J. L. Pattison

I've very much enjoyed the author's work in the past because of the Twlight Zone-esque twists and turns that are woven into the stories. For me, this collection of short stories did not recapture the magic of what I've read in the past from this author. We're living in a period where there are very wide gaps in socio-political ideologies. Many of these stories touched upon some of the topics that has us divided as a nation in this post-pandemic era. Science fiction traditionally touches upon the prevailing societal issues of the time but, for me, this collection got a little heavy-handed with the political messages and lost some of the psychological magic of the author's previous works.… (altro)

I don’t remember what I was expecting from this book, but I definitely wasn't disappointed! J.L. Pattison is a skilled writer with plenty of creativity and knowledge and his stories make you think deep while you’re reading them and stick around even after you’ve finished the last page.

Basically, Saving Kennedy consists of two novellas, the first being Alibi Interrupted and the second being The Visitor. (I love the titles because before you’ve read them, they give nothing away about the story, but after you’ve read them, you realize that each title is very straightforward and describes the story exactly!)

Usually I don’t try to summarize the story in my reviews but I think Saving Kennedy is going to be an exception just because it might be a little confusing trying to get what each part of the book is about from the outside for someone who hasn’t read the book yet and because I know it would be very hard to talk about the book without the person reading my review knowing the general plot and storyline.

WARNING: If you don’t want to know too much about the story so you can save it all for when you read it yourself, then maybe don’t read past this point. I don’t spoil any of the endings but there are some potential spoilers up ahead.

Okay, so basically, part one of Alibi Interrupted was about a man named Stewart who lived a decade or two after our current year. Stewart had a mission to test out a time machine and go back into the past to try and stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing President John F. Kennedy. The thing is, Oswald is actually not who he seems and Stewart’s plan doesn’t go as… planned. Things get even worse when he tries to return back to the future and realizes that his recall module doesn’t work anymore so he’s stuck in the past.

Part two of Alibi Interrupted is from the point of view of Stewart’s granddaughter in-law, Stacy. This takes place decades after Stewart’s wonky mission kinda crashed and burned and he had to make a living for himself in 1963. He got a job for himself and eventually married and had children and grandchildren all the while still being stuck in the “past” and Stacy married one of them. Stacy knows about her grandfather in-law (Stewart) and his botched attempt at changing history so this part is about her trying to warn a young Stewart of his mistakes before he goes back in time so that he can actually succeed in his mission. Stacy was a bit impulsive about this, though, and it doesn’t go like she wanted to at all and the reader is left wondering whether it would’ve been better had she not tried to blabber to Stewart or if she did do the right thing after all. (Super cool, huh?) The beginning of this part of the story was a bit confusing because it just randomly skipped a whole bunch of years and changed POVs without any warning. It wasn't too bad but it took me like the entire story to figure out that Stacy is old now in this part of the story (she has children in college now and white hair versus in the first part of the story when she was still a young woman). So I think the author could have done better with making the time a bit more clear since this is a time-travel book anyway so that’s obviously an important element, but it was just a little thing.

The second short story included is called The Visitor and this one is about a farmer from 1899 who encounters a flustered time-traveler in his corn field. The time traveler was probably from the 21st century (but a few decades after our present day) and he was trying to get back in time to the time of the beginning of the United States to warn the Founding Fathers about the horrible moral decline America (and the world) was going to have. I thought this part of the story didn’t make too much sense because even if Washington and everyone else knew about World War Two and Kennedy’s assassination and such, what would they do about it? What COULD they even do about it? Would they even believe the time traveler? We don’t ever get to know what was in that time-traveler’s head, but he told the farmer about it all, then disappeared just as abruptly as he had reappeared (most likely back into the future). A whole bunch of years pass and the farmer ends up telling a young and ambitious journalist by the name of Theodore Garfield (the main character of this story) about the events that the time-traveler had relayed to him. The two world wars have already occurred, just like the time traveler said they would, and the next event that’s supposed to happen is… yep, you guessed it! JFK is supposed to be assassinated in the next two decades and the old farmer begs Theodore to try to do something to stop it but the young man scoffs and doesn’t believe him at all. Seventeen years pass and Theodore falls ill to a horribly deadly cancer. In the hospital, he realizes that all that time he spent trying to climb the corporate ladder was for nothing. He was going to die very soon and he’d used up all his time and energy grasping for recognition. This part of the story was pretty chilling, realizing that I myself have been taking time for granted just like Theodore did and that I don’t ever want to regret what I’ve done with my time the way he regretted it. In desperation, Theodore finally tells a visiting co-worker about the farmer and the time-traveler and what he said the future was going to hold. Theodore tells the coworker that JFK will be assassinated soon but the co-worker doesn’t believe him. The ending made me shiver in the same way Orwell’s 1984 did. Both stories were very thought-provoking and challenged the very ideals that we live in today.

There’s lots to talk about with Saving Kennedy and I’ve already done quite a bit of that already and I’m sure you will too once you read this book! The author has packed lots and lots of cool stuff to muse over in less than a hundred pages and I would definitely recommend this book to curious readers. I’d love to read more of Pattison’s books in the future as well.

Many thanks to the author for the free review copy! I am beyond grateful. Please note that all opinions expressed are completely my own and I was not required to provide a positive review ☺️… (altro)

4.5 Stars!

The Visitor is well written and engaged me right from the beginning. Though short, the story was not at all rushed and it moved along at a nice, steady pace. The premise is interesting and I enjoyed how each character progressed from nonbeliever to believer in what the visitor had to say about the future of the USA. You could definitely relate to their initial skepticism, and you could really feel their anger as they came to believe in the information they received.

Enjoyable reading, and I look forward to more from the author.





… (altro)