A YASID that was not Answered

[Robert Woodward]

I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
then):

"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline
and not the new one.

Have you considered that you are that character?

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline
and not the new one.
Have you considered that you are that character?

Strangely enough apart from the books that had not been
written it sounds very like Agency and "peripheral"
But those are recent.
I have seen the character who is killed in one timeline and
awakes with some memory in a Western Detective novel and he tatooes
a number on his wrist to keep track as he dies in various timelines.
Maybe the writer will keep him another series. This one
involves a ranching Sheriff and his pal a Native American who has
a mother? involved in shamanism.
A quick search shows the Western Detective genre greatly
enlarged. When I am at the SFPL next time I will try to find
that author and see if he has SF series as well.

bliss

[Don]

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline
and not the new one.
Have you considered that you are that character?

Strangely enough apart from the books that had not been
written it sounds very like Agency and "peripheral"
But those are recent.
I have seen the character who is killed in one timeline and
awakes with some memory in a Western Detective novel and he tatooes
a number on his wrist to keep track as he dies in various timelines.
Maybe the writer will keep him another series. This one
involves a ranching Sheriff and his pal a Native American who has
a mother? involved in shamanism.
A quick search shows the Western Detective genre greatly
enlarged. When I am at the SFPL next time I will try to find
that author and see if he has SF series as well.

Getting back to the YASID, for what it's worth, such a (short) story
scenario manifests itself in TLON, UQBAR, ORBIS TERTIUS where Borges
bundles both books of the ephemeral variety with parallel worlds:

... Bioy recalled that one of Uqbar's heresiarchs had said that
mirrors and copulation are abominable because they multiply the
number of men. When I asked him the source of this pithy dictum,
he told me it appeared in the article on Uqbar in The Anglo-
American Cyclopaedia. The villa, which we were renting furnished,
had a copy of the work. Towards the end of Volume XLVI we found
an entry on Uppsala and at the beginning of Volume XLVII one on
Ural-Altaic languages, but nowhere was there a mention of Uqbar.
...

# # #

As an aside, BY HIS COCKLE HAT AND STAFF (Wright) is a favorite fable
found in FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS. It has parallel worlds with double-tongued
interdimensional operatives along the lines of TRANSITION (Banks). In
it, two particular worlds are compared and contrasted: a libertine world
along with a Catholic world (a Weltanschauung well-known with Wright).

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

[Robert Woodward]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline
and not the new one.
Have you considered that you are that character?

If I was that character, I can assure you that no time manipulations
have affected the last 5 decades. I still have almost all books that I
read in that period.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

"Replay" by Ken Grimwood is vaguely along these lines but it was
published in 1998.
https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X

"Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died
and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived
another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a
continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at
the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make
a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance,
and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the
question: "What if you could live your life over again?""

Lynn

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

"Replay" by Ken Grimwood is vaguely along these lines but it was
published in 1998.
   https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X
"Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died
and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived
another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a
continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at
the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make
a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance,
and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the
question: "What if you could live your life over again?""

I've read 'Replay'. He doesn't restart at 18 each time. After each
death he restarts a bit older until at the end he is restarting seconds
before death, then fractions of a second. When he reached the point of
restarting at or "after" death he got a final Replay to use all that he
had learned. There was also a woman going thru the same thing that he
met during one of his replays and starting finding in each subsequent
run. The epilogue was that once Winston and his partner stopped
Replaying another couple started the cycle.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

"Replay" by Ken Grimwood is vaguely along these lines but it was
published in 1998.
    https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X
"Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he
died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room;
he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again
-- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from
scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past
mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping
adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time,
Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?""

I've read 'Replay'.  He doesn't restart at 18 each time.  After each
death he restarts a bit older until at the end he is restarting seconds
before death, then fractions of a second.  When he reached the point of
restarting at or "after" death he got a final Replay to use all that he
had learned.  There was also a woman going thru the same thing that he
met during one of his replays and starting finding in each subsequent
run.  The epilogue was that once Winston and his partner stopped
Replaying another couple started the cycle.

If so, then somebody screwed up the marketing blurb. And I seem to
remember that he grew older each replay also (been a long time since I
read the book, it is in my reread list).

Lynn

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

"Replay" by Ken Grimwood is vaguely along these lines but it was
published in 1998.
    https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X
"Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he
died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room;
he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again
-- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from
scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past
mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping
adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of
time, Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life
over again?""

I've read 'Replay'.  He doesn't restart at 18 each time.  After each
death he restarts a bit older until at the end he is restarting
seconds before death, then fractions of a second.  When he reached the
point of restarting at or "after" death he got a final Replay to use
all that he had learned.  There was also a woman going thru the same
thing that he met during one of his replays and starting finding in
each subsequent run.  The epilogue was that once Winston and his
partner stopped Replaying another couple started the cycle.

If so, then somebody screwed up the marketing blurb.

And this would surprise you ... because...?

[Don]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

"Replay" by Ken Grimwood is vaguely along these lines but it was
published in 1998.
    https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X
"Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he
died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room;
he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again
-- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from
scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past
mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping
adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time,
Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?""

I've read 'Replay'.  He doesn't restart at 18 each time.  After each
death he restarts a bit older until at the end he is restarting seconds
before death, then fractions of a second.  When he reached the point of
restarting at or "after" death he got a final Replay to use all that he
had learned.  There was also a woman going thru the same thing that he
met during one of his replays and starting finding in each subsequent
run.  The epilogue was that once Winston and his partner stopped
Replaying another couple started the cycle.

If so, then somebody screwed up the marketing blurb. And I seem to
remember that he grew older each replay also (been a long time since I
read the book, it is in my reread list).

Dimensional's recollection is correct.

REPLAY, 12:01 PM, and the like offer a favored plot-line. Because such
stories sublimate "practice makes perfect." On the other hand, my wife
despises re-run stories for being too loopy.

# # #

On a different note, this part pertains to parallel worlds previously
posted by me to this thread. The snippet below played through my
earbuds during tonight's trek through the twilit trail on the mountain
side with my dog. (Predators abound so my wife's 38 is always strapped
to my side to scare them off if need be.)

suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that
case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just
the same way as what we call 'today'. All the days are
'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things
yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though
you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'foresee'
you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them:
because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is
for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this
moment were any less free because God knows what you are
doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the
same way-because He is already in tomorrow and can simply
watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till
you have done it: but then the moment at which you have
done it is already 'Now' for Him.

BEYOND PERSONALITY: OR FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE
TRINITY by Lewis

The above brings to mind the multiverse mentioned in PR269 HUNT FOR THE
TIME AGENT.

<https://www-perrypedia-de.translate.goog/wiki/Jagd_auf_den_Zeitagenten?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_hist=true>

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by Don

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Robert Woodward
I believe that I first posted this about 2 decades ago (thus recent was
"The recent discussions of parallel worlds reminded me of a book (I
think it was a novel rather than a story in an anthology) that I read
sometime in the 60s. This book had time travelers who manipulated time
by changing events in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The
book also had a character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased
timelines (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered
reading because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the
new one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time
travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character
had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did
remember being killed. Also, it is not Laumer's _The Great Time Machine
Hoax_ (or _Dinosaur Beach_), Brunner's _Times Without Number_, one of
Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories (nor _Corridors of Time_), or
Asimov's _The End of Eternity_."

"Replay" by Ken Grimwood is vaguely along these lines but it was
published in 1998.
    https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X
"Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he
died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room;
he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again
-- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from
scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past
mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping
adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time,
Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?""

I've read 'Replay'.  He doesn't restart at 18 each time.  After each
death he restarts a bit older until at the end he is restarting seconds
before death, then fractions of a second.  When he reached the point of
restarting at or "after" death he got a final Replay to use all that he
had learned.  There was also a woman going thru the same thing that he
met during one of his replays and starting finding in each subsequent
run.  The epilogue was that once Winston and his partner stopped
Replaying another couple started the cycle.

If so, then somebody screwed up the marketing blurb. And I seem to
remember that he grew older each replay also (been a long time since I
read the book, it is in my reread list).

Dimensional's recollection is correct.
REPLAY, 12:01 PM, and the like offer a favored plot-line. Because such
stories sublimate "practice makes perfect." On the other hand, my wife
despises re-run stories for being too loopy.
# # #
On a different note, this part pertains to parallel worlds previously
posted by me to this thread. The snippet below played through my
earbuds during tonight's trek through the twilit trail on the mountain
side with my dog. (Predators abound so my wife's 38 is always strapped
to my side to scare them off if need be.)
suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that
case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just
the same way as what we call 'today'. All the days are
'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things
yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though
you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'foresee'
because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is
for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this
moment were any less free because God knows what you are
doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the
same way-because He is already in tomorrow and can simply
watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till
you have done it: but then the moment at which you have
done it is already 'Now' for Him.
BEYOND PERSONALITY: OR FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE
TRINITY by Lewis
The above brings to mind the multiverse mentioned in PR269 HUNT FOR THE
TIME AGENT.
<https://www-perrypedia-de.translate.goog/wiki/Jagd_auf_den_Zeitagenten?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_hist=true>
Danke,
--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

My EDC (every day carry) is either a S&W 5 shot chief's special .357
(very light for walkabout) or a Ruger GP100 7 shot .357. Both are
loaded with .38 +P JHP. .357 hurts my wrist tendonitis too much.

Lynn