Book Reviews

Book Blurb

English professor Dale Hoberman is out of his depth as a visiting professor at Oxford. His one comfortable social connection is with a man long dead. In his spare time, he takes on the task of analyzing the possessions of Martin Winthrop, a brilliant physicist who met with a tragic end. When science and serendipity give Dale a chance to meet Martin, Dale is suddenly comfortable in his own skin, but is his happiness with Martin worth risking the powerful forces of time and physics, or is Martin’s tragic end destined to be?

Book Review

A 'man out of time', someone who doesn’t feel he belongs in the time he was born into, is a pretty interesting idea. Most people just take the environment they live in for granted and never spend much time thinking about 'what if I lived in a different time'. Personally, I have thought about this a great deal, so I feel for Dale.

Dale is an American professor of English literature who spends 8 weeks teaching at Oxford in the UK. So he is already outside his usual environment, which probably makes him more conscious of the differences between his ideas and preferences and those of the modern world. The fact that he has a 'faradic machine' to travel back and forth between 2012 and 1897 is just a detail, what's important is the friendship and beginning of love he develops as he meets Martin Winthrop, the man who lived in the room he now stays at – well over 100 years ago.

The solution to his dilemma which time is right for him is simple or ingenious – depending on the way you look at things. Personally, I liked what happened, and loved the detail leading up to the (almost) inevitable conclusion. If you like stories that make you think about 'when' you are, if you enjoy gentle tales about two men discovering they feel more for each other, and if a little bit of fantasy in the form of an almost magical time travel machine is just the thing for you, you will probably like this story.

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review.

 

Additional Information

Format	ebook
Length	Short Story, 35 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	01-June-2012
Price	$2.99 ebook
Buy Link	https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/a-man-out-of-time-by-elizabeth-coldwell-232-b