The late Jack Finney had a wonderful career, producing 10 novels, five short story collections and two plays. Seven of his works have been adapted to film, (The Invasion of) The Body Snatchers four times. His most popular book, Time and Again (1970), is about time travel. He published a sequel, From Time to Time in 1995, months before his death. I have not read the first. I just finished the second and was disappointed. Although it is only 303 pages, minus many that are taken up with photographs and drawings, it read as if longer. There is much dawdling that has nothing to do with the plot. I did enjoy some of it. The Al Jolson, Teddy Roosevelt and vaudeville segments were entertaining. Overall, the descriptions of the past tried my patience, and the ending, after a riveting build up, was unsatisfying. I expect his most loyal readers love it. I thought the prose and dialogue were only fair. Given the theme -- changing an event to produce a better history for the entire world -- the novel should have been better. Perhaps he was not well enough to fulfill his vision. As it is, From Time to Time, feels like a novella stretched into a novel. Time and Again is still popular, rated 4.5 of five at Amazon, ranked 11,000+ in sales, of the nine million or so books listed there. The sequel is not as popular, rated three and ranked just under 800,000. I rate it two. Still, Finney had a phenomenal run. Kudos, sir.
I dreamed the notes were not sounding on my guitar, however hard I pressed. I know exactly what it’s telling me: You suck; give it up. I was never more than a mediocre musician, perhaps not even that, but lately I’ve been brutal. I’m sure my neighbors agree. I’m tempted to quit, but it is a half hour that forces me to use my memory to remember riffs and the chords of songs, complicated in the case of standards. It’s a brain exercise. That’s the only reason I’ve stuck with it.
I don't know if there really is such a thing as karma. I want to believe that bad is punished and good rewarded, but I suspect, fear that many perpetual miscreants live a long life laughing at the rest of us. Anyway, there was some good karma for the floating book shop today. After Adjustments was published in 2008, I deleted the files from my computer, not envisioning making it available on Kindle down the line. I asked my literary angel, Victoria/January Valentine, the publisher, if perchance she still had it. It was one of the few files she was able to recover when her previous PC crashed. She emailed it to me this morning. I immediately thought how nice it would be if I sold one of her novels today. Sure enough, a gentleman on his way to visit his mom at Coney Island Hospital was in the market for a romance and bought Love Dreams. Thank you, sir, and to Herbie, Jen and the woman who speaks no English, who buys books in Russian at least once a week.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Horror Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
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