I just happened upon this short story from a Facebook link posted by one of my long time Internet friends. Books and movies about time travel pique my interest and as seems to be the theme for me this winter season, everything I've been reading involves time travel. Plus the short story, The Minute by Aaron Dietz, was just 99 cents on Amazon.com.
I was drawn into the story within the first few pages. The idea that physically time travel is impossible, but that science had discovered a way to send our consciousness back to a specific point in time was intriguing. And to have a limit of one minute on your time travel experience, which one minute would you choose to relive? And honestly, what could go wrong in the that one minute?
The story went by quickly. The one minute time travel experience placed a restriction on the development of the characters and their ingenuity to break the cycle of an experiment gone wrong. Now I know this is just a short story (75 pages or so), but in the last month or so, I did read another short story that had great character development and a driving plot.
Overall, The Minute didn't live up to my expectations. I didn't feel a connection to the characters. Once the obstacle was presented, the solution was obvious and because the interactions between the characters and their surroundings was limited, everything just felt rote. The Minute, unfortunately, gets a thumbs down.
