Replay

By: Ken Grimwood

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

In 1988, 43-year-old Jeff Winston died of a heart attack. But then he awoke, and it was 1963; Jeff was 18 all over again, his memory of the next two decades intact. This time around, Jeff would gain all the power and wealth he never had before. This time around he'd know how to do it right. Until next time.

©1998 Ken Grimwood (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

World Fantasy Award, Best Novel, 1988

May have been a different experience with another narrator

I have never written a review before but just had to give a warning about the narration. Be sure you listen to a sample. I almost didn’t make it through this book solely because of the inflection the narrator used.

A very 1980s story

It was mostly enjoyable and the end didn't suck . Could have done with fewer sex scenes though.

Exactly My Kind of Book

I loved it. I wish I could find more like this. It has all kinds of cool stuff like time travel, gambling, sex, drugs and love & death. You really get to know the characters and I didn't want the book to end. One of the top 10 in my collection.

A VERY GOOD TIME TRAVEL BOOM

From the beginning to the end, this held my attention & was very interesting Audiobook.

Good story, a bit long.

Sometimes the story felt a bit slow. Narration was good. Overall a good, thought provoking story.

once you start

it's a story I could not stop from playing. A universally understood question we have asked ourselves, here at least we can hear such a question play out.

Groundhog's Day, It's Not!

Groundhog’s Day was a fun movie where the character wakes up to the same day…day after day after day. According to what I’ve read, this book was the inspiration for the movie. Both the movie and the book are about reliving the past but that’s where the similarities end.

Instead of living one day over and over, try living 25 years over each time. What would you change? Or would you live each life in the same style every time? You have many choices of how to live out those years by making lots of money (since you already know the future), becoming a recluse and getting away from it all, living it somewhere in the middle as a family man, etc.

Then come the moral questions of whether you try to do good for others leading them away from bad choices, disasters or even helping your country to avoid major conflict. But how much information is too much to give? Would you try saving President Kennedy? Every life is a new life. What would you choose to do knowing the future history? Or will it be the same future history when you tell others of upcoming events?

I had trouble laying the book aside. Enjoy the listen!

Entertaining and more than worth the price!!

In 1987 I read the paperback copy of REPLAY and just couldn't put it down ... in fact I enjoyed it so much that I read it a second time while going the beach! It's just one of those books, a great concept and good all-round story. Just the other day I ran across this same title on audio here - downloading it immediately I might add - and was NOT dissapointed, it was indeed worth the asking price, if not more. Well written AND well read in my humble opinion. While some of the more jaded 'upper-crust' listeners may knock the story, writing and/or plot, take it from someone who reads a LOT of books and has a MASSIVE audio book collection, REPLAY is one of the gems. Listening to this was like having an experienced someone read me the book! The story will give you pause for thought and, if nothing else, take you away for 11.5 hours or so. I stay a member of audible.com for diamonds such as this title!
Now if we can just get some John DeChancie titles in here ... the Starrigger saga - hint, hint ... or H. Beam Piper's 'Little Fuzzies' trillogy ... !!

Groundhog Life

What if you could go back in time and relive the prime years of your life, with all your memories and knowledge about the world to come intact? For Jeff Winston, a reporter stuck in a lifeless marriage, this classic fantasy comes true when he dies of a heart attack at age 43 in 1988 and awakens in 1963, a college freshman again. Once he gets his bearings, he does what many might do in the same situation: he gets filthy rich making sure bets and lives an entirely different life. Then, at age 43, he dies again, and the cycle restarts. Over the next several quarter-century sequences, Jeff tries different paths, such as marrying his college sweetheart, the sex and drug craze of the late 60’s, and living alone on a farm. Yet, each time through, it gets harder for him to know what choices are meaningful in a world that will just reset itself.

It probably wouldn't have occurred to me to read this novel if it hadn't been on sale at audible, given how dated it sounded. But, I'm glad I did. I found Replay to be an intelligent but accessible read, and the datedness wasn't an issue. If you're an American over age 25, the cultural and historical references are long-lived enough that you'll get most of them. Grimwood uses his premise cleverly. In some lives, Jeff tries to get to the bottom of his predicament, only to have things go awry because of some issue he hadn't considered. Other times, he simply tries to live, exploring different versions of relationships with people he had known before. I won't spoil the major twist that happens around the midway point of the novel, but it adds another dimension to his experiences, creating new hope, but also new pain.

As the novel progresses, Grimwood turns up the dramatic tension by having each new reincarnation go back less far into the past than the previous one did. What will happen when Jeff’s "rebirth" date catches up with his death date? What can he accomplish with the briefer and briefer time windows he has? I wouldn't call the writing complex, but the questions behind the story are poignant ones. What gives this kind of life meaning? Or any life? Can we ever achieve our full potential in any one branch? Is there some true core to each of us amid all the possibilities of what might have been? Could we love the same people again, if we met them as strangers? Or as lovers who had disappointed us? Or both?

I won't give away the bittersweet conclusion, in which Jeff's cycle finally reaches its end, but it’s a thoughtful meditation on the necessary balance between control and acceptance. Ironically, there's an epilogue in which another character makes the jump from the mid-2010s to 1988. How abstractly in the future our time must have seemed to Mr. Grimwood when he wrote the novel!

In sum, this is a book I could easily recommend to most adult readers. It’s not difficult, and the basic human themes still hold up well. Audio narrator William Dufris doesn’t have a wide range, but I found his voice pleasant.

Totally Awesome Concept!!!!

Iv'e been using audible for a few years now! As if it were a drug for me; It is an addiction that has probably been more expensive than a cheap drug habit would have been. As such, I know a good book when I listen, and this is one of the best sci-fi books that I have listened to yet. It is a totally addicting novel, and it is a fantasy that every one at one point or another has had. I won't say much more because I don't want to spoil the plot. Equally, I didn't know what to expect from it when I bought it, but I was totally suprised by how great the book was. Over the last few years Audible.com has gotten so many great science fiction books on the market that it is hard to keep up with what is the latest and greatest; all I can say is don't miss this book. I have listened to ten or so sci-fi books in the last couple of months and I haven't written any reviews, but for this particular book I don't think any one should miss out on having this one pointed out and recomended from the pack.