The illustrated novel “From Time to Time” by Jack Finney was published for the first time in 1995. It’s the sequel to “Time and Again“.
Simon “Si” Morley decided to stay in 1882 after his journey through time and married Julia. However, after some time he feels the need to return to his original time to see what happened to the time travel government project. There he gets involved in a mission very different from the original one.
John McNaughton kept the memories of the project after Si Morley’s interference because he’s a time traveler as well. Back to his time, he finds out what happened and can intervene to restore the old timeline. Interfering in history becomes a new foundation in the project and when Si Morley returns to the 20th century, he’s proposed to try to prevent the outbreak of World War I.
Si Morley was trained to be very cautious when he’s in the past but at the end of “Time and Again” he willfully interfered with an event he knew. The beginning of “From Time to Time” tells the consequences of that decision, that lead to another time traveler’s intervention and an influence on the government project.
The interference in past events was a plot twist in “Time and Again”, instead it becomes one of the bases in “From Time to Time”. Major Ruben Prien, who took over the project’s direction, wants to try to heavily modify the timeline preventing the outbreak of World War I.
This idea puts Ruben Prien in contrast to Dr. Danziger, the original project’s director. The return of Si Morley to his time of origin offers a unique opportunity to make a huge change to the 20th century history. However, for a single man to be able to change the timeline in that way he must be able to operate on a key moment in history.
The consequence is that this time Si Morley goes back in time to identify a mysterious agent of the US President William Howard Taft. He’s indicated only as “Z” in the available papers, at one point he disappeared but according to Ruben Prien if he could’ve continued his diplomatic work he could’ve convinced the European nations to avoid the war.
I do not know if this premise makes sense, meaning I don’t know if for a time traveler it would really be easier to identify an American government agent he doesn’t even know the name and save him rather than trying to prevent Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. Let’s say that I just accept it.
For Si Morley the new time travel – this time to 1911 – also becomes an investigation to discover the identity of Z. This makes the development of “From Time to Time” very different from that of “Time and Again” and yet Jack Finney uses a very similar style, which includes not only detailed descriptions but also illustrations of the time.
I think this choice keeps a continuity with the first novel but ends up creating a sort of hybrid. In essence, “Time and Again” was an immersion in the past when the reader ideally traveled in time along with the protagonist but in “From Time to Time” this element is mixed with a more complex plot which incidentally isn’t set only in one city.
In this sequel the reader is led to try to focus at the same time on the settings and the storyline and this becomes a problem. Si Morley’s journey makes it impossible to get immersed in the past as in the first novel and the complexity of a plot based on changes to the timeline requires some attention.
Even the protagonist seems to somehow suffer for the development of “From Time to Time”. In particular, he leaves his wife Julia with the precise idea of keeping her always in his heart and go back to her at the end of his mission but soon gets captivated by a girl he meets in his new mission who hides some secrets.
For these reasons, in my opinion “From Time to Time” can’t be at the same level as “Time and Again” and left me mixed feelings. Only in some parts I felt the sense of immersion I had reading the first novel and I haven’t found the plot good enough to compensate for that problem. In the end, it seems a novel that may be of interest to Jack Finney’s fans.
