Review by D. D. Shade   —   February 20, 2001

In Replay Jeff Winston, a 43-year-old, dies of a heart attack and upon awakening finds himself back at college in 1963, in his 18-year-old body and having all the memories of the life he just exited. This is the beginning of a series of replays in which Jeff Winston lives his life over and over again. The span of the book is breath taking with untold twists and turns.

Ken Grimwood is a little known writer in the speculative fiction arena. To date he has written two genre novels: Replay(1986) and Into the Deep (1995). Grimwood is best known for Replay which has almost a cult following. In certain circles if you haven't read Replay you're out. I first read Ken Grimwood's Replay nearly eleven years ago (1990) and then again just recently for this review. And by the way, I'm still not part of that inner circle of elite readers.

I can honestly add Grimwood to my list of top writer's wherein I say, "If I only have one novel in me and it is as good as Replay, then I'll be satisfied." As Card said, writing for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (May, 1987), "Grimwood's style is clear, penetrating. He leads us through Jeff Winston's lives with great skill, never lingering too long with any one experience, never moving so rapidly that we cannot taste the flavor of each passage through the decades."

In 1990 I was caught up in the detail and unpredictability of each replay as well as the triumphs and tragedies of the characters. Jeff and Pamela are people with whom most of us can easily identify and each replay is so skillfully written that it places you smack into their shoes. My second reading of Replay has certainly been colored by having reached the ripe old age of almost fifty. I feel now, at least for me, that Replay is a mid-life crisis novel. Grimwood was 41 when he published Replay and forty has long been seen by Human Development scholars as the mile marker beginning the onset of mid-life crisis in men.

During my second reading I was reminded of the many times I have exclaimed that I should have gone into medicine or law instead of higher education. Surely the number of times approaches infinity. My most favorite lament is the one that says I should have majored in English and become a writer. There is, after all, more science fiction in me than fits with my chosen occupation. Which one of us at some point in our lives does not wonder if life would have been better if we had turned right when we turned left? If I had only married Debbie instead of Margaret! Tom instead of Jim! If I had just listened to the advice of my parents and gotten a college degree! If I had not hung with the boys in the hood! If I could start over knowing what I know now I'd do it all differently! I'd do it better!

A very wise friend of mine once told me that you cannot compare what you have/are with what might have been because reality can never compete with the idealized version we have of what might have been. The idealized alternate lifeline will always win. It took numerous replays for Jeff to learn this lesson.

By now you can guess that Replay is a novel about second chances. In each replay Jeff tries to live his life differently—to not make the same mistakes twice and to make a difference. Grimwood manages to cover all of the important highs and lows that life has to offer with each retelling of Jeff's life. He also gives us a good view of how empty and meaningless some lives are and what it takes to fill them out. Yes, true love is a central theme in Replay but so are all the other feelings that color the emotional spectrum of human life on this planet. I would love to go though and comment on the pictures that Grimwood paints of our society and the people trapped within. But then you, dear reader, would have no reason to hit the used bookstores and search till you find this gem.

Yet in spite of all the pain and anguish we go through as we follow Jeff through his search for an understanding of why he is replaying his life, the book has some important things to say to the reader.

First, life is full of endless happenings that we have little control over. We should live our lives with our eyes set upon the horizon and never look back; controlling those things we can and giving no second thought to those events out of our hands.

Second, given that we only have one life to live (Jeff is never sure he will replay again with each heart attack) we should live it to the fullest extent possible and with the least regret for our actions. Everybody makes mistakes; the point is not to dwell on them but to pick ourselves up and keep on going. Keep moving ahead.

Third, choices must be made—we cannot avoid them. The only failure is to live a life without risks. In fact, I believe Jeff Winston would advise risking everything for those you love and for the life you want for them and with them. To not experience risk is to fail.

And want does Replay have to say to a poor, old man like me who is still going though his mid-life crisis? Just this—that every year will be new. Every day a new chance to begin again. There can be no mid-life crisis when we are living each day to the fullest extent possible. From what Jeff Winston has taught me, I would define mid-life crisis as a period of selfishness when we turn inward and think only of ourselves. Jeff has inspired me to look outward toward others and think less of myself.

I can't recommend Replay by Ken Grimwood enough. It is one of the finest novels I've ever read and it will keep you turning pages. As David Pringle said (The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, 2nd Ed., 1995), "this is certainly one of the best 'timeslip' fantasies of recent years." Clute and Grant (The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, 1997) note a feature of Replay that is part of it's attention getting force. According to them, Replay is unique in that "each of the 'replays' effectively generates an alternate reality or alternate world yet they are sequential rather than parallel". Each replay is a unique story that could well stand on it's own. When I finished the book I knew I had read a speculative fiction classic and immediately began loaning used copies to all my friends. It is a testimony to Replay that most of my loaners failed to return having been passed on to others to read. Check the one you find, it may bear my name.

A word of caution: hurry and read the novel before the film version is released. I'd say you have at least one or two years. This much I know; Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts have been optioned to play the lead roles (I read it in Locus Magazine last month). Though I find them both to be excellent on the silver screen, I cannot see them in the roles of Jeff and Pamela. I realize, of course, that film negotiations may not be settled at this writing and that others may bring Jeff and Pamela to life, but Jeff and Pamela deserve to be seen first through the eyes of Ken Grimwood.

Replay by Ken Grimwood has won the following awards and honors that I am aware of:

1988 - World Fantasy Award
1988 - Arthur C. Clarke Award Nomination.

Replay has been included in the following recommended reading lists:

1988 - Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels
1988 - Locus Reader's Poll: Best Science Fiction Novel
1993 - Aurel Guillemette's The Best In Science Fiction
1995 - David Pringle's Ultimate Guide to Science fiction (2^nd. Ed.)

Replay is available from Amazon.com in a 1998 reprint of the 1987 first printing.

*From the cover of the 1992 third printing.

Ken Grimwood, author of "Replay" and many other fine works, died on June 6, 2003. May he enjoy his next replay again and again and again . . .

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