figured I'd give it a try.
Sadly, I was pretty disappointed and unsatisfied with it.
With a premise like this, being able to 'live your life over again', there's fundamentally a level of wish-fulfillment involved. The author might play with it to frustrate it, point out how it really wouldn't be that great in many ways, but I think inherently part of the fun, along the way of whatever particular story they want to tell, is to invite the reader to imagine what they might do if they were in a similar situation, able to revisit their own past with all the knowledge they acquired since.
Unfortunately, for me, the book gets lost too much in its own self-indulgent wish fulfillment fantasies, both involving time travel and of the author himself. It takes too long to move beyond that into an actual plot, and when it does it becomes a confused mess. Maybe the author sensed that and that was why he dawdled so long in the adventures of a teenager with the memories of an adult going to Hollywood.
And I'll be right up front, if I was sent back to my own past, especially if it was to happen again and again, making use of my future knowledge to make it big in Hollywood would probably be something I'd try. If I was just writing a story about it, I'd probably include that as an element. It's realistic. It'd certainly be worth briefly going over a loop or two where this happens.
I certainly did not need 200 pages of a character's Hollywood experiences as he laboriously tries to recreate famous Hollywood movies, cozy up to Spielberg and other big name directors, all in his second chance at life. That's literally what it felt like, the first 2/3 of the book were his first shot at a second life and aside from a little bit at the beginning coming to grips with his situation (and a little bit of the borderline skeevy pursuing of the relationship he had with his high school sweetheart), just an extended montage of making it big in Hollywood, and I don't really care. I never felt invested in his story or his adventures, it seemed just an excuse to trot out celebrities and Hollywood history and commentary, and if I wanted to read that, I wouldn't be reading science fiction.
Finally he gets a clue that there might be others with his situation, but even then it takes a while for him to do anything, it's mostly an excuse for the author to vicariously live out his fantasies (possibly memories, since Benford's been writing a while) of hanging out with various SF luminaries like Philip K. Dick or Robert Heinlein. Or Albert Einstein, who's also in this book, but not in his normal body, because apparently in addition to people jumping back to their own pasts, they also sometimes are able to jump into other people in the past or future. And Einstein himself is actually from the far future, but really, the only point of him being in the book is to give the main character a bit of info on how he might be looping in time, and to help him write movies. Yes, apparently hanging out with Albert Einstein involves a lot of also being in Hollywood remaking movies that already exist in other timelines.
But there's also other factions who want to alter history because... I guess they have their reasons. Honestly, my biggest problem with the book is that the rules of time travel feel almost slapdash and inconsistent... there's never any real attempt to consider what having multiple people who are not in their first life might mean. Or how it works when multiple people intersect. For example, Charlie, in his second life, meets somebody else who's part of the organization... who refers to having met him several times and explaining this very thing to him, in his own past lives. So... does that mean that no matter how many times Charlie loops, his opponents will never know anything they didn't know on his first loop? Seems like it by that interpretation. But then Charlie also takes care to make sure some of his enemies don't know who was operating against them, so if they reloop, there's no point, they won't be able to use it against him... he wouldn't ever experience them knowing that, because the next time he lives that life they wouldn't remember that interaction. Except if they do. But nobody cares to talk about what miThere's never any attempt that I could see to lay out or understand the rules. No loops where he discovers his experiences are suddenly because people before him in the past have been doing different things and, say, killed one president and replaced it with another. I mean, I get it, time travel's complicated, but if you're not going to plot out in advance how it works, what's the point? Particularly if you're known as a hard SF author like Benford.
Maybe I'm thinking about this too hard. It is, after all, a wish-fulfillment type of story, going back into the past. Maybe it's enough to hang around with famous historical figures and copy Hollywood movies. But it's not good enough for me, and I don't think it makes an especially good story beyond letting you do the thought experiment for yourself.
I put it somewhere between 1 and 2 stars, really, but I think the low end on that is because the waste of potential, and making me slog through extensive Hollywood remakes. ReadThe First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, it's a much better take.
January 21, 2019
Benford is a much better writer now than he was when I last tried to read him in the 1980s.
I really enjoyed the setup in this book, of a character who, upon death in his late 40s-early 50s discovers that he wakes up in his teenage body on the morning of his sixteenth birthday, back in January 1968.
Unfortunately, the book goes downhill in Act 2, as our hero discovers there are other like him. The 'sci-fi' like explanations of why this might happen were awkward. The need to try to influence politics and the like in various quantum realities in the worlds that these 're-incarnates' inhabit was something I didn't really find all that interesting. The book wasn't really enjoyable enough as a story to spend more time writing about it.
Two stars, because I finished it.
I really enjoyed the setup in this book, of a character who, upon death in his late 40s-early 50s discovers that he wakes up in his teenage body on the morning of his sixteenth birthday, back in January 1968.
Unfortunately, the book goes downhill in Act 2, as our hero discovers there are other like him. The 'sci-fi' like explanations of why this might happen were awkward. The need to try to influence politics and the like in various quantum realities in the worlds that these 're-incarnates' inhabit was something I didn't really find all that interesting. The book wasn't really enjoyable enough as a story to spend more time writing about it.
Two stars, because I finished it.
March 12, 2019
I have to say that it the premise sounded unlikely, that Albert Einstein and Casanova and Robert Heinlein and Philip K Dick were all members of a secret society of time travellers. Somehow Benford took the cliched notion of looping back in time to re-live your teenage years and made it feel intensely personal. Something about this story kept making me stop to consider important notions that were always there but somehow not catching my attention. I'm not even sure how Benford did it. I sometimes wonder if I was in some especially-impressionable-state on those days that I was reading his book? I am giving 5 stars to RE-WRITE because Benford managed to stop me in my tracks time and again. I guess I am going to have to read more from Benford to see if it he can do that to me again.
June 20, 2020
Great story! I loved the parts about Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Hollywood, the suspense later on.
As for the multiverse style of time travel, splitting off a new universe to circumvent every paradox: personally I find restriction to one timeline, the way Heinlein did it with Door Into Summer, more elegant, all loose ends tied up, neat and logical, no paradoxes, kinda mind-blowing, like completing a tough puzzle.
But this way is mind-blowing in having so many possibilities, and it was a page-turner! I always wanted to see what the next universe was like, and [SPOILER] I'd like to read sequels and see if Charlie improves his family's lives this time and gets into more intrigue in other incarnations.
As for the multiverse style of time travel, splitting off a new universe to circumvent every paradox: personally I find restriction to one timeline, the way Heinlein did it with Door Into Summer, more elegant, all loose ends tied up, neat and logical, no paradoxes, kinda mind-blowing, like completing a tough puzzle.
But this way is mind-blowing in having so many possibilities, and it was a page-turner! I always wanted to see what the next universe was like, and [SPOILER] I'd like to read sequels and see if Charlie improves his family's lives this time and gets into more intrigue in other incarnations.
February 12, 2019
Sad sack middle-aged history prof dies and wakes up on his 16th birthday. If you could rewrite your life, how would you live it differently? This bogs down in the middle as Charlie and a reincarnated Einstein talk quantum physics and multiple time lines (or loops), then quickly finishes off in a burst of fast action. Since the author is a physics prof, at least the discussion of quantum mechanics was based on actual knowledge of the material.
March 31, 2019
Great premise!
I know this book got great reviews but to me it just never got going. I would say that the female characters were vapid and underdeveloped, but all of them were. Charlie is a jerk. There’s lots of talk and allusions to interesting and important happenings, but nothing takes off until well after page 250. Even then, the author leaves the reader to just imagine what might happen next. For me, sadly, this was - ahem - a waste of time.
I know this book got great reviews but to me it just never got going. I would say that the female characters were vapid and underdeveloped, but all of them were. Charlie is a jerk. There’s lots of talk and allusions to interesting and important happenings, but nothing takes off until well after page 250. Even then, the author leaves the reader to just imagine what might happen next. For me, sadly, this was - ahem - a waste of time.
June 5, 2019
Time travel is often fun. And book eventually got there. On page 212. More than half of the book was references to old movies and Charlie Moment using his future knowledge to make money and movies.
I liked the later part. I would have liked more of those characters and less of Charlie. The interactions with Heinlein and Einstein were fun. But the explanation felt hard to follow. And because it was rushed, the different "factions" weren't as well described as I would have liked.
I liked the later part. I would have liked more of those characters and less of Charlie. The interactions with Heinlein and Einstein were fun. But the explanation felt hard to follow. And because it was rushed, the different "factions" weren't as well described as I would have liked.
May 30, 2019
Gave up. This is such an obvious rewrite (🤗🤔😑) of Ken Grimwood's REPLAY, that I'm astonished Benford had the gall to publish it. Where REPLAY was clever and compelling, REWRITE comes across as forced, and checking all the politically correct boxes. And, then, of course, there's the annoying present tense narrative.
Enough said!
Enough said!
January 28, 2019
This is the science fiction novel that I wanted to read. Thanks Gregory Benford for writing it for me. Imaginative, bold, awesome.
More:
https://turingchurch.net/rewrite-by-g...
More:
https://turingchurch.net/rewrite-by-g...
February 25, 2019
I liked the premise and the characters; including Heinlein, Cassanova, Robert Kennedy, Philip K. Dick etc who were nicely interwoven through the time loop occupied by the main character, "Moment". The ending was a little flat but I am hard on endings.
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