F. Anstey 2 hr 21 min read

A dull, respectable Victorian gentleman finds he can 'bank' the idle hours of a sea voyage and cash them in later, a scheme that tangles him in a hopeless muddle of overlapping flirtations and times.

F. Anstey's 1885 novel is a delightful comic time-travel fantasy. Witty, ingenious, charming. Read it for a foundational and very funny scientific-comedy from the author of Vice Versa, a whimsical conceit of time deposited and withdrawn like money, whose complications anticipate a century of time-travel farce, in polished, tongue-in-cheek Victorian style.

In its time

Published in 1986, during the 1980s, cyberpunk arrives.

Reading it

2 hr 21 min read (a novella, a full arc in one sitting or two).