Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Hey, dedicated Stephen King fans! You're in for an epic treat--an odyssey, a Fool's journey, an adventure with romance. A genre-bending historical novel with moral implications, this story combines echoes of Homer, H.G. Wells, Don Quixote, Quantum Leap (the old TV show), Jack Finney's Time and Again, and even a spoonful of meta-King himself, the czar of popular fiction. The voice is familiar--the reluctant, lonely, courageous, romantic, destiny-bound hero/scarred social warrior. The story is King-esque- towering, prophetic, and flamboyant. This is mainstream entertainment; King is King of what King does--the unruly escapist story with a blazing heart. King is loyal to what he calls his "Constant Reader." This is not horror, in case you are strictly old school fans. However, there is a touch of the supernatural via time-travel. If you are new to King, and are reading this for more insight into the fateful day of 11/22/63, or a "what would the world be like if...?," this is not King's principle design. It hovers, yes, and is material only to the primary theme. Through a time portal in the storeroom of a greasy spoon diner, is a way back to 1958. Do we have the moral right to alter history, if we could? This is Jake Epping's noble journey--to answer that question--and, even more so, to ask it. King's demonstrates how the past and the present have a harmony that echoes, sings, dances, and shadows. He has refined his work from the genre horror, and the horrors that he now portray are undeniably real. King provides details that make the time-travel plausible--suspending disbelief is playfully easy. Jake confronts the prophecy that "the past is obdurate," and "life can turn on a dime." Inevitably, his mission and his new life rub together, generating poignant conflicts and urgent demands. King's strengths include his sense of place and time. He renders 1958 so specifically that you will be transported. Ten-cent root beers with foam; fin-tailed Chevrolets; cigarette smoke wafting inside and out; Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis from the jukebox; dancing cheek-to-cheek; mink and Moxie; rotary dial phones and party lines, and so much more to texturize the "Land of Ago." King makes it credible for memories to branch arterially from past to present, for different time periods to cast hazy shadows on each other. "It's all of a piece...It's an echo so close to perfect you can't tell which one is the living voice and which is the ghost-voice returning." Despite the voluminous research done by King into the Oswald controversy, his historical conclusions are woven into the book rather cursorily, but emphatically. Does this matter? It might. I was distracted at intervals. We don't have to necessarily agree with a character's actions, but if an historical context is displayed as fact, but the facts don't add up for the reader, then the framework strains to hold together. Then again, it might not matter at all. The narrative is earnestly embellished, characters and motives occasionally simplified, and plot devices wistfully executed. He isn't one for much technical subtlety, and he justifies (too many) coincidences by cleverly making coincidence part of the theme. But this is King's signature style, and it works. I cared as passionately as Jake. Sadie, however, is the unforgettable character in this book. Jake/George may be the hero, but Sadie is the spirited touchstone. Comely, fetchingly clumsy, and wounded, she dances off the pages. No popular author opens and closes a story like Stephen King. Enchanting and sublime, he builds deft bridges and ladders that are not only elaborate and infinite, but also inspired and relevant. He captures in a few chapters what an evocative song can capture in a few minutes. Whatever his flaws, his rewards are plentiful. Classy, cosmic, mystical, and kaleidoscopic--the story was radiant and clear, through a glass, darkly. Addendum: Simon and Schuster sent me a copy in October for review. The views are entirely my own.