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I love science fiction stories that let you know what you are in for and then deliver on their promises. A Bridge of Years does that and more. I listened to this book on audio and loved it. The narrator was excellent and the writing style really captivated me. I had recently read Stephen King's 11/22/63 and wasn't sure I wanted to dive into another "time tunnel" book, but Wilson has a unique style and worked for me on a variety of levels. For one, he lets you know you are reading a sci-fi book straight away. He sets up an intriguing premise with some bold action, without it being a cheat, and then lets you wander into the story at a slower pace, knowing the stakes. For those who like Jack Finney style of languid musings on the past, this book has that, but it layers it over a more edgy and potentially violent backbone. In Finney's Time And Again I tended to get lost in the slow pace of the narrative description, never really knowing where it was headed. When the ending finally came, it felt forced. Wilson avoids that mistake and draws the reader toward the conclusion with steadily building tension and a sense of inevitability.
The characters are likable and while their choices are not always the most realistic, you want to follow them and see how their story ends. I felt especially intrigued by the villain of the story whom Wilson imbues with enough sympathetic traits for you to see things from his perspective and feel the pressure driving his actions. Overall Wilson does a great job of avoiding common cliches and instead offers the reader something new. The story begs questions about how we might handle similar circumstances and whether a known past, safe and immutable, is preferable to a changing and capricious future.
As a lover of time travel adventure, this book was exactly what I hope for in a novel. It has earned a place in my list of favorite time travel books and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys quality science fiction.

RCW is the only SF author besides Greg Bear that I read without hesitation. BoY resembles Bear's multiple subplot arrangements, but is written as only RCW can write SF, and I would classify him as unique. This one is better than Axis (opinion) which won the Hugo, so...Very much worth reading, more of a page-turner than I'm used to with RCW: once I started it, it was impossible to put down, even for texts required by job or graduate school; that's essentially why I bought the Kindle version. If you like RCW and time travel, you'll love this one; the twists he has on time travel's existence, itself, are great reading. The way he deals with paradoxes is great. Highly recommended!
SF 7-30-16

I first began reading Robert Charles Wilson when I read Spin, and fell in love with his writing style immediately. "A Bridge of Years" is equally good...a time-travel story that's part love, part fantasy, and all good.

One thing, though: this is not at all a "hard" science novel, so don't come to it expecting anything like "Spin," where really clever time-acrobatics occur. What ARE here, sci-fi-wise, ARE interesting ideas: machine-"bugs" (most of them are about the size of small beetles, and they crawl around restoring his apartment to a pristine state); time tunnels; time guardians; symbiotic armor; and so on...

And, while "A B of Y" was originally published in 1991, there is no gap in its own "time"-liness. Years ago, theoretical physicist Robert Feynman stated that micro-robots might someday "swallow the doctor." So Wilson's "nano-robots are not that far a leap.

What I'm finding to be a Wilson trait is a seam of sentimentalism within the fabric of his literature. To that end, our time-traveling protagonist, Tom, is struggling with life after his wife left him once she'd converted to the life of a political radical. Hurt, and no longer focused, he drifts to the Pacific Northwest to recharge. Here he finds a relatively meaningless job, a nice clean house, and within the framework of this new simplicity he hopes to sort himself out.

What he doesn't expect, of course, is to discover a time tunnel hidden behind a wall. Or a man being rebuilt in his shed. Or another time-traveler who intends to murder him for discovering the tunnel.

Without giving away the plot, it is enough to say Tom uses the tunnel and discovers the world of May 1962, and a woman named Joyce who loves him for who he is--though that particular quantity is debatable when you travel through time to meet her. This is not a time travel novel that explores the paradoxes of time travel--say, meeting yourself, or killing the person who birthed you--for, while these are popular and oft-investigated in novels such as this, it's not where Wilson is going here.

What he DOES consider is the nature of place as it relates to time, or era. What does the world of 1962 represent? What state of mind is present there, as opposed to our "current" mindset of the present? And how does that philosophical predisposition affect us? And when we rebel against those things, what is it that we truly want, or can we truly expect?

And how can we USE the present to CHANGE the future? Is it even possible?

"A B of Y," nominated for a Philip K. Dick award for Best Novel, is well written and full of interesting ideas. As usual, his narrative is many layered, and focuses on several characters' points of view, some favorable, others not so much. But through this kind of patchwork quilt we can get a bigger picture, one that incorporates different perspectives on time and culture and life in general.

I liked "A B of Y" a lot. Wilson is immensely readable, and he is a novelist who crafts his works carefully and logically, and his books manage to be both diligently explained yet still fully capable of surprising the reader with the unexpected and astonishing. While not everything is wrapped up in a neat little knot at the end, his conclusions are satisfying and leave the reader feeling completed.

About the only negative that I can possibly ascribe here is that there are little unanswered questions I felt needed answers: why were there little robotic "fixers" at one end of the tunnel and not the other? Why did the tunnel deliver him to a "progressive" time--that is, why did it deliver Tom to a particular day in May 1962, and then on his next visit, say, a day later, it took him to a day later in May 1962 (and the same progression at his "native" end of the tunnel).

And I would have liked a little bit better of a peek at Bob's world--the aggressive and war-ridden world that seems to be Wilson's idea of where we were heading. It seemed like that would have been worthy of a little bit more delineation. What IS our future, after all, if we are not more careful?

Still, this is a clever, intelligent, provocative work, and it's suitably romantic and even a bit melancholy--all traits I like. "Spin" on, my man...

The book is about a man, Tom Winter, who is going through difficult times - he lost his wife, his job - and is kind of at "loose ends" ... and in the middle of his "lostness" he discovers something remarkable in his new home... a tunnel through time.
The characters are great, the story is interesting and intriguing. The end was a little choppy though which is why I gave it 4 stars
I have read several of Robert Charles Wilson's book and have always enjoyed them - and found them to be well worth my time

A house in 1993 Oregon turns out to have a hidden tunnel which debouches in New York City, 1962. Who built it? Why is it unguarded? The protagonist travels back and enjoys the night life, but places no bets and averts no assassinations. In fact, the only drama is created by a crazed future soldier who also stumbles onto the tunnel. Like all the other Robert C. Wilson books I have read, the book's strength is in the ideas and the clean prose style, rather than the minimalist plots. A quick and easy, but not deep, read.