Book Review: Bid Time Return

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Part of my quest to read all of the World Fantasy Award novel winners. This book won in 1976.

The last book I read by Mr. Matheson was I Am Legend, way back in 2015. Loved it. Quick, precise prose. Just enough description to let your imagination work on what you would see. A clean, character-driven story that I recommend to just about anyone.

Bid Time Return is something very different.

It’s an almost stream of consciousness (presented as transcriptions from an old Dictaphone) trip through the last few months of a scriptwriter dying of inoperable, incurable cancer. He randomly stops at an aging luxury hotel, falls in love with the picture of an actress, and then hypnotizes himself into going back in time to meet her so she falls in love with him.

So, stream of consciousness, the main character falling in love with someone he’s never met, time travel by force of will. I’m surprised I made it as far into the book as I did.

Overall rating: 1 star. I seem to be really racking up the DNFs this year. That’s three so far and not even the end of March.

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