David Wright O’Brien

writer
Short Story

Murder in the Past


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  • Undetermined
  • Undetermined Time Travel
Short Story

The Man Who Changed History


Reggie Vliet and Sandra Vanderveer want to marry, but Colonel Vanderveer refuses his permission on the basis that Reggie’s family is not of the same standing as the long-established Vanderveers. So Reggie sets out to take down the Vanderveers in the times of Waterloo and the Civil War.

O’Brien was a prolific author who died in action during World War II at age 26.
“Supposing,” he wondered, “that those two old ducks in the pictures on the walls hadn’t been famous?”
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Time on Your Hands


Although I enjoyed the first Reggie Vliet story (“The Man Who Changed History’), this second story didn’t grab me, even though Reggie does inherit the time-travel watch and travels to see Antony and Cleopatra, Caesar, the sacking of Rome, and Columbus.

It does make me reflective to know that this story was written shortly before O’Brien’s death in a World War II bomber over Europe.
He, Reggie Vliet, was again actually living in the past. He could enjoy it, relish it, admire it, and—change it. That was why he was here. To scramble the past, knock it off its customary track, blast it out of its timeworn groove.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel