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eBook Category: Science Fiction Hugo Award Nominee, Nebula Award(R) Preliminary Ballot Nominee
eBook Description: A 21st-century time traveller visits 1904 New York City to document the tragedy of the General Slocum. But he finds it hard to maintain professional detachment....

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 2004
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2005

582 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [437 KB], eReader (PDB) [65 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [55 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [50 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [102 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [118 KB], hiebook (KML) [142 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [80 KB], iSilo (PDB) [45 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [57 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [85 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [79 KB]
Words: 16843
Reading time: 48-67 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"The issue opens with Michael A. Burstein's time travel novella "Time Ablaze." It is 1904, and Adele Weber and her mother, members of the "Little Germany" community of New York City, take in a man named Lucas Schmidt as a boarder. He claims to be a reporter for the New York World, and Adele and her mother see him as a potential match for Adele. When Adele goes to visit Lucas at work one day, however, she finds there is no record of him at any New York newspaper. Upon snooping in his room, she finds what seems an impossible book: a history of the disastrous fire upon the steamboat General Slocum that killed over a thousand people, published in 2003. The General Slocum is the very steamboat upon which Little Germany will be taking its annual excursion down the river, and Lucas (who is, I think I can say without giving anything away, from the 21st century) has come to record as much about it as possible, in order to preserve the memory of this nearly-forgotten tragedy. He has not come to prevent the disaster, which is, of course, what Adele wants. The conflict between Adele's urge to save her family and friends and Lucas's need to preserve history is what drives the story, but it is generally muted, giving the story a quietly pensive tone that works well with the historical setting. Burstein makes good use of the possibilities of time travel to dramatize the clash between two equally valid desires, a dramatization that would not be possible without time travel. This is a moving, delicately told story."--Chris Markwyn, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)

Adele Weber dreamed of fire and water.

In her dream, she stood on a wooden raft, which simultaneously also existed as a tenement building and a wooden maze. The fire chased her as she ran from one side of the raft to the other. The fire spat smoke at her, so she leaned out of window after window for a gasp of fresh air. The fire threw intense heat at her, so she ran through corridor after corridor, searching for cooler air.

The fire chased her, and so Adele rushed to the edge of the raft, to the front door of the building, to the end of the maze. But no freedom could be found there, because of the water. A sparkling clear blue, it surrounded her on all sides. But it never touched the fire, never even approached close enough to put the fire out. It served as a barrier, trapping her, taunting her. She knew she should remove her dress, undergarments, and stockings and dive into the water, anything to get away from the flames, but modesty and her inability to swim prevented her.

Suddenly an eight-foot-tall figure appeared: Mose the Fireman, spoken of in legend. He wore a leather firefighter's helmet as big as a barrel and a pair of humongous rubber boots, each the size of a sailboat. His coat declared that he was part of the Engine 40 unit. "Hello, little lady," he said. "How can I help you?"

"Please," Adele said. "You must save me from the fire. You must save my family."

Mose the Fireman took a swig of beer from the fifty-gallon keg he kept on his belt. The beer trickled down his thick white beard, and suddenly both beer and beard vanished. "I can't save anyone unless you save yourself."

"But--but you're Mose the Fireman. You rescue people from fires! You swam the Hudson in two strokes! You've lifted trolley cars out of your path to run to the rescue of babies!"

"I've retired and moved to Hawaii," he replied.

Suddenly, Mose the Fireman wasn't Mose anymore, but her father. Adele watched in horror as her father called out to her in puzzlement. "Adele?"

"Father!" she shouted, but she was too late, as the flames licked closer and closer, filled with glee as they chose between immolating Adele or her father first...

And Adele's nightmare ended. She awoke gasping for air, as she had many times since her father's death, with her body and head wrapped snugly in her blanket.