Sunday, June 16, 2013

William Tenn's "Winthrop was Stubborn" aka "Time Waits for Winthrop" (novella, time travel): What will the world look like in 25th century?

This is about as colorful an adventure as you're likely to see in science fiction. And from William Tenn, of all people! Alive sidewalks that help you move & help prevent your fall, "government machine" you can order materialized out of thin air to discuss things governmental, "Shriek Field" where you can play mad (but only in nude!) to relive stress, telepathic semi-sentient food that will work all it can for your enjoyment, "Oracle Machine" that can solve any problem, floor that keeps adjusting to your needs, "jumper" - a cylindrical contraption you can materialize from thin air & get inside to instantly teleport anywhere, ...; it goes on & on!

Story summary.

A group of 5 Americans in 1958 travel to 2458, selected with great fanfare (by government?) on invitation from & with technology of 25th century. The deal is: it's an exchange; when they go to future, simultaneously 5 persons from future will materialize in now. Only way the parties can return to their time is at an appointed time & place, & only if all of them want to return; if even one of them wants to stay, all get stranded in foreign time.

And Winthrop, an old man among the visitors to future, likes it so much here that he's refusing to return, stranding everyone else! Story if of efforts of others in his party to persuade or coarse him to return.

Collected in.

  1.  William Tenn's "Time in Advance".

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, August 1957.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of William Tenn.

2 comments:

Rusty said...

This one sounds pretty interesting! I'll have to give it a try.

Also, this is the 3rd William Tenn in a row - you must be on a kick huh?

Tinkoo said...

It's all from one of his collections - collection will be today's post.

I'm part way through collections of Jack Vance & Kurt Vonnegut too - so there are going to be some more same author stories.