In 1929, some archaeologists find a horse skeleton in a mound in the Louisiana swampland—a mound which pre-dates the re-introduction of the horse to North America. Moreover, the mound contains something even more anachronistic—a corroded brass rifle cartridge.
This is a novel about shifts in time. From the late twenty-first century, Madison Yazoo Leake, a member of the Special Group, is transported back in time in an attempt to stop the destruction of the human race. However, he arrives not in 1930s Louisiana, but in a world where Arabs explored America, the Roman Empire never existed, and the Aztec empire extended to the Mississippi
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Interesting take on time travel. It was interesting enough to keep me reading, but not without issues. The book follows 3 different time lines/groups that are loosely tied together, but only partly comes together in the end. For me there should have been a lot more world building and a more concrete finish. I enjoyed parts of the story but was a bit disappointed overall.
From the Publisher Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn’t know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again – in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle—each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: “What if you could live your life over again?”
My Opinion
This book came highly recommended and I was not disappointed.
Jeff Winston is a 43 year old man who dies of a sudden heart attack, to wake up moments later as his 18 year old self with all of his memories of his previous life, including his painful death, intact. As it becomes obvious to him that he has his entire life to live over again he ponders the how & why of what has happened. He uses his knowledge of the future to place some well timed bets that make him wealthy and he lives his life over again, much differently than the first time. Right up to that moment 43 years later when he dies again, and wakes up again as his 18 year old self.
As he is faced with the possibility of a never ending cycle of lives he ponders those questions that we have all faced. If you had it all to do over again with the knowledge of what was going to happen how would you do it. Would you change your life? Would you try to stop tragedies that you know the world was going to face?
During his second or third cycle of life he encounters another person who replays, Pamela. As they meet and compare notes about there lives and the puzzle of their replays, they begin to fall in love. They develop an enduring love that carries them through a cycle to be remembered and sought out in the next cycle. Each cycle is different. They use their knowledge of the future to try to affect change, but it is not always successful.
Unfortunately in their search for answers they become aware that their cycles are becoming shorter each time. Before they know it they are losing years of the cycle and coming back later and later into their lives. What will happen when they have no more time left between cycles? When they face that last cycle that they will not return from?
It is a very thought provoking book. What would you do if you could do it all over again?
This is a great video about this book. Take a few moments to watch it --
From the Publisher An intact wooly mammoth is discovered frozen in Canada. Huddled next to the huge creature is the mummified body of a Stone Age man around 12,000 years old. And he is wearing a wristwatch.
My Opinion I love a good time travel book and this one has all the ingredients for one. It does get a little bogged down and side tracked about mid way through the book, but overall it is a good read. Howard Christian is a very rich man who buys whatever he wants, and at the moment he wants to breed a Woolly Mammoth, so he hires a team to find and excavate a frozen Mammoth, so that he can have the DNA extracted to create a elephant/mammoth hybrid. When the crew discovers a caveman's body frozen next to the carcass wearing a very modern wristwatch, Howard's obsession takes a turn. A metal briefcase lying next to the caveman has to be a time machine, so Howard goes about hiring the best of the best to figure out how to make it work, which is Matt Wright, the smartest mathematician around. In the meantime, Howard continues his quest to breed the Mammoth by hiring Susan Morgan, an elephant trainer, to help care for the elephant that has been artificially inseminated with the elephant/mammoth embryo. Working next door to each other in a warehouse on their separate projects, Susan and Matt meet and fall in love. When an accident sends the two of them back in time, to the Ice Age, and then home again, with half a dozen living, breathing Mammoths accidentally transported forward in time, their lives change forever. Who was the caveman found next to the Woolly Mammoth and how does it relate to Matt & Susan's jaunt back in time? This really is a good story, with a fantastic, ending that brings the whole thing together and makes you wonder? Is time travel possible?
Them Bones by Howard Waldrop
