3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years

Part of a six-volume series gathered by Amazon called The Time Travelers Passport

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This is the first story I’ve read where the time traveling actually makes sense.

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“Information” here is the time travel term of art for anything sent back through time: humans, drones, probes, cameras, gases and small particles from our atmosphere, photons from light, anything and everything down to the level of quantum entanglement. The minute any of that arrives in a past moment, from our perspective a new branch of reality is created, and everything that proceeds from that moment will be different from, and have no effect on, what we consider our own time. The butterfly effect is correct, but the butterfly is in another reality entirely.

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For most of this short story, we’re given information about the way the company handles clients’ requests, how the machine works, and we’re regaled with some experiences of some of the clientele. All very interesting.

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So many clients go back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy; very few manage to prevent it and a not-insignificant number of them find themselves arrested on suspicion of conspiring to kill the president instead. The ones who go back to kill Hitler, whether as an infant or in his artist days in Vienna, frequently forget that in the eyes of those alive at the time, they are not the savior of history, merely a baby killer or a common murderer, and spend most of their historical sojourn in custody or fleeing from it.

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A good way into the story, we learn that the technician, who is also the narrator, is not who he seems to be and that humanity is at the tipping point.

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The writing is excellent. There aren’t many authors besides John Scalzi who can write a story that is metaphysical, psychological, humorous, and intellectually-compelling all at the same time. This is fantastic.

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