Book Review: Time Travelers, Ghosts, and Other Visitors

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Time Travelers, Ghosts, and Other Visitors     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Class/Genre:   Science Fiction   Fantasy   Time Travel   [Short Stories]
Five Star, May 2003, $25.95, 212 pp.

This fantasy anthology consists of eight delightful but strange short stories and one superb novella all written in the last decade. Each tale consists of an individual(s) whose frailties and desires (in some cases these are the frailties) lead to wrong turns in worlds that seem like our own yet feel different. The novella, "Haunted Humans", is a powerful story that will shake the souls of readers. Ghosts and humans argue, fuss, and fight often inside someone's head at the Mental Healing Center to keep Dorothy Jean safe from Chase, who may be residing inside a patient's head.

The stories feel absolutely weird as if Rod Serling visited a not quite normal earth that at first glance seems like ours, but overlaid in a fantasy environs. All nine contributions will delight the audience, but no doubt the novella is the stand out that will send readers seeking Nina Kiriki Hoffman's novels (see PAST THE SIZE OF DREAMING and FISTFUL OF SKY).

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner

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