Where or When

In the near future, as eco-disaster and political repression take their devastating toll on the human race, the past seems like an ideal destination, quieter, more hopeful, known. In response, a few individuals develop an ability to travel in time: first, simply to cast their consciousnesses back, passively sharing the experiences and sensations of people and creatures long dead; then, actively to usurp the bodies of our ancestors, and, ultimately, to venture into history physically, standing in their own right on the streets of Elizabethan London or Pompeii. But human nature being what it is, madness, jealousy, and fear accompany the time travellers wherever they go; and as history is inflexible, subject to no alteration or redirection, the past is no utopia anyway. Highly imaginative and powerfully bleak, Where or When is Steven Utley's mosaic vision of time travel as a crucible of the human soul. Visit ancient cities or modern battlefields, and you begin to understand history and yourself; whether liberating or imprisoning, satirical or hopeful, the resulting insights are cogent indeed. The fourteen chrononautic pilgrimages - two written especially for this collection - in Where or When include: 'Time and Hagakure': in the present, a desperate effort is made to avert the death of a Japanese pilot many decades ago, at the climax of World War II. 'Living It': a woman in Confederate Richmond discovers she is host to an enquiring mind from far off in time. 'The Here and Now': compassion is a scarce commodity as Hitler's Berlin falls to the rampaging Red Army. 'The Maw': Jack the Ripper encounters the spirit of one of his successors in murder. 'One Kansas Night': an old man, filled with nostalgia, returns to the small town of his interrupted childhood, but his guide is distinctly cynical. 'The Glowing Cloud': as a French Caribbean colony is overwhelmed by a massive volcanic eruption, three people from the future find themselves locked in a deadly personal quarrel.