Ok, I'm now going to listen to Bridge of Years, which I read in 1991 or so when it first came out. I appreciate that a piece of the story is always about a relationship-which is NEVER something stupid like insta-love and uses none of the horrible romance tropes. He's always thinking deeply about something in his writing (technology, social issues, psychological issues, etc.) and then builds a story around it. It has his usual melancholy tone, characters fully developed, plot about more than action/adventure-though there is always that. Some of his books I like and some I love, but he's about the only author (in any genre) who I can count on to at least deliver a book I enjoy, and when you read/listen to about 300 books a year, this is a pretty big deal. It's a pity his earlier books aren't on audio. I discovered Robert Charles Wilson some 25 years ago and have read all his books-I started with Memory Wire (loved it). He's fallen in love with a woman from our time, and he means to follow her back - no matter whose secrets he has to expose in order to do it. And he knows the passageway will be closing soon. But like all such operations, it has a shelf life as the 'natives' become more sophisticated, their version of the 'past' grows less attractive as a destination. A small city has grown up around it to entertain visitors from our time, and many locals earn a good living catering to them. It's been in operation for most of a decade, but it's no secret on either side of time. After a passageway is open, it's the only road to that particular past once closed, it can't be reopened.Ī passageway has been opened to a version of late 19th-century Ohio. And a given 'past' can be reached only once. Each 'past' is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson's Last Year, the technology exists to open doorways into the past - but not our past, not exactly.

Second, he saved the life of President Ulysses S. First, he lost a pair of Oakley sunglasses. Two events made September first a memorable day for Jesse Cullum.

Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson