This collection received a starred review in Booklist and since I'm always a sucker for time travel stories, I added it to The List. Overall, I'd rate the collection as ok but I won't be seeking out any more of Silverberg's writing. His writing is definitely of a certain school of sci fi of which I'm not always a big fan. I was also a bit annoyed that in the entire collection not a single story featured a female protagonist and many of the female characters who do crop up are pretty flat. ( )

I have to admit, time travel is not my favorite story theme, in fact, it usually ends up annoying the bejeezus out of me because it's so easy to “cheat” and just handwave away conflicts and problems with timey wimey stuff.
Which makes it odd that I requested this as an early review book, but I did so on purpose, I was curious how I would like time travel stories written but such an experienced author.

And the end results are mostly mixed. I find all short story collections tend to work that way though. One or two stories I really liked, there was only one I pretty much hated and had to push myself to finish, though I felt that was more his technique and not the theme.

I am not going to review each story but I will say that Homefaring was my favorite, it was an interesting take on something that could easily have become cheesy and cheap and instead engaged me so much I didn't want it to end.

My least favorite was Breckenridge And The Continuum, his use of myths and storytelling within the story just pissed me off and I skimmed through most of his characters storytelling sections. I'm not even sure what he was saying with this one or if the main character was just insane vs. actually traveling through time.

I did find some of the stories kind of old-fashioned, writing styles have changed so much that not all of the stories have aged well, but besides the one story I really hated I found them all interesting to read and I loved the variety of different takes he had on time travel.

If you find older writing styles hard to read this might not be for you but it is a solid collection that challenged my views on time travel as a sub-genre. ( )

Time and Time Again is an anthology of sixteen time-travel short stories by Robert Silverberg. That is a completely true statement that fails to capture the vastness of this book at all. Silverberg is a prolific science-fiction writer known for his fascination with time travel, so a collection of his short stories makes perfect sense. He writes short introductions to the stories that put them in the context of his life and writing career, including his work with editors and publishers. The stories go forward and backward in time and do so with far more nerve and imagination than we could imagine.

After all, what if we could travel in time, not bodily, but by projecting our psyche, and we showed up in the body of a lobster? Or what if we figured out how to send incorrigible prisoners back so far in the past we don’t have to worry about them killing a butterfly? What if someone left the house one day on his usual commute and drove back in time without even trying? What would you do if your daily paper arrived a week early?

While I enjoy some science fiction, I am only familiar with a few authors and Silverberg was new to me. Now I feel like I have found a huge trove of what will surely be great books. I like his writing, it’s active and disciplined. He can create a scene quickly, situate you in time and place and create suspense and tension with such ease that he makes it all look easy. His imagination is wild and uninhibited. There’s a humanity that suffuses his writing and makes his characters real and credible, even ones that are completely out of our experience.

I enjoyed this book and savored it, reading just one story at a time so I could save their individual creativity. Each scenario was so new and fresh that I did not want them to run together. If you like science fiction at all, I am certain you will love Time and Time Again.

I received a copy of Time and Time Again from the publisher through LibraryThing.

Time and Time Again at Three Rooms Press
Robert Silverberg author site

★★★★★
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/11/21/9781941110720/ ( )

Proof that Silverberg was one of the masters of the time travel story. Many of his better and lesser known stories are included. ( )

A mind-bending collection of time travel gems from across the entire career of award winning science fiction master Robert Silverberg. As an author he finds fresh takes on expected tropes of time travel stories, yet as a master of the craft he expands the possibilities of the type of story that can be told going far beyond our expectations. A great volume of stories from a marvelous and timeless career. ( )