Gary Varner

Gary Varner is a Science Fiction and Fantasy enthusiast with a bachelor’s degree in Theater Arts, and he spends his time working and raising his daughter who he suspects will one day be president of the United States. For more reviews as well as serial novels, go to www.garypaulvarner.com to read more.

Archives

Time Travel in Science Fiction: Now For Some Examples That Work…

_{Here in Part 4, we look at how to make time travel work as either soft or hard magic}_{Gary Varner
November 15, 2025}

Time travel into the future is not as tricky as travel into the past because altering the future does not create so many complex story problems.

Time Travel: The Threat of Escalation in the Terminator Series

_{Part 3: The Terminator series writers never new whether there would be a sequel, and that had implications for how they plotted time travel}_{Gary Varner
November 8, 2025}

Shrouding the story rules in mystery only works with soft magic systems where the story focus is on something other than the system.

Time Travel: How and Why the Terminator Series Worked—Then Didn’t

_{Part 2: Time travel works well enough as a soft magic system but time-travel stories run into problems when it is treated as a hard magic system}_{Gary Varner
November 1, 2025}

Terminator 3 crossed into hard magic territory when it added the concept of fate to time travel, which means that specific rules began to matter.

The Pluses and the Perils of Time Travel in Science Fiction

_{Time travel can be treated as a form or hard or soft “magic” but it is important not to confuse the two}_{Gary Varner
October 25, 2025}

Soft magic is vague and incidental; hard magic imposes rules on the story. Too often in science fiction, these rules get broken.

Time Machine 2002: When the Good Guy Somehow Becomes the Bad Guy

_{In this final part of my six-part review, I look at a basic problem: The movie is pretentious without ultimately having anything to say}_{Gary Varner
October 18, 2025}

The writers of Time Travel 2002 merely use Wells’s story’s name and reputation to tell a less satisfying tale of their own making.

Time Machine (2002): When the Bad Guy is Nicer Than the Good Guy…

_{In Part 5 of my extended review, we get an answer to the story question: Can the traveler save Emma?}_{Gary Varner
October 11, 2025}

The answer to the traveler's dilemma is provided by an Uber-Morlock, unique to this version of the story and perhaps the most interesting character in the film.

Review: Time Machine 2002 — Hold On Again. That Snarky AI Returns

_{In Part 4 of my review, we look at plot devices and holes. How DID that AI survive the destruction of New York?}_{Gary Varner
October 4, 2025}

The time traveler, good-natured gentleman that he is, ignores the hologram’s snootiness and continues asking urgent questions.

Time Machine (2002) — A Gordian Knot of Freshman Philosophy

_{In Part 3 of my extended review, I look at the film’s effort to tease apart the philosophy of fighting vs, accepting one’s fate}_{Gary Varner
September 27, 2025}

Good and bad writing are on a spectrum. Underlying this spectrum is the suspension of disbelief. That is, viewers should forget where they are while watching.

Review: Time Machine 2002 — Hold On. Someone’s Destroyed the Moon

_{Part 2: The Eloi we meet in this film are radically different from H.G. Wells’s Eloi and that of the 1960 film version}_{Gary Varner
September 20, 2025}

By making the Eloi more hearty and capable of surviving on their own, the writers destroy the seriousness of the threat the Morlocks represent.

Review: Time Machine 2002 – Wells’ Tale Gets an Unneeded Makeover

_{Part 1: This doesn’t seem like the same story as H.G. Wells’s 19th-century tale! But there's still a time machine, Eloi and Morlocks here, so let’s look at it anyway}_{Gary Varner
September 13, 2025}

In this film, the time traveler has a girlfriend whom he is trying to save from death. But can time travel really alter the course of events?

Time Machine (1960) Back to the Past, and Then Fast Forward Again

_{In Part 4, we look at why the movie was, in many ways, better than the book}_{Gary Varner
September 6, 2025}

The film demonstrates that time travel captivates audiences if writers avoid goofy paradoxes and focus on story premises that offer believable emotional stakes.

The Time Machine (1960): The History of the Eloi and the Morlocks

_{In Part 3 of my four-part review, we look at the difference the Cold War made to how the Eloi and the Morlocks are portrayed}_{Gary Varner
August 30, 2025}

In the 1895 novel, Wells was working out a Communist-inspired theory of evolution but the 1960 film’s screenwriters chose an anti-war narrative instead.

The Time Machine (1960): The Evolution of the Future

_{Part 2: The movie portrays the Eloi — future humans — much differently from the film, probably because the script writers had different aims from those of H. G. Wells}_{Gary Varner
August 23, 2025}

The time traveler is alarmed to discover that all the knowledge and achievements of man have been lost and he almost despairs.

The Time Machine (1960): Two Meetings and One Big Flashback

_{In Part 1 of my four-part review of this time travel classic, I look at the 19th century novel that started the genre and the movie that followed}_{Gary Varner
August 16, 2025}

Over the last several months, I’ve talked about time travel. Originally, I’d planned to discuss the trope in more detail — when and how to use it, when and how not to use it, and whether it was better to rely on fate as a stabilizing force in the narrative. Or is it better to play around with various paradoxes? But then I realized that no in-depth discussion about the trope would be complete without reviewing the novel and subsequent movie that started it all. The Time Machine (1895) by H.G. Wells (1866–1946) can only be described as the most notable work on time travel. In fact, Wells is often thought of as the man who invented science fiction itself. He wrote about mad scientists, traveling to the moon, an alien invasion, and, of course, the time machine. A …