In 2002, Charlie Moment is a fortysomething professor going through a difficult divorce. While listening to an audiobook in his car, a collision with a truck launches him out of the vehicle and into the year 1968. Now he's 16 but fully aware of who he was as an adult. Moving through the next few days he begins to believe he's been given some kind of second chance. So why not use it to his benefit? Taking what he knows about the future, Moment becomes a screenwriter, working his way into the lives of Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. However, as he comes of age this time around, he notices there are others moving through the world, altering it for their own use, including Albert Einstein, Robert Heinlein, and Casanova. He decides to make a change that will benefit others: to save a life that would otherwise be lost in 1968. VERDICT With a clever, twisting plot, this sequel to Timescape presents a smart sf tale of second chances. Benford takes on time travel using his own experience in physics, linking intriguing characters together through an important time in American history.—Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Physicist Benford returns to the science of time travel first charted in his 1992 novel Timescape (coauthored by Hilary Benford) with this sometimes puerile but otherwise accessible look at specialized scientific theories and the emotional and moral quandaries they create for humanity. It's 2002, and disillusioned history professor Charlie Moment has apparently died in a car accident. To his shock, Charlie awakens in 1968 with his memories and intellect intact in his 16-year-old body. Eager to rewrite his life, Charlie becomes a screenwriter. An encounter with Philip K. Dick shows him he is a "reincarnate," one of a group that includes Casanova and Einstein. They die and reappear in order to redirect history. Though desperate to correct the future, Charlie finds himself pursued through time by an all-too-familiar villain from his first past. Benford's blend of hard science, pop culture, and character study is entertaining, but the hypersexualization and commodification of women throughout the book, coupled with Charlie's own misogynistic outlook, make the story as a whole feel dated and disappointingly immature. (Nov.)