Thanks to the guys over at StopRealityTV.com, I found out about a little book called Replay by Ken Grimwood, a neat time travel story with some interesting and unique elements to it.
Jeff Winston is the subject of the book, a man who is a 43 year old radio journalist and in a marriage that is about to fall apart. To make matters worse, he suffers what seems to be a massive heart attack and dies on the first page of the novel.
What happens after that is extraordinary.
Jeff wakes up in a college dorm room completely disoriented. Yet everything seems familiar and it doesn’t take him long to realize it was his dorm room from when he was 18 and just starting college.
It’s 1963 and he’s living his life over again. What would you do in his shoes? Can you imagine starting over from 18 years old, having lived 43 years, with a family you love and a life you left behind?
How would you react? What about friends you suddenly have again, old girlfriends or boyfriends. How would you treat them?
The thing that Jeff discovers as he lives his life all over again and it takes a very, very different path, is that this will not be the only time he dies and comes back as a younger version of himself.
Hence the title of the book, Replay.
What choices does he make? Why is this happening? Are there others?
It’s a fun little book. It’s not perfect, because at times I felt like certain situations were forced and didn’t seem natural. There is a lot of sex early on in the story and it just seemed like a forced way to make us realize how miserable his existence was at this given time.
If you saw Groundhog Day, it’s similar to that. After awhile, Bill Murray doesn’t care anymore, he lets himself go, tries to commit suicide, etc.
This in essence will happen to Jeff, but whether he can pull through it or not is another story.
I did enjoy where the book took me, because I after reading the plot and getting about a 1/4 of the way through, I felt like there wasn’t going to be any surprises and I knew how it would end. But nope, I had no idea and it took the whole story to deeper and deeper levels as it progressed.
If you get into science fiction and want a cool little read, then go grab a copy of Replay and let us know what you think of it.
I’ve started on The Time Traveler’s Wife as my next book, sticking to the theme of time travel.
I will have to pick up Time Traveler’s Wife as well.
Some of my favorite parts in Replay was the Oswald stuff and the guy that was just really evil, doing wicked stuff and led them down a different path for awhile (trying to say that without spoilering it).
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This book sounds pretty good. I haven’t heard of it.
You already know how I feel about The Time Traveler’s Wife…
@ Donald…I agree, that part was a bit crazy and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen there.
@ Jason…Time Traveler’s Wife is also interesting so far, hard to piece it together at first because of him being all over the place, seeing himself, etc.
Wow. Glad to see some love going to my favorite book, ever. For me, it’s less a skiffy book than a great love story, but it was good enough for the ‘88 World Fantasy Award.
I’ve lost quite a few copies of this over the last twenty years loaning it out and never getting it back.
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Favorite book ever? Really? Interesting…I mean, I really liked it and lent it out to a friend…but I just felt some parts were forced.
But the overall plot, what happens (the Dolphin movie for instance led to the love story part you talk about) at the end…yeah, it was pretty good.
Yah, it’s not my favorite literary book, but as a cleanly crafted love story, I can think of few better. Would work perfectly as a movie, though time shifting it so it begins in the present day instead of the late ’80s is pretty tough.
There are fewer big, cultural touchstones and sea changes then in the ’60s and ’70s, other than the Internet which is huge.
Replay?!? Its so good I had to read it twice!
[...] This week we’ve been talking a little about science fiction and time travel, first the book Replay which I reviewed and then the idea that science fiction as a genre is running out of good [...]
[...] finishing Replay a few weeks ago, I’ve been at a loss on what to read next, but I just picked up The Monsters [...]