Not only was I a budding sci-fi geek and a hopeless romantic, but I also idolized Richard Matheson as the writer I most wanted to be like. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, if you were to ask me what my favorite novel of all time was, I would probably have told you Somewhere in Time (a.k.a. The story is one to enjoy, but – on this occasion – not in book but film.Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson - Sci-Fi Classic Review

Christopher Reeve gives a clean and innocent charm to Richard where the book version is needy and borderline-creepy, and Jane Seymour gives a vivacity to Elise, who in the book is a perfect doll, the female wish-fulfilment of Richard (Collier or Matheson?) The film also recognises it's a piece of light entertainment, and can be considered a hidden gem, whereas the book is overburdened by the needless prose weight and romantic syrup that Matheson ladles on top. It is in these flaws that the film adaptation from 1980 proves itself superior. The characters begin to test our patience and the prose style is like wading through mush: every thought, act and setting is explained in detail, forcing the reader to scan and self-edit to avoid becoming drained. It's a decent concept (star-crossed lovers even time can't keep them apart) but the execution is cloying and overblown. It's romantic in a Mills-and-Boon-ish sort of way, with all the obvious limitations that implies. When the protagonist, Richard Collier, actually achieves this, there begins a sickly sentimental romance between him and the actress, Elise McKenna.

The book is more romantic fantasy than science-fiction: the method of time-travel is not a machine or a rift in spacetime but the rather flimsy concept of self-hypnosis. Originally published as Bid Time Return, the novel tells the story of a modern man (or 1971 – around the time Matheson wrote the book) who becomes infatuated with a photograph of a beautiful actress from the 1890s, to such an extent that he decides to travel back in time to be with her. Richard Matheson has delivered thought-provoking modern fables in I Am Legend and in episodes of The Twilight Zone, but Somewhere in Time is rather frivolous. A fun but disposable time-travel adventure from an author whose pen has been better deployed elsewhere.

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