Horror Book Reviews

More Details... Price: $14.95

Title: Somewhere In Time Author: Richard Matheson Rating: Not available Avg. Score: 4 Submit Comment Hits: 27

Review of Somewhere In Time

[ Back to Homepage | Back to Horror Movie Reviews Index ]

HellHorror.com not responsible for reviews/comments and they may be removed at any time.

Submit Comment

Comments for Somewhere In Time

• Posted on 2008-06-01
  The ultimate love story
  
  This is, quite possibly, my all-time favorite book (and I'm an avid reader). I first read it many years ago, before the movie came out (under the title "Bid Time Return"). I've read it twice since then, and I will read it again. I first read it as a hopelessly romantic teenager, and perhaps that colored my experience, but this story sucked me in almost like no other. As I read the book, I completely believed it. After finishing it, I found myself looking to see if it could actually be a true story - it was simply that believable.
  
  While I enjoyed the movie, there is simply no comparison. In my opinion, the book blows away the movie. It's fuller, richer, and more gripping. I don't actually read much of what you would call "romance". It has to have a real story to hold my attention. This book made me laugh, and cry, and it held my attention to the very last page.
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-06-01
  The love story of all time
  
  This is, by far, one my most favorite of stories. The "true love" of soul mates joined and separated by the lending hand of fate. Richard Matheson is an excellent writter. This story derives straight from the heart and is volleyed back at yours with a clearity that takes you deep into the soul of his characters. The birth of this beautiful story is, in my opinion, the offspring of nearly every time travel, paranormal, romance story available today. If you haven't already, read the book. The movie verision hardly does it justice. I highly recommend this enchanting, and yet sad book to anyone.
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-01-23
  Wonderful Time-Travel Story
  
  If you are a fan of time-travel, you will love this book. This is the same author that wrote I Am Legend (another great novel, but not about time-travel). The book does have its flaws, but overall it is a great story worth checking out.
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2007-11-23
  Good Time Travel Fantasy
  
  This book is similar in nature to Jack Finney's Time and Again. Though not quite as good as Finney's book, Matheson does create a fairly decent love story. The beginning is rather slow and it is only when Richard (the main character) finally travels to the past that the book starts to pick up. Richard in 1971 had somehow come across the photo of an actress from 1896 that intrigues him. He finds he must know her life and starts researching her. He finds that she is the same actress who he had met at a college function. When he met her, she had a very strange reaction to him like she had known him and then she died right after.
  
  Richard just gets more infatuated with the actress and is sure that he loves her. The more that he investigates her he becomes convinced that he somehow had gone to the past and met her. Richard starts to study theories on time travel and then uses virtually the same method used in Finney's books to travel back to 1896 to be with her.
  
  Richard's pursuit of her is hampered by her jealous manager (similar to Finney's character). Richard may get what he wants but a penny may be the cause of his undoing.
  
  The scenes described in 1896 are excellent as well as the dialogue. This is a very good, though not great, book.
  Score: 4
• Posted on 2007-07-05
  A Moving Tale of Love & Obsession
  
  The novel has become a classic tale of romantic and obsessive love, notions of fate in our lives and the possibility of time travel.
  
  More known for the 1980 film adaptation staring Christopher Reeve as the protagonist, Richard Collier, Jane Seymour as Elise McKenna and an excellent performance by Christopher Plummer as her aggressive manager, author Richard Matheson penned the screenplay, turning the film into a cult-like classic with continued popularity over a generation.
  
  Considered by Matheson to be his best-written novel, the book begins with a Note by Collier's brother, Robert, who has doubts whether he is doing the right thing in publishing his brother's manuscript. This clever literary device, to my mind, gives the novel credibility, presenting the work as not a work of fiction but a real event.
  
  Richard Collier is a writer for television diagnosed to have a brain tumour, (a death sentence) and sets out to travel in his car, flipping a coin, leaving his destinations to chance, he arrives at the Coronado Hotel, a 19th century establishment where Collier comments, "The Past Haunts this hotel". In the hotel's quaint museum, he discovers a photograph of a well known stage actress of the time period, Elise McKenna. Richard's obsession begins; he falls in love with the long dead woman, and wonders how he can get back to her, in the year 1896.
  
  What is so good about this novel is Matheson's descriptions and feelings about the past once he travels back in time. The reader can see and feel what Richard sees and feels, in some cases, quite acutely. Richard Collier's method, too, to travel back to the 19th century, for me, seemed quite feasible. There are no machines or technological transporters, merely his Will to reach his one true love.
  
  As has been mentioned many times, Richard Matheson is an original writer, his work mixing categories or genres, that is to say, science fiction, horror, romance and the supernatural. He is a prolific writer of over 16 novels, film scripts, and television movies and was one of the main writers for the legendary show, The Twilight Zone. Matheson's other famous text, What Dreams May Come: A Novel, adapted for the big screen as well, starring Robin Williams, is also considered by the author to be one of his best novels.
  
  I found this novel to be very moving, realistic and original. Well worth owning and reading again.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Score: 5