Time After Time (Alexander novel)

Time After Time
Author(s)	Karl Alexander
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction, time travel
Publication date	April 1979
Followed by	Jaclyn the Ripper

Time After Time is a 1979 science fiction novel by Karl Alexander. Its plot speculates what might have happened if H. G. Wells had built a real time machine to travel to the 1970s in search of Jack the Ripper.

The novel was adapted to film the same year, under the same title, by Alexander's friend Nicholas Meyer who had optioned the story after reading the early pages. Meyer wrote his screenplay as Alexander finished the novel and the two freely shared ideas for their respective iterations. The film stars Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells, David Warner as Jack the Ripper, and Mary Steenburgen as Amy Robbins - a 20th century bank teller with whom Wells becomes involved and whom the Ripper eventually targets as a victim.

Editions

• Delacorte Press, April 1979, ISBN 0-440-08900-X
• Dell, September 1979, ISBN 0-440-18804-0 (paperback)

A musical version of the novel has Book & Lyrics by Stephen Cole and Music by Jeffrey Saver. In Nov. 2007 it had its first reading as part of the American Musical Theatre Project at Northwestern University in Illinois. There is also a CD with several of the songs for sale.

Plot

The novel alternates perspectives between H.G. Wells and a character initially identified only as "Stevenson." In the first chapter, Stevenson copulates with a prostitute in a 19th century London alley and then murders her. In the next chapter, Wells is introduced showing off his brand new time machine to a group of men including Stevenson. When police arrive to announce that they have identified Jack the Ripper as Stevenson, Stevenson uses the time machine to escape, and Wells follows him. Wells finds himself in the future and befriends a young bank teller named Amy Robbins. Robbins is unaware of Wells's identity and 19th century provenance and believes him to be just a quirky old-fashioned gentleman. As Stevenson murders several women, Wells pursues him while hampered by a love affair with Robbins, to whom he does not dare tell the truth. When Wells is finally forced to confess to Robbins who he is and what he is really doing, she terminates their relationship. But Stevenson targets her next, and Wells rescues her and incapacitates Stevenson in a dramatic climax.

Sequel

In November 2009 Alexander released a sequel to the story. Jaclyn the Ripper sees Amy travel to 2010 to discover that Jack the Ripper has been freed from prison and transformed into a girl named Jaclyn. H.G. and Amy must navigate the new millennium with the killer on their trail.