Time and Time Again

by H. Beam Piper

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Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Short Stories, Audiobook, Classics, Fiction

18 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1947

About the author

Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

The story of time's seriously powerful defense mechanism. That is a seriously major downer! But what the hell, it was a lot of fun and it had some sort of thought put into it...a deep dive into the handwavium jar, a solid sprinkle of cliché dust, and a heaping cup of cornballs.

Piper's take on time travel was not absurd from the point of view of the as-yet poorly understood physics of atomic power. A bomb, a dose of narcotics, a mind in deep mortal crisis...sure, he could travel back to his thirteenth birthday, why the heck not. Especially since his thirteenth birthday was Hiroshima Day, the sixth of August, 1945; and the mortal crisis is his death in the Battle of Buffalo (N.Y.) in 1975 in the fireball of a nuclear bomb.

Okay, okay, it's codswallop. It's implausible by 1947 standards. But the events of this wild day, this unprecedented day, are unimpeded and flow right as they should until the lad makes a fateful, Universe-changing difference in his dad's life. It works!

Or does it. Will it, in the end, make things worse? Can his dad shoulder the burden of his newly changed future alone, single-handed, without the returned adult mind of his son? And just to show that Piper did not have a crystal ball tucked somewhere safe, he predicted that in 1960 we would have a president who "sang in a nice tenor and was good to his wife"!

Yeah, no. But really, why spend money buying this when you could listen to the X Minus One radio drama for free on YouTube? It's much less irritating for being free.

[Adam Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a wartime explosion caught war correspondent Allan Hartley unawares he finds himself flung helplessly back through time and into the body of his own twelve year old self. Going are the muddy trenches of World War III and brutal battles of his future, in there place Allan finds a father he has missed and a boyhood long since gone. Can it be real or is this all some elaborate dream?

This is the kind of story that has been done to death, but I get the feeling that this one predates a number of the others on the market. It ends right when things usually get started which was surprising. You'd think there'd be more in the story than Allan discovering it was real, making plans, fade to black. Kind of a letdown.

One thing that did throw me for a loop though was the mention of a B-52 colliding with the Empire State building. It was thrown out so casually that I had to drop everything and go google it. Turns out that, yes, it did in fact happen. Who knew?

Read as part of The Time Travel Megapack: 26 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Stories.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too short, too chill, to give more than 3 stars to. Discussion in the group "Evolution of Science Fiction"here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story, published in 1947, is one of the earliest examples of time travel story with changeable future/past. Earlier stories usually assumed that the whole timeline is fixed, so even if you can move forward (The Time Machine) or backward (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court), you cannot change the line itself. This definitely makes this story an important milestone in SF even if it sounds a bit dated nowadays.

[Tasula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short story- 43 yr old soldier injured in WWIII in 1975 wakes up back in 1945 with all his 43 years of memories intact. Fun and optimistic.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really into this one, up until the ending. This is the first story by Piper that didn't have a really satisfying ending, instead opting for a partial closure of the problem/solution presented by the sci-fi element (time travel).

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the future, a renowned chemist and author is injured during World War Three. On the battlefield, he is administered with a drug that sends him to sleep ... only to then wake up in his thirteen-year-old body, back in August, 1945.

This story takes a brilliant concept I have always found to be a captivating one - what kind of things could you do if you went back to your childhood self, with all the knowledge and the mentally-processed experiences of your adulthood?

However, this story only gets three stars because, while the concept is great, it is also too short and doesn't do nearly enough with the idea. I would have preferred to read this as a fleshed-out novel, rather than a short story. Also, I couldn't help but feel a little put off by the protagonist's callous dismissal of the family he experimentally saved from a murder-suicide. After preventing a "religious fanatic" from shooting his wife and then blowing his brains out, the guy casually admits to his father that they were expendable and he didn't care about saving the formerly-murdered wife. All he wanted to do was discern whether former events could be altered.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started off as a fairly average short story about a boy growing up in a rural area. Then something strange happens to the boy. He wakes up and he is different. A neighbor asks to borrow a gun and the boy gives him a luger pistol, showing him how to operate the gun properly. While it may seem within the realm of possibility that a boy would know how to operate a luger pistol, it was not all that likely that he could instruct an adult as to its proper use. Rifle. Maybe. Pistol? It seemed out of character as later in the story it proved to be.

The ending was good for a short story, but a little talkative. However, it seemed normal for a science fiction story from the 1940s.

FYI, I listened to this story through a LibriVox audio recording. The narrator was R. J. Davis and while his narration fit with the storyline, the audio quality was terrible. I could barely understand him. I almost gave this story 2 stars, but I didn't want to penalize the author for the poor quality of the recording.

I might read this story again.

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

2018 grade A

13 going on 43. This is an about 30 page short story and it is quite a good one. A man of 43 lies dying of war wounds in 1975 but wakes up in his 13 year old body in 1945 knowing his future past. He plans to alter that future.

A fun read - recommended.

Purchased in a Kindle megapack for under a dollar.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting time travel story, and if Wikipedia is to be believed one of the first in Piper's career. By now this concept has been done before, but it's based on the unique idea of someone going back in time and inhabiting their own younger body. It's a clever story, just a little too short for a higher rating.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful reading 📚

A will written fantasy novella of a man 🚹going back in time to become a teenager. He remembers everything and all the events. His father and he start planning their future. I would recommend this novella to anyone looking for an entertaining quick read. Enjoy reading 🔰2021 😃

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing time travel account with a good story that's almost realistic...so realistic in fact it could have been written yesterday and it could possibly happen right now. Worth reading if you want to experience your own life and times, but there's so much more too it than that, and I don't just mean Piper's writing. There's just so many stories of science fiction set in a future now in the past already, aren't there?

[Patrick Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's really a long discourse on time travel. In this particular iteration, the time traveler does change things in the past -- and nothing happens in the future. It's actually a very clever story. Quick read. It's only something like 20 pages.

[Cheryl Nall · Rating 3 out of 5]

And interesting take on time travel. I didn't realize that this was a short story when I first started to read it. A 40 something war correspondent is killed during WWIII and wakes up in his own 13 yr old body. I wish it had been longer and gone into more detail of the events surrounding his life.

[Chris Aldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of “short science fiction collection vol. 003 - LibriVox “. Time travel story, philosophical logical discussion between a legal expert father and his son set in the Cold War. Not very interesting to me from this point in the tales future as it is very dated. Narration not bad.

[PulpMonkey (Chompa) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent short story on time travel.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time and Time Again, by H. Beam Piper
Interesting and enjoyable tale. Reporter wakes up within his 13 yr old body and time frame. Reminds me of Tom Hanks’ film ‘Big’ and also BTTF I&II.
4 stars.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun early time travel/alternate reality story.

[Timothy Morrison]

For corn's sake! That was a weird tale about the end of ww2 and ww3 was involved

[Mike Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twilight zone-esque tale in a interesting setting. Many elements of the story are familiar to the listener, but it has some refreshing originality and is well written.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 4 out of 5]

fun story different ending , than radio play...prefer written ending.

[Jorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this story one star more than it would normally deserve. I love H. B. Piper, and I think his writing is among the best in old school Sci-Fi. In my rating, I am taking into consideration the short story format with the rating; I feel the author was constrained by it. I am familiar with his work, and I know that he would have expanded this story with additional material and thus rendered it better than average. The ending was akin to sound made by dropping a book on a wood floor; it was expected, abrupt, and a little dull given the subject matter.

The short format also imposed a pace that was too breakneck at times.

For example, the father too easily accepts that his son has memories of the future. He too easily agrees with his son when it comes to his son's plan to change the future. These should have taken more convincing, and the father's shock was too short-lived.

Even in its current form, it is an enjoyable tale. However, it suffers from the fast pace that the short format forces onto this story.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taking ideas first put forward in J. W. Dunne's An Experiment with Time and later popularized in the movies Freaky Friday and Big, Piper puts his own spin on time, precognition, and that waking-up as-your-younger-self fantasy/nightmare.

After an extreme physical shock brought on by a small dose of WWIII, the adult consciousness of Allan Hartley is sent back to 1945 into his own thirteen year old body. His father senses something unusual. How to get the old man comfortable with the idea?:

Allan picked up a sheet and handed it to his father. "Used properly, we can make two or three million on that, alone. A list of all the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont winners to 1970."

That's my boy!

Oh, he also prevents a murder and plans to become president and stop the aforementioned world war. He must have succeeded, 1975 has come and gone. Nice work fella.

[France-Andrée · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very enjoyable read. It is very short, but I think it does a thorough exploration of its theme. Its the story of a forty-something man who dies and awakens in his 13 year old self. The man/boy looks for a theory on why this has happened and I think the author was very imaginative with coming up with an explanation that I can really buy. I recommend this to anybody who like a good time-traveling story and even to the uninitiated who would like to try the genre with a short-story first.

[Ralph McEwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story of time travel.

First Published in: 1947
Audio Book MP3 downloaded from
http://librivox.org/short-science-fic...
Public Domain stories from Project Gutenberg, that are read by volunteers.
I listen to these short stories while walking to and from work.

Play Duration: 00:48:48
Read By: R. J. Davis

[Lynn Vea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good quick read

Time and Time Again, is a fun little story, that I can understand why the original publisher paid H Beam Piper for the work. A well crafted story, well worth the few minutes to read.

[Alberto Garcia Ariza · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice short story, somehow related to Replay (ken Grinwood), with an interesting explanation of the logics behind Time travel. (The same logic is applied in Police Operations). Worth a reading

[Luis Vazquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting discussion on time travel. Definitely one to keep on file.

[Niraj · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great short read that has a deep thoughts about time that took a couple of reads to fully understand.

[Sean Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather enjoyed this short story with a subtle twist, where the mind of an adult facing death in WWIII is transferred back to his adolescent self during the close of WWII.