Crazy Time

by Kate Wilhelm

Why is Lauren Steele being followed around by a mysterious red-haired ghost? Why is the Pentagon after her? And why doesn't anyone believe her?
As a psychologist at the Waycross Clinic in Seattle, she has enough problems. Her clients never seem to listen to anything she says, and her co-workers could use extensive counseling themselves. The last thing she needs is an obnoxious figment of her own imagination showing up at the least opportune moments.
But Daniel ("Corky") Corcoran is actually the victim of a faulty experimental laser, having been accidentally "dispersed" when the device misfired during a demonstration. He has literally gathered his wits about him by focusing on the last person he saw - Lauren. The trouble is, Corky's attempts at communication only convince Lauren that she is going crazy.
Add to this one paranoid colonel from the Pentagon who is convinced that both Corky and Lauren are Soviet spies, and you have a mix of zany and colourful characters caught up in a plot that is quintessential Wilhelm.

Genres: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Kate Wilhelm’s first short story, “The Pint-Sized Genie” was published in Fantastic Stories in 1956. Her first novel, MORE BITTER THAN DEATH, a mystery, was published in 1963. Over the span of her career, her writing has crossed over the genres of science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy and magical realism, psychological suspense, mimetic, comic, and family sagas, a multimedia stage production, and radio plays. She returned to writing mysteries in 1990 with the acclaimed Charlie Meiklejohn and Constance Leidl Mysteries and the Barbara Holloway series of legal thrillers.

Wilhelm’s works have been adapted for television and movies in numerous countries; her novels and stories have been translated to more than a dozen languages. She has contributed to Quark, Orbit,  Magazine of Fantasy and ScienceFiction, Locus, Amazing Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine,  Fantastic, Omni, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Redbook, and Cosmopolitan.

Kate Wilhelm is the widow of acclaimed science fiction author and editor, Damon Knight (1922-2002), with whom she founded the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and the Milford Writers’ Conference, described in her 2005 non-fiction work, STORYTELLER. They lectured together at universities across three continents; Kate has continued to offer interviews, talks, and monthly workshops.

Kate Wilhelm has received two Hugo awards, three Nebulas, as well as Jupiter, Locus, Spotted Owl, Prix Apollo, Kristen Lohman awards, among others. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2009, Kate was the recipient of one of the first Solstice Awards presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) in recognition of her contributions to the field of science fiction. 

Kate’s highly popular Barbara Holloway mysteries, set in Eugene, Oregon, opened with Death Qualified in 1990. Mirror, Mirror, released in 2017, is the series’ 14th novel.

Reviews

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found Crazy Time by Kate Wilhelm at a used book sale and it sounded pretty cool. It's compared to both The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the movie Topper, but the humor never worked for me. There are other inconsistencies and plot issues that didn't do it any favors either. That said it was fun seeing a character with the same first name as me. Also, there was an interesting misprint I found in the first edition copy I read: pages 90 and 91 are exactly the same and then the story picks back up from 90 on 92.

[William Leight · Rating 1 out of 5]

This novel is mainly proof of just how hard it is to be funny. At the beginning, it’s quite clear that Wilhelm intends to be humorous. Our heroine, Lauren Steele, is a psychologist who, thanks to a wacky series of events involving a teenage hacker, a supercomputer, a powerful laser, and a paranoid Cold Warrior army colonel, is suspected of being a Soviet spy. Her boss is a fraud, her co-workers are one-note neurotics, and the colonel’s name is T.H. Mussleman (the T.H. is usually taken to stand for Trigger Happy). To put a cap on it, Lauren is a tall, willowy blonde, and her love interest, Corcoran, who has, thanks to the laser, acquired the ability to disperse himself into nothing and then re-assemble himself, is a short, red-headed guy. The colonel is desperately hoping for something to move him off of the dead-end career track — inspecting the more out-there results of the Pentagon’s research program — that he’s on; the lead scientist on the laser program is desperate to avoid losing his funding; and Corcoran, always referred to as Corky (something that I didn’t realize happened outside of Wodehouse stories), is trying to deal with the realization that he can now materialize and dematerialize at will (and sometimes even when he doesn't mean to). Clearly, the stage is set for a series of humorous adventures and wacky misunderstandings. (The book jacket even mentions the movie “Topper”, though perhaps I should’ve taken that as a warning, since I always thought it was overrated.) But about a third of the way through Wilhelm abruptly changes tack. The scientist and the teenage hacker are dropped, never to reappear; Lauren’s co-workers’ roles are considerably reduced; and the whole thing becomes deadly serious, even involving, through some mystical mumbo-jumbo, the fate of the universe. Which was maybe what Wilhelm had planned all along, but to me it reads as if she was trying to be funny for a while and then, having mostly failed, just gave up. This puts a lot of the weight of the story on the sort of quasi-afterlife that Corky goes to when he dematerializes completely, and it’s not well-thought-out enough to stand the strain. The most interesting part of the second two-thirds of the book ends up being the character of the gigolo-for-hire who the FBI brings in to seduce Lauren. His increasing rage as Lauren slips out of his grasp in favor of Corky is well-described and really rather scary. Otherwise, Wilhelm’s attempt to pivot to seriousness ends up being worse than the not-particularly-funny jokes of the first part of the book. In particular, Lauren gets reduced to a rather unfortunate cliche, the career woman who hates her job and, it seems, really just wants a man. Better to fail at being funny than to succeed in being serious in this mode. Not recommended at all.

[Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can pinpoint the exact point where this story stopped working for me- page 120, where our protagonist Lauren Steele, a dissatisfied psychologist, and Corky, the cartoonist who's been rendered incorporeal by a laser beam and keeps appearing to Lauren, decide that having sex is the best way to convince Lauren of Corky's existence. Despite these two characters having admitted that they're not attracted to each other, or are each other's type. After that, Crazy Time becomes a love story between two characters who have no real chemistry other than the fact that he's a man and she's a woman. This is one of my pet peeves in fiction, and to me, the story went downhill following this moment. What a shame, as I was genuinely loving the book up to that point.


Another criticism- I would have liked to see more from the scientists' points of view, maybe have them figure out the identity of the boy who had messed with the laser, because I felt that they had more potential than the government men that the novel ended up focusing on. Trigger Happy in particular was such a caricature that his scenes became tiresome.

[Mary Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was totally unique and sweet especially with the ending. The start of the book was just really mundane so i wasnt really expecting to like it this much but it did get better. I just thoughr there were parts where they were way too technical in the scientific physics stuff in a way that either made it way too confusing and in some parts boring. I do have a hard time seeing this book as a comedy and i think some parts would of been better in a movie where a person could actually see wats going on like with the action stuff

[Adam Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a bit in the middle where the professional psychologist is convinced that the discorporate man who keeps visiting her is a hallucination and so she tries to treat herself and that’s the part that made me give this 3 stars instead of 2, because that was really fun and clever. The rest was very mediocre.

[Adam Becker · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't get drawn in by this book right away, stick with it! I wasn't sure I was going to like it at first but by the midpoint I was hooked and really found it to pay off nicely with the conclusion. Very enjoyable after a start I wasn't too sure about.

[James Mourgos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Crazy Time was a difficult read and requires some concentration and patience. Kate Wilhelm put together this short novel about a guy, Corky, who unwittingly gets vaporized when a hacker sets off a computer which sets off an experimental laser. He vaporizes and becomes somewhat of a ghost feature, but not exactly.

The story also revolves around the psychologist employment counselor Lauren and her mixed up bunch that she works with at the counselling place. The author does not develop her co workers at all. They're very cardboard, stereotypical characters.

The author will repeat a crazy point about a character over and over again until I just want to shout to the book "OK, I got it already!"

The book is supposed to be humorous and seems to attempt the same line of humor as Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" but fails completely.

Another over the top chracter is Trigger Happy, a colonel who has delusions of persecution and paranoia, again so over-the-top that no one could possibly be this way. And where does he get the resources to pay for the spies, the equipment, etc.

Bottom Line: The plot holes and the repetitive nature of her writing makes the book a difficult read. Will Corky get Lauren? Will she realize he is more than a figment of her imagination? Maybe you'll read it and find out!

[Jay Goemmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently I wasn't in the mood for this particular novel. The first two chapters were just too unbelievably zany for me to swallow. I don't fault Ms. Wilhelm, just because I was interested in something a bit weightier. (Her novel The Dark Door, for example. That one "hit the spot," as my folks used to say.

The jury's still out on this one. I think I'll move on to something else.

Oct. 3, 2012.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another of those quirky mixes of near-future science fiction. Just my cup of tea.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun Kate Wilhelm romp through the almost science fiction.

[Don Gubler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite liked this. It was an interesting concept and I didn't have any trouble following once the premise was established.

[Marko]

I have the german edition: Verrueckte Zeit