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Hall of Mirrors
Hall of Mirrors appeared in the December 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.
It is a tough decision to make—whether to give up your life so you can live it over again!
It is a tough decision to make—whether to give up your life so you can live it over again!
17 pages, Nook
First published December 1, 1953
7 people are currently reading
221 people want to read
About the author
Fredric Brown
808 books354 followersFredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was one of the boldest early writers in genre fiction in his use of narrative experimentation. While never in the front rank of popularity in his lifetime, Brown has developed a considerable cult following in the almost half century since he last wrote. His works have been periodically reprinted and he has a worldwide fan base, most notably in the U.S. and Europe, and especially in France, where there have been several recent movie adaptations of his work. He also remains popular in Japan.
Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons.
Never financially secure, Brown - like many other pulp writers - often wrote at a furious pace in order to pay bills. This accounts, at least in part, for the uneven quality of his work. A newspaperman by profession, Brown was only able to devote 14 years of his life as a full-time fiction writer. Brown was also a heavy drinker, and this at times doubtless affected his productivity. A cultured man and omnivorous reader whose interests ranged far beyond those of most pulp writers, Brown had a lifelong interest in the flute, chess, poker, and the works of Lewis Carroll. Brown married twice and was the father of two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 9, 2023
Review of the free Kindle edition
A Public Domain Book
Publication date: March 24, 2011
Language: English
ASIN: B004TQBWEY
A master of the short story
SPOILERS: Time travel as envisioned by Fredric Brown is quite different from what the inventor of the machine expected. It still poses problems but they too are different from the expected. A curious side effect proves to be the central object of and objection to time travel. Would you give up your life in order to live it again?
A fine approximately 20 page story from one of the greats of the sci-fi golden age. Originally published in the December 1953 issue of GALAXY SCIENCE
A Public Domain Book
Publication date: March 24, 2011
Language: English
ASIN: B004TQBWEY
A master of the short story
SPOILERS: Time travel as envisioned by Fredric Brown is quite different from what the inventor of the machine expected. It still poses problems but they too are different from the expected. A curious side effect proves to be the central object of and objection to time travel. Would you give up your life in order to live it again?
A fine approximately 20 page story from one of the greats of the sci-fi golden age. Originally published in the December 1953 issue of GALAXY SCIENCE
May 27, 2022
A 1953 science fiction short story. It's in the public domain now, so you can read it for free here - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29720. I enjoyed it because:
- Nostalgic 1950's sci-fi
- Time Travel
- 2nd Person POV - which is rarely done well
- Short, but effective
It's too short to leave a synopsis, read it instead!
- Nostalgic 1950's sci-fi
- Time Travel
- 2nd Person POV - which is rarely done well
- Short, but effective
It's too short to leave a synopsis, read it instead!
January 10, 2023
The Fountain of Youth Is Filled with Lethe Waters
Frederic Brown’s science fiction short stories more often than not come up with a stunning twist that both surprises the reader and makes them chew over the story for quite a while. Hall of Mirrors, which was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1953, is no exception, presenting the concept of time travelling in an entirely new light: Here, Norman Hastings, a professor of mathematics, has invented a time machine but he has to find out that first of all it only works with regard to travelling into the past and secondly, it is the person or object inside the machine that travels into the past and not their surroundings. In other words, when you enter the machine and travel fifty years backwards, you leave it still in the same year you started your journey but as a person fifty years younger. A time machine as a fountain of youth!
Sounds good? You’d better think twice because you will emerge the machine with fifty years of memories and experiences simply eradicated and the time in which you acquired them irretrievably lost and gone. Brown’s protagonist asks himself,
All the younger Hastings has to go by is a letter with some basic information on his family and his wife written by his older self, the man who built the time machine and tested it on himself. He just has the bare dates of the deaths of his parents and his wife, but no longer the impressions and memories gained at their deathbeds, let alone memories of all the years spent in his beloved ones’ company. As far as those fifty years are concerned, Hastings is a tabula rasa and the only thing he gained for it is fifty years. Fifty empty, abstract years, to be filled in surroundings that are alien and probably meaningless to him. To me, this sounds like a perfect nightmare, something I would even think twice about before inflicting it as a curse on my most inveterate arch enemy.
Being left with the responsibility of deciding what to do with this new technology, Hastings has to take this new and empty life into his own hands, and one could argue that this story is about how technology changes people’s lives, makes their actions and decisions more momentous. Knowledge and power plunge you into solitude, and hardly anywhere has this been better illustrated than in Brown’s story of the math professor waking up in a world he does not know anything about and being the guardian of a power he is the only one to know about. On second thoughts, this story also made me ask myself another question, namely this one: Whose life is richer? The life of the person who simply lasted more years, or the life of the person who gained more experiences, who underwent more sufferings, enjoyed more pleasures, collected memories of places, friends, family and used some of his time trying out new, and sometimes risky, things?
Of course, for me, this is a rhetorical question, and it might be one for you. Why did I stumble on it? In the light of the past few years, this is probably another rhetorical question.
Frederic Brown’s science fiction short stories more often than not come up with a stunning twist that both surprises the reader and makes them chew over the story for quite a while. Hall of Mirrors, which was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1953, is no exception, presenting the concept of time travelling in an entirely new light: Here, Norman Hastings, a professor of mathematics, has invented a time machine but he has to find out that first of all it only works with regard to travelling into the past and secondly, it is the person or object inside the machine that travels into the past and not their surroundings. In other words, when you enter the machine and travel fifty years backwards, you leave it still in the same year you started your journey but as a person fifty years younger. A time machine as a fountain of youth!
Sounds good? You’d better think twice because you will emerge the machine with fifty years of memories and experiences simply eradicated and the time in which you acquired them irretrievably lost and gone. Brown’s protagonist asks himself,
”Is it good? Is it worthwhile to lose the memory of fifty years of one’s life in order to return one’s body to relative youth?”
All the younger Hastings has to go by is a letter with some basic information on his family and his wife written by his older self, the man who built the time machine and tested it on himself. He just has the bare dates of the deaths of his parents and his wife, but no longer the impressions and memories gained at their deathbeds, let alone memories of all the years spent in his beloved ones’ company. As far as those fifty years are concerned, Hastings is a tabula rasa and the only thing he gained for it is fifty years. Fifty empty, abstract years, to be filled in surroundings that are alien and probably meaningless to him. To me, this sounds like a perfect nightmare, something I would even think twice about before inflicting it as a curse on my most inveterate arch enemy.
Being left with the responsibility of deciding what to do with this new technology, Hastings has to take this new and empty life into his own hands, and one could argue that this story is about how technology changes people’s lives, makes their actions and decisions more momentous. Knowledge and power plunge you into solitude, and hardly anywhere has this been better illustrated than in Brown’s story of the math professor waking up in a world he does not know anything about and being the guardian of a power he is the only one to know about. On second thoughts, this story also made me ask myself another question, namely this one: Whose life is richer? The life of the person who simply lasted more years, or the life of the person who gained more experiences, who underwent more sufferings, enjoyed more pleasures, collected memories of places, friends, family and used some of his time trying out new, and sometimes risky, things?
Of course, for me, this is a rhetorical question, and it might be one for you. Why did I stumble on it? In the light of the past few years, this is probably another rhetorical question.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 26, 2022
"It is a tough decision to make—whether to give up your life so you can live it over again!"
I mean, if that quote, which is the opening line for 'Hall of Mirrors', if that quote doesn't grab your attention then nothing I'm about to write will do it for you.
Norman Hastings wakes up and learns that he is the first human time traveller and that he must determine whether humanity is ready for timey wimey stuff or whether to destroy the technology. Brought forward from 1954 to 2004 in a very unique way, he is told that there is no possible return for him.
"I constructed the first time machine a week ago. My calculations had told me that it would work, but not how it would work."
I really can't say any more about the plot without giving up the goods so I'll just highly recommend this super short story which is based on a wonderful and novel idea, a new way to think about time travel.
I mean, if that quote, which is the opening line for 'Hall of Mirrors', if that quote doesn't grab your attention then nothing I'm about to write will do it for you.
Norman Hastings wakes up and learns that he is the first human time traveller and that he must determine whether humanity is ready for timey wimey stuff or whether to destroy the technology. Brought forward from 1954 to 2004 in a very unique way, he is told that there is no possible return for him.
"I constructed the first time machine a week ago. My calculations had told me that it would work, but not how it would work."
I really can't say any more about the plot without giving up the goods so I'll just highly recommend this super short story which is based on a wonderful and novel idea, a new way to think about time travel.
March 14, 2016
Norman Hastings, a mathematics professor, sits on a chair in the sun next to his girlfriend and closes his eyes. When he opens them he is alone in an unfamiliar room dotted with furniture he has never seen before and a single letter, addressed to him.
The letter has no signature, but when he overcomes his initial bewilderment and begins to read it becomes clear who it is from. It also becomes clear that he has been transported to the future, and that he has a monumental decision to make.
This is the first thing I have read by Brown, recommended by Lawrence Block. An interesting take on the time-traveling conundrum, Hall of Mirrors deftly creates the possibility for 'immortality of a sort', then wonders what should be done with it.
A very short story, it still manages to ask some very deep questions about both the personal and public responsibility of its protagonist, similar to how an episode of The Twilight Zone used to do in less than an hour every week.
You can read this in 5 minutes.
The letter has no signature, but when he overcomes his initial bewilderment and begins to read it becomes clear who it is from. It also becomes clear that he has been transported to the future, and that he has a monumental decision to make.
This is the first thing I have read by Brown, recommended by Lawrence Block. An interesting take on the time-traveling conundrum, Hall of Mirrors deftly creates the possibility for 'immortality of a sort', then wonders what should be done with it.
A very short story, it still manages to ask some very deep questions about both the personal and public responsibility of its protagonist, similar to how an episode of The Twilight Zone used to do in less than an hour every week.
You can read this in 5 minutes.
November 17, 2013
A very cool sci-fi short story . . . highly recommended, and only a few pages long . . .
January 28, 2012
Interesting plot.
The narrators voice is clear and easy to listen to, he is a good story teller. The recording quality is clear (no background noise), it has plenty of volume and the editing technique is seamless.
The narrators voice is clear and easy to listen to, he is a good story teller. The recording quality is clear (no background noise), it has plenty of volume and the editing technique is seamless.
January 19, 2025
Can You Go Home Again?
🖊 A mathematics professor, Norman Hastings, has a difficult decision to make—whether or not to give up his life so he can live it over again. As he sits in the sun on a chair next to his girlfriend and closes his eyes, he finds himself alone in an unfamiliar room with furniture he has never seen before. Next to him is an unsigned letter, which is addressed to him. He reads it, and as he realizes from whom the letter is, it becomes apparent that he has been transported to the future, and that he has a monumental decision to make.
📕Published in December 1953, Stories from Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine.
🎨Illustrated.
જ⁀🟢The e-book version is on Project Gutenberg .
༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻
My ratings for this work:
Content: ★★★★★
Grammar: ★★★★★
Writing style: ★★★★★
Ease of reading: ★★★★★
My recommendation: ★★★★★
My total rating for this work: ★★★★★ (5.0)
🖊 A mathematics professor, Norman Hastings, has a difficult decision to make—whether or not to give up his life so he can live it over again. As he sits in the sun on a chair next to his girlfriend and closes his eyes, he finds himself alone in an unfamiliar room with furniture he has never seen before. Next to him is an unsigned letter, which is addressed to him. He reads it, and as he realizes from whom the letter is, it becomes apparent that he has been transported to the future, and that he has a monumental decision to make.
📕Published in December 1953, Stories from Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine.
🎨Illustrated.
જ⁀🟢The e-book version is on Project Gutenberg .
༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻
My ratings for this work:
Content: ★★★★★
Grammar: ★★★★★
Writing style: ★★★★★
Ease of reading: ★★★★★
My recommendation: ★★★★★
My total rating for this work: ★★★★★ (5.0)
October 31, 2018
Blood hell. This short was amazing.
October 31, 2020
Forgettable.
November 23, 2025
Whew!! I am returning to this story after almost 25 years!! And to this day it is a concise yet deeply unsettling plunge into paranoia, destiny, and metafictional unease. Brown crafts here a compact nightmare that feels like a Twilight Zone episode distilled to its purest essence.
The story revolves around a man trapped in a recursive loop of reality—a situation that begins with eerie subtlety and ends with an almost philosophical dread.
The narrative structure is deceptively simple: the protagonist awakens in what appears to be his ordinary life, only to discover slight inconsistencies—details that shift, repeat, or contradict his memory.
Brown excels at amplifying these small anomalies until the entire world becomes unreliable. The “hall of mirrors” metaphor functions not only as a description of the protagonist’s predicament but also as a commentary on perception itself. How do we know that what we see is real? And what happens when the mind begins to collapse under its own attempts to impose order?
Brown’s prose is efficient, crisp, and quietly humorous. He avoids florid explanation, instead letting the tension build through rhythm and implication.
The reader shares the protagonist’s disorientation, piecing together clues that might either point toward a psychological breakdown or a supernatural entrapment. The ambiguity is the point: Brown is less interested in providing answers than in orchestrating a sensation of mounting claustrophobia.
What makes the story especially striking is its thematic ambition. Though brief, Hall of Mirrors touches on free will, determinism, and the fear that our lives may be governed by forces beyond comprehension.
Brown’s economy of language—his ability to evoke complex existential terror within a few pages—is remarkable. There is no wasted moment, no superfluous gesture. The ending, like many of Brown’s best twists, arrives with both inevitability and shock, leaving the reader unsettled long after the final line.
In the landscape of classic science fiction and psychological thrillers, Hall of Mirrors stands out as a miniature masterpiece—a story that proves the power of brevity when wielded by a writer of Brown’s precision and imaginative daring.
The story revolves around a man trapped in a recursive loop of reality—a situation that begins with eerie subtlety and ends with an almost philosophical dread.
The narrative structure is deceptively simple: the protagonist awakens in what appears to be his ordinary life, only to discover slight inconsistencies—details that shift, repeat, or contradict his memory.
Brown excels at amplifying these small anomalies until the entire world becomes unreliable. The “hall of mirrors” metaphor functions not only as a description of the protagonist’s predicament but also as a commentary on perception itself. How do we know that what we see is real? And what happens when the mind begins to collapse under its own attempts to impose order?
Brown’s prose is efficient, crisp, and quietly humorous. He avoids florid explanation, instead letting the tension build through rhythm and implication.
The reader shares the protagonist’s disorientation, piecing together clues that might either point toward a psychological breakdown or a supernatural entrapment. The ambiguity is the point: Brown is less interested in providing answers than in orchestrating a sensation of mounting claustrophobia.
What makes the story especially striking is its thematic ambition. Though brief, Hall of Mirrors touches on free will, determinism, and the fear that our lives may be governed by forces beyond comprehension.
Brown’s economy of language—his ability to evoke complex existential terror within a few pages—is remarkable. There is no wasted moment, no superfluous gesture. The ending, like many of Brown’s best twists, arrives with both inevitability and shock, leaving the reader unsettled long after the final line.
In the landscape of classic science fiction and psychological thrillers, Hall of Mirrors stands out as a miniature masterpiece—a story that proves the power of brevity when wielded by a writer of Brown’s precision and imaginative daring.
December 16, 2022
This is terrible. The main character losing their memory is what kills it. He made the time machine. He doesn't remember how to make the time machine. Hopefully he made a recording or documented it. He's going to live a life of just starting in this room. Each life iteration lived lost. Any friends and new family made gone with each iteration until what, humanity gets its shit together. Like that's ever going to happen. This fell way short of what it should have been. At what point does he stop recounting the 50 or so years of his life back to his refreshed 25 year old self. When it becomes a dictionary of useless information because everyone is long dead and gone. This was a dumb idea.
I did like the 2nd person POV though.
I did like the 2nd person POV though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 31, 2018
Part of LibriVox Short Science Fiction Collection 048. Two versions by 2 narrators. The first (by “Bellona Times” aka Matt Gerrard) is read at more rapid pace, but due to the strangely halting intonation, I marginally prefer the version read by John Costello.
A story about a man whisked into the near future Narnia style, who is then faced with a time travel dilemma. I was impressed as I found myself forced to pay attention to what I would wish to do if confronted with this nightmare scenario, especially given my lifelong fears regarding the overpopulation of our fragile planet.
A story about a man whisked into the near future Narnia style, who is then faced with a time travel dilemma. I was impressed as I found myself forced to pay attention to what I would wish to do if confronted with this nightmare scenario, especially given my lifelong fears regarding the overpopulation of our fragile planet.
September 7, 2021
Personally I found it to be a lame story with a rather outdated writing style. Maybe other works by Fredric Brown are much better and of more interesting topics, but not this one, as far as I'm concerned.
November 27, 2024
Pretty darn cerebral. Scientific logic way ahead of the usual pap. The way things really work in The Universe™️ MMORPG with birth as the modus operandi. But war is mandatory birth control and the best type as it's dynamically self adjusting.
April 22, 2025
This was a cool little short story about time travel. I don't have much to say about it, but I would recommend it to people interested in early science fiction. It is in the public domain now so it should be easy to find.
January 7, 2021
what a beautiful story
May 7, 2022
Wow. Such a great short story
November 30, 2022
early sci fi
Good idea. New, different. I’ve never seen this particular thought worked out before. Worth reading more of this author. Word required
Good idea. New, different. I’ve never seen this particular thought worked out before. Worth reading more of this author. Word required
May 10, 2023
Audiobook, raised to 3.5
Read
January 19, 2024The story was quite good
January 25, 2025
An excellent short story that I read assuming it was a collection. The author is named in D&D's Appendix N.
October 12, 2025
short story, scifi, written by a master, great narraration .
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews