Readings

Many authors like to play with counterfactual history - and not just science fiction writers. Three pieces that come to mind are the novel Rerun, by Neil Crichton; the collections Consider Her Ways and Seeds of Time by John Wyndham; and the novella The Long Walk by Stephen King. In Crichton's novel, a man experiences a temporal loop within his own life. He finds himself in a position of knowing the future - so he can, for example, bet heavily on the outcome of the upcoming World Series, and come off a winner. At the same time, he tries to influence such seminal events as the assassination of President Jack Kennedy, with intriguing results. Wyndham's stories play with all manner of time travel and paradox; critics who dismiss him as an author of "cozy catastrophes" do disservice to his foresight and flair. In King's story, the Second World War has continued just long enough to secure a fascist government in America, and the young are sacrificed on the altar of Might. Like the best of King's writing (The Stand, Hearts in Atlantis), this piece can be read and reread. (King also writes very well about writing - but that's a topic for another day.)