HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"Time Enough" (alternate title: "Enough Time") is a
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
short story by American writer
Damon Knight Damon Francis Knight (September 19, 1922 – April 15, 2002) was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He is the author of " To Serve Man", a 1950 short story adapted for ''The Twilight Zone''.Stanyard, ''Dimensions Behind t ...
. It first appeared in the July 1960 issue of '' Amazing'' magazine and has since been reprinted twice, in '' Far Out'' (1961) and ''The Best of Damon Knight'' (1976).


Synopsis

A psychiatrist of the future (1978) treats a young man, using a machine that causes him to relive an embarrassing incident from his childhood. The psychiatrist describes the treatment as follows:
"The past can be altered. The scholar can take his exam over again, the lover can propose once more, the words that were thought of too late can be spoken...It's like a game of cards. If you don't like the hand that is dealt to you, you can take another, and after that, another..."
At the end of the story, having failed once again to resolve the childhood incident in a satisfactory way, the client leaves, with the words, "There's always tomorrow, isn't there?"


Background

About this story, Knight wrote Knight, Damon (1976),
The Best of Damon Knight
', Nelson Doubleday, New York
During an unproductive session at the typewriter in 1959, I said the hell with it and decided to go and lie down. While horizontal, with the dorsal muscles relaxed, I got the idea for "Time Enough," thus establishing a principle that I have followed successfully ever since: when you're not writing, get away from the typewriter.


References


External links

* {{isfdb title, 57080 1960 short stories Science fiction short stories Works originally published in Amazing Stories Short stories by Damon Knight