Just finished it. My head is spinning. I adore time travel novels, but am picky enough to go after ones that aren’t overly cloying or prickly.
This one rocked my little brain. For now, I ask- who has read it, loved it, hated it, thoughts on it?
One very sad note. I just read that he died in 2003. He put in a hell of an Easter Egg ( before, perhaps, we knew what one was in this context ). I wanted to write to him to thank him for it and ask him WHY that person, why that Easter Egg. Now, I have to wait to ask him…
I still am unsatisfied with the ‘science’ of it. I wish it could have had an explanation. Why only three people replay? Do multiple replay cycles happen at the same “time”?
But that’s just whining. I’ve recommended it to others. I think everyone liked it a lot.
My biggest thing - the way he handled the Kennedy assassination. When he first tries to stop the assassination, it continues on with another assassin. Does that mean that time is “like a river” - it has to flow down the established path? A case of “you can’t make changes”, perhaps? Since we are early in the book, we don’t know the mechanics of the world.
But then, later, the two of them make HUGE changes in the timeline. So, going back, does that mean Grimwood is a conspiracy nut? Apparently, in his “normal” universe, Oswald was just a patsy.
I’m not sure it could be filmed, but that never stopped Hollywood from trying anyway. I thought the same about The Time Traveler’s Wife. I don’t think they filmed “the book” (there’s just too much left out), but I still enjoyed it. (I actually prefer the movie ending.)
A rare book that transcends the genre. I actually think that putting in an explanation as to why it was happening would have made it not as good. There was, aside from the ending, an earlier hint that “replays” were an ongoing thing and that the protagonist and his lady friend (and the other guy about whom I’ll say no more) weren’t the first.
I read this last year. I originally wanted to just do a couple of chapters…then I planned to go to bed at around midnight. Then I thought, “I’m already 65% finished. I might as well complete the book.”
I loved it. In fact, before I switched to the computer tab where I saw this thread I was on Amazon ordering a copy for a friend.
I read it last century. I picked it up at an op shop for 20 cents. It was a hardcover first edition with the title *Replay *repeated 5 or 6 times and I some how read it as Replayer. I loved it and never forgot it. I don’t think I have ever known anyone that read it without me recommending it first, and usually lending them my copy, except for at the Dope.
I read it last century. I picked it up at an op shop for 20 cents. It was a hardcover first edition with the title *Replay *repeated 5 or 6 times and I some how read it as Replayer. I loved it and never forgot it. I don’t think I have ever known anyone that read it without me recommending it first, and usually lending them my copy, except for at the Dope.
I understand what you mean about being unsatisfied, but with due respect I disagree with dissatisfaction. The very randomness of this possibility is sooooooo alluring. The less he did to pull back the curtain the more I liked the structure of the novel. Was this a messy experiment by some beings who control time? Was it an object lesson in non-Einsteinian Physics, with time and space being folded and unfolded like an origami project. Each time with a fresh sheet of paper created at " that special moment in 1988 " and folded just slightly differently ever time? Was this a deeply spiritual cautionary tale about free will?
I don’t give a lot of heft to what Grimwood did with the Kennedy situation compared to what he did to historical timelines elsewhere in the tale. Yes, it was a tremendous event in our history- and at that point in the novel, some very very weird things happened. But as we saw a few replays down the line ( Up The Line? Heh. ), the Kennedy situation and the divergence in that event was nothing compared to what happened when the two of them went public.
Now for that mammoth Easter Egg. First of all, this novel was published in 1986 by Arbor House. I don’t even know if the concept of a DVD movie “Easter Egg” existed then. Here’s what Grimwood did:
In 1974 Julia Phillips became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Picture Producer. She ( along with 2 other people ) produced “The Sting”. She died in 2002. In 1991 she wrote a painfully detailed tell-all book called, " You’ll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again". One of the people she knew for most of her career was Steven Spielberg. In fact, Julia Phillips started out as the Producer of “Close Encounters of The Third Kind”, directed by Spielberg. She was fired during the production due to cocaine and crack cocaine problems. ( Upon Preview, I must give Ms. Phillips her due. She singlehandedly created the look AND tag-line of the One Sheet from that film. " We Are Not Alone " and the roadway going straight away and up to the heavens. Clever eye and mind, that one. )
However, before 1974 even she knew and partied with Spielberg. Details galore in the aforementioned book. They moved in the same circles, talked shop about making movies, and eventually she did business with Spielberg.
Grimwood must have known something of this early Phillips / Spielberg connection. He created Pamela Phillips- a smart powerful female producer of a Steven Spielberg sci-fi movie that does not exist. ( Far as we know… ) When protagonist Jeff Winston first meets Pamela Phillips, he drops the names of real Spielberg feature films and completely rocks the world of Pamela Phillips- the only other replayer Jeff has met until this point in the novel.
I dig the fact that Grimwood played with the timeline and lives of two people who do exist and made them fit into his scenario and expanded upon their creativity by having them create together a film unlike any made until that point.
This novel was published 5 years before the Julia Phillips tell-all book, so most of the world was unfamiliar with the detailed machinations of late 1960’s/ early 1970’s Hollywood, Malibu Colony, stars meeting stars, who slept with whom ( who? ), what films got made for what reasons and so on.
He did it as a nudge to those two people, and as a little gift to the few hundred souls on the planet ( in 1986 ) who knew of the Phillips / Spielberg connection.
Not to hijack my own thread, but a neat discussion would be how actors in films handle those first critical moments of temporal dissonance.
Tom Hanks in “Big” ? Amusing. Malcolm MacDowel in “Time After Time” ? Stunning and light and clever.
This book really got me going, I keep thinking about the big picture stuff. And must admit, I’m so very grateful he wrote the last chapter. I wonder if he intended to all along or if he considered it after finishing an early draft, or if his editor recommended it.
I do not want to know why replaying happened. It would sour the magic. It is enough to read and believe that it happened to these characters.
I’ve started another thread about “Replay” by Ken Grimwood. Just finished it. But that thread has me thinking about my serious love affair with decent - to - superb time travel stories and novels and movies.
Please do share the ones you like and why?
I’ll throw out a few.
The Jaunt, short story by Stephen King.
Replay by Ken Grimwood.
Time After Time, feature film by 3 writers including director Nicholas Meyer.
Just stopping Oswald made no difference at all. When he later tried to make changes to improve the world – when they hooked up with the government after the public reveal – it only made things worse. It made me wonder about all the speculations about what would happen if you went back and killed Hitler as a child. The assumption usually is that the horrors of Nazi Germany would not have happened. But what if, instead, someone with the same ideas (and there certainly were others) took power but he was also an excellent military strategist who listened to his generals?
I read this book years ago. I loved it. I now use it to go to sleep at night.
I imagine myself looping through my lifetime. Who would I keep in my life? Who would I exclude the next time through? What would I do with all that money? Do I do anything to stop 9/11? Or would interfering cause a worse incident?
That is kind of interesting to think about since one of the big reasons 9/11 happened was the breakdown in communication between big government agencies leading to the creation of Homeland Security. Without 9/11 those communication barriers would have still existed. Would it have been easier for al Queda to buy and smuggle in some kind nuke?
How would I react to my first replay? Assuming I woke up as a teenager in high school, how would I deal with my parents? How would I remember the combination to my school locker? Could I save some family members who died for preventable reasons?
So many rabbit holes to follow. So many nooks and crannies to investigate. It keeps my mind from repeating stupid stuff from the day or worrying about the next so I can fall asleep.
Here’s a short list of my all time favorite time travel novels
11/23/63 by Stephen King To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis Blackout by Connie Willis (part one of a 2 part story) All Clear by Connie Willis ( part two of the above) Life after Life by Kate Atkinson Pastwatch -The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card (Ok, I think the author is a big old a-hole but I read this long before I knew that ) The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter - a cool homage and authorized sequel to HG Wells “The Time Machine” A Bridge of Years by Robert Charles Wilson
**The Doomsday Book **by Connie Willis
Loved Replay! Great book. I’ve often recommended it, and probably should read it again sometime. I still remember the palpable joy I felt when the protagonist and his soulmate discovered each other, and finally were not alone in a sea of people who had no idea what they’d been through.
And it all gets undone anyway because you have to do it all over again. First he tried to change the world on his own, then they tried to do it together(with even worse consequences), then they just realized that the point of life is to just live it. Although it doesn’t hurt to get a little rich with your knowledge to make things easier.
An explanation would ruin it; one of the joys of the book is that no explanation is attempted. It happened and that’s all you need to know. There’s no need to explain a thing.
Apparently, in his “normal” universe, Oswald was just a patsy.