The Hemingway Hoax

by Joe Haldeman

Release: April 1990
Format: Novella
Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Comedy
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

Literature professor John Baird and conman Sylvester Castlemaine hatch a plan to get rich forging Hemingway’s lost stories, but before long, Baird is confronted by an apparent guardian of the many timelines in the form of Hemingway himself.

— Michael Main

I’m from the future and the past and other temporalities that you can’t comprehend. But all you need to know is that yiou must not write this Hemingway story. If you do, I or someone like me will have to kill you.

DEBUT

“The Hemingway Hoax,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1990.

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TRANSLATIONS

4 translations

PRIOR WORKS: abridgement of The Hemingway Hoax (1990)

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 1900 to 1929: The Parisian train is in 1921.
Circa AD 1970 to 1999: Baird’s home time is around 1996.

Timeline Models

Multiple Naive Timelines: Clearly there are many timelines, but how they are created, changed, and destroyed is not addressed.
Time Runs in Reverse for Some Beings: during the climactic fight

Themes

Alternate Histories: Some of the universes are clearly alternate histories of our own world, such as the one where Hemingway’s stories were never lost.
Cannot Return to Time Where You Already Exist
Caution! Do Not Destroy Spacetime Continuum!: John Baird is told that he’s the nexus of a potential apocalypse that can destroy the omniverse.
Frozen Time: With considerable effort of will and expenditure of something like energy, he froze time at this moment [. . .]
Guardians of Time: The thing who appears as Hemingway claims to be from the Spacial-Temporal Adjustment Board.
Incorporeal Traveler: During his initial travel, Baird is incorporeal.
Invisible Traveler
Long Life: The Hemingway thing has lived for centuries at least.
Time Montages: Near the end of the story, Baird experiences a slow reverse montage of Hemingway’s life.

Real-World Tags

Fictional Tags

Parallel Universes or Dimensions: the omniverse
Shapeshifters: 4126

Groupings

Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (periodical): April 1990
Nova Science Fiction (Sweden) (periodical): early 2006
Three Time Travelers Walk into . . . (anthology)

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From the Florida Keys, circa 1996 ⋙ to the Paris Gare de Lyon, 14 December 1921. Round trip. Note: The Hemingway thing first takes Baird back in time: So what do I do? Click my heels together three times and say “There’s no place like the Gare de Lyon”?
From the Florida Keys, circa 1996 ⋙ to the Paris Gare de Lyon, the 1920s. Round trip. Note: Baird has a slow trip back, experiencing Hemingway’s life as a montage in reverse. Then he seems to return as himself.