ANYWHEN

In Duke’s SF novel, a 30-something woman from the 22nd century time-travels to experience Woodstock and visit a famous ancestor.

Joan Baez Smith, nicknamed “Baezy” (“rhymes with daisy”), is very excited about her upcoming birthday present. Her physicist mother has used her connections to allow her to pass through a Time Insertion Protocol portal to go back to Bethel, New York, in 1969 to see the famed Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Not only will Baezy get to see Joan Baez perform, but she’ll also get to meet her distant relative, Kelly Jean Adams, whose mathematical genius set the world on the path to the future utopia in which Baezy lives. In a flash, Baezy travels from December 13, 2101, to August 15th, 1969, falling right into the path of Jack Warren, the best friend of Baezy’s great-great-great-grandmother. She meets Kelly’s traveling group and introduces herself as Sarah Sandoval, an alias that the Time Insertion Protocol employees found for her. As Sarah, Baezy gets to enjoy the music of Woodstock, the food of the time period, and the kindness of strangers brought together by the one-of-a-kind event. However, she didn’t expect that she wouldn’t get along with her ancestor, and that she’d find herself falling in love with Jack. In this offbeat time-travel novel, readers and music lovers alike will delight in the Woodstock-set scenes, as well as all the references to famous musicians who played there, including Baezy’s namesake: “Sarah jumped to her feet when Joan began belting the chorus, her voice washing over the crowd clear and strong.” Overall, this book is both a nostalgic and occasionally critical ode to the 1969 music scene and an SF novel about a futuristic society altering the flow of the past, and it manages to weave the two elements together in an entertaining way. The specific focus on the Woodstock music festival gives this novel a unique spin that genre aficionados are likely to enjoy.

An unusual time-hopping tale which will appeal to SF and music fans alike.