Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on May 10, 2022 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
Someone in Time is the latest anthology edited by anthologist Jonathan Strahan, featuring a set of well known (and some less well known) authors, such as Alix E Harrow, Zen Cho, Seanan McGuire, Sarah Gailey, and more. Each story fits into a theme: stories involving some form of time travel and some form of romance - whether that be romance between to two individuals of two different time periods, of two different time travelers throughout time, or something wholly different.
As usual with any anthology, the quality of each story varies, especially here, where the stories try to tackle the theme from some very different approaches. But as with the usual Strahan anthology, and with the authors involved, there are some very memorable stories here that are worth your time if you enjoy SF/F romance.
Someone in Time features 16 short stories by 16 different authors. The authors and stories are as follows:
Roadside Attraction by Alix E. Harrow
The Past Life Reconstruction Service by Zen Cho
First Aid by Seanan McGuire
I Remember Satellites by Sarah Gailey
The Golden Hour by Jeffrey Ford
The Lichens by Nina Allan
Kronia by Elizabeth Hand
Bergamot and Vetiver by Lavanya Lakshminaryan
The Difference between Love and Time by Catherynne M. Valente
Unbashed, or: Jackson, Whose Cowardice Tore a Hole in the Chronoverse by Sam J. Miller
Romance: Historical by Rowan Coleman
The Place of All The Souls by Margo Lanagan
Timed Obsolescence by Sameem Siddiqui
A Letter to Merlin by Theodora Goss
Dead Poets by Carrie Vaughn
Time Gypsy by Ellen Klages
As mentioned above the jump, Someone in Time features stories that all invovle some form of travel through time and space - although sometimes not as literal as direct time travel. And sometimes the time travel is kind of peripheral to the rest of the story, despite it being the theme of the anthology. And the result does have a number of stories I didn't particularly love....but also a number I really really liked, that make this anthology easy to recommend.
So you have some really strong stories like:
Alix E Harrow's Roadside Attraction, featuring a man who keeps randomly jumping back in time looking for some destiny, even as he clearly begins falling for a man who is just right there at the time machine;
Zen Cho's The Past Life Reconstruction Service, which features a man jumping back into his past lives, only to find constantly there the spirit of the man he let break up with him there constantly, making him realize what he really lost;
Lavanya Lakshminaryan's Bergamot and Vetiver is a story from an author I hadn't read before but that I really liked, of a time traveler coming back to an ancient land searching for answers to save their future, only to fall in love and then realize their future is performing a devastating theft on their watch;
Ellen Klages' Time Gypsy is probably the most conventional of the stories, in which a person goes back in time to find their idol, a female professor who died in a mysterious accident and falls in love with them, but it is executed really well.
And well the other stories are pretty good too, such as Sam J Miller's story, which is itself a M-M take on a different short story published once online. But for my money, the best story and the most fascinatingly creative, is Catherynne M. Valente's The Difference between Love and Time, which features a girl in a relationship with.....the personification of the Space-Time Continuum itself. It's seriously great, and I absolutely loved it....and probably should remember it for Hugo Nomination next year.
Again not everything works and there were a few more stories than usual in anthologies I read here that pretty much didn't work for me, but the highs were delightful, and that makes it all worth it.
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