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Michael

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Timeshare (Timeshare, #1)

by Joshua Dann

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Michael said: " A wonderful book about time travel, romance, history and Hollywood. I first purchased this book when it came out and liked it more the second time I read it (this is the third time). The two sequels are quite good but don't quite compare. The book's A wonderful book about time travel, romance, history and Hollywood. I first purchased this book when it came out and liked it more the second time I read it (this is the third time). The two sequels are quite good but don't quite compare. The book's protagonist, John Surrey, works for a travel agency that sends people into the past for vacations. He's the guy who goes back to get the vacationers who don't want to come back to the present (not violently, I might add - Surrey is a very decent guy). Surrey loves his job for a variety of reasons - he majored in history (and later became a police officer in Los Angeles). The book begins in Surrey's present of 2006 (the book itself was published in 1997 but its view of the early 21st Century isn't completely off - although author Joshua Dann doesn't seem to like a world where far far left ideas run the country - wonder what he thinks of where we are now thirty years after having written the book). Dann really nails the different eras Surrey visits. The Hollywood of 1940 is a hoot while also managing to be somewhat wistful (and Surrey actually does manage to change certain things in the past which is pretty cool and not often done in other time travel books). The woman he falls in love with, a young British actress in 1940 named Althea, is a character that many people reading the book will fall in love with as well - a strong, incredibly intelligent woman with what they used to call "a sparkling wit" is a terrific character whom you miss whenever she's not directly involved in the story. Surrey visits other times as well (his visit to the Whiskey a Go Go in 1966 where he meets Jim Morrison is like something out of a dream) and, again, Dann nails the time period perfectly. The book is told from Surrey's point of view and he makes one statement early on which stuck with me - how the real difference he sees in people from earlier decades is that they had hope - something we no longer have - is so damned true it hurt reading it. A wonderful "soft" science fiction book that ignores the "science" of how time travel works and instead concentrates on the historical periods visited and, most importantly, the characters involved. ...more "

Jan 25, 2025 12:31AM · see review