Looking for a lost story where MC time travels and wakes up from an accident before helping his father in expanding his family business
Apologies thats pretty much what i can remember :/
Looking for a lost story where MC time travels and wakes up from an accident before helping his father in expanding his family business
Apologies thats pretty much what i can remember :/
Joe J's Twice Lucky where Jake turns his father's business Turner Furniture in a copy of Home Depot.
I seem to remember Reluctant Sir's Echo going that way as well. The Night Hawk's Once More With Feelings as well, although there it was a subplot.
Not really. In Echo his biological father was already quite wealthy... and in Once More With Feelings, there was no 'his father'
There was also "Once More With Feelings".
https://storiesonline.net/s/41504/once-more-with-feelings
It was both a do-over and body swap, where the main character (now female) helps her "best friend" (her original body) and his father expand the family electronics business.
It was both a do-over and body swap, where the main character (now female) helps her "best friend" (her original body) and his father expand the family electronics business.
To me, a do-over means re-living your own life.
Living a different life as a different person isn't a do-over even if time travel is involved.
To me, a do-over means re-living your own life.
Living a different life as a different person isn't a do-over even if time travel is involved.
All I can say is read the story sometime.
2 people, both had shitty lives. Each returned to themselves at 14, but switched bodies. And each warned the other of the pitfalls they would have in their own lives, and how to avoid them so the same mistakes would not be done again.
Been a while since I read it, but the main part was for the now female character "Don't get knocked up at 15", for the now male was "don't become a complete loser fuck-up". And throughout the story they would warn each other of "danger events" that each faced previously.
Is there a real difference between knowing a danger spot you yourself had lived before, or being told about it from somebody else who is also repeating? And other memories would remain intact, so other typical tropes (knowing to avoid a flight that would crash, knowing what sports teams to bet on, future trends, etc) are known by both so can be taken advantage of.
Some do-overs do not even need personal knowledge of the individual now inhabited. Simply knowing trends to look for or avoid (but Walmart and Microsoft stock early, do not invest in Beanie Babies and Junk Bonds) will apply either way.
I think the main difference between "time travel" and "do over" is mostly in the time frame jumped to. Kind of like the difference between the movie Timeline (jumping to 1357), and Quantum Leap (only jumping within his own lifetime).
I would even argue 11/22/63 is a "do-over", even though he did not travel to his own lifetime. But he always arrived at the exact same time and place, and would learn through each jump what to avoid on following jumps.
In that story he made 4 or 5 jumps, each learning things to do or avoid in following trips. Always starting in 1958, and eventually remaining until 1963.
All I can say is read the story sometime.
It wouldn't change my opinion. It doesn't matter how good or bad the story is.
If you aren't re-doing something you've done before, it's not a do-over.
If you aren't re-doing something you've done before, it's not a do-over.
Most 'DoOver' stories wouldn't qualify, then, because the MCs almost never try to repeat a lot of the same things. Only one I can think of really qualifies, because the MC specifically tried to arrange to meet the woman he married his first time through, and re-did a number of things to do that. But even there, he also changed a lot.
Most 'DoOver' stories wouldn't qualify, then, because the MCs almost never try to repeat a lot of the same things.
Living your own life is doing something. Living it over is a do-over because you are doing something (living your own life) that you already did once.
Living a different life as someone else is not a do over because you haven't lived that life before.
However, you did grow up once before. So doing that over, even as someone else...
Not buying that one.
If you take and fail a math test, then go and take a physics test, that's not a do over of the math test.
How could anyone fail a math test?
But still, there's no reason a DoOver is living the exact same life over. A DoOver is essentially a second chance to grow up (with the advantage of future knowledge, so it isn't the identical life).
Many, many DoOver stories involve people transporting into the body of a younger other person. So I'd say that those authors would go with my definition more than yours.
(see: Phil Brown, Number7, sourdough, The Night Hawk, Lazlong... there's a number more whose names I can't recall)
How could anyone fail a math test?
No idea. It just doesn't add up...
Did they spend their study time multiplying?
What constitutes a pass? Opinions are divided.
With no maths skills could they find work in a 'take-away' ?
Many, many DoOver stories involve people transporting into the body of a younger other person. So I'd say that those authors would go with my definition more than yours.
They are free to call those do-overs, and I am free to call that false advertising.
...but the whole point of a do-over is to avoid redoing something disadvantageous you did last timeIf you aren't re-doing something you've done before, it's not a do-over.
In that story he made 4 or 5 jumps, each learning things to do or avoid in following trips. Always starting in 1958, and eventually remaining until 1963.
That's more a 'time loop' story than a DoOver.
"Living a different life as a different person isn't a do-over even if time travel is involved."
Yep. How can it be a do-over if you didn't do it the first time?
You get to be a young person growing to adulthood again, usually with the benefit of future knowledge.
That's my opinion as well. The critical elements are an age change without major loss of knowledge and having the opportunity to live life again, not whether life is the same. As many have noted - of course it won't be the same. And, in general, the MC will do things their second time that they couldn't possibly have done their first time, lacking skills and experience and maturity. The scale of those things may vary wildly.
aroslav's 'The Transmogriphication of Jacob Hoskins' series involves an MC who returns to being 14 or 15 (can't remember) - but without time travel; they're in present-day, just younger. Still a do-over. 'Once More With Feelings', as noted, involves a gender swap. Still a do-over. Others involve changes in the universe, big or small. Still do-overs.
The genre is wide enough to contain things beyond requiring it be the same childhood in the same world.
The critical elements are an age change without major loss of knowledge and having the opportunity to live life again, not whether life is the same. As many have noted - of course it won't be the same. And, in general, the MC will do things their second time that they couldn't possibly have done their first time, lacking skills and experience and maturity. The scale of those things may vary wildly.
Again, when I say living the same life over, I don't mean doing everything the same with no effort to correct mistakes made the first time.
I mean that the re-do life is the same person, the same basic identity, the same background up to the point the do-over starts.
I go back to the test analogy. The whole point to a do-over on taking a test is to correct mistakes you made the first time. But if you end up taking a completely different test, you can't do that, that's not a do-over.
In my opinion, the critical element for a do-over is the opportunity to undo/change decisions you regret.
In a new life with a new identity in a new environment, you are just making new decisions from scratch. There's no real opportunity to fix the things you regret in your original life.
You might know major future events, which might help with investments later in life, but you don't have detailed advanced knowledge of what will happen to the new identity, so as far as your personal life goes you are making new decisions just as blindly as you did the first time around.
I'd compare this to 'hard science fiction' vs 'soft science fiction' - subgenres, not hard genre divides. If not, we need a new genre name for 'person gets to restart age at a younger life with their older memories but it's a different life'. In my opinion that's e.g. 'soft do-over' vs 'hard do-over' - same genre, different sub-genre. I could make the same argument about 'fantasy' - some would argue that if there isn't magic, or other races, or whatever, it's not 'fantasy', yet there are many, many recognized subgenres of fantasy, many of which contain none of those things.
In my opinion, the critical element for a do-over is the opportunity to undo/change decisions you regret.
In a new life with a new identity in a new environment, you are just making new decisions from scratch. There's no real opportunity to fix the things you regret in your original life.
Even if one takes that as a rule, it just begs a point. Maybe the decision one regrets and wants to fix is 'being an asshole'. One can make the decision to not be an asshole in any reality. Maybe the decision is to be emotionally cool (or outright cold) and avoid deep relationships. One can do that differently in any reality. Similarly, 'I married the wrong person'. There are plenty of different people to marry in any reality; one can learn from the events of the past and make a better decision about life partner regardless if it's the same world or a different one.
Not all decisions are 'I didn't ask X to the prom and my life pivoted at that point'. Much less 'I didn't know to buy silver in 1978 so I was poor'. That's not a 'decision you regret'.
Is Charlie Foxtrot's 'A New Past' a do-over, by that rule? The MC jumps back into his exact same past, but, while he does undo/change a few decisions, that's entirely beside the point of the story. The real point of the story is taking the physics knowledge he's obtained from the future to take humanity in a different direction. Sure, he changes some decisions around dating, girlfriends, schools, etc, but those are, frankly, incidental to the core story.
What about Sage Mullins' 'Lightning In A Bottle'? There are things done differently, but the world isn't the same - the MC has a sister (and has always had a sister, in this new world). Some things proceed differently based on that. His biggest change is growing as a person during the do-over; he doesn't jump back ready to undo and change decisions, for the most part.
To me, that's just artificially limiting the genre well below its potential. I'd argue that the definition you're arguing for kicks many classics in the genre to the curb. All the aforementioned ones, plus 'Emend By Eclipse', 'A Fresh Start', 'Once More With Feelings', and so forth would all miss the boat.
And, yes, you referenced 'A Fresh Start' earlier, yet it doesn't really meet the test. Sure, he regretted not helping his wife live a healthier life, so that counts. He did take action in that direction, certainly; gamed life to meet her. Yet, the majority of the story is much more about him using his do-over ability to build a business, enter politics, and change the course of the United States. None of those are 'decisions he regrets'. It's there, but it's incidental; it'd be like declaring the entirely of 'Star Wars' to be 'hard science fiction' because Lucas hand-waved a biochemical explanation for The Force into the prequel trilogy.
One, maybe interesting, side note: the story I'm writing right now pretty much meets that definition. It's set in generally the same world (with variations, including there being an unexpected sister - different mechanism than 'Lightning In A Bottle'), focused on redoing high school (in the same school), changing personal decisions to make a better life. Yet, I'm still really opposed to narrowing the genre to the point where it excludes dozens of stories that are, to my mind, essential to it.
Similarly, 'I married the wrong person'. There are plenty of different people to marry in any reality;
And, yes, you referenced 'A Fresh Start' earlier
No, I didn't, though I might have quoted someone else who did.
There are more wrong people out there than right people. And if you are living an entirely new identity, especially in a completely different time period or a different reality, your previous life is not necessarily a valid guide as to who would be right or wrong for the your new identity, so you just end up marrying a different "wrong" person.
There are never any guarantees, not even in a straight do-over. Unless the person hasn't changed, the person they married the first time might not be right in the do-over, or 'the one that got away' may be wrong for their new self.
The point is that one can address things that went wrong the first time without the setting being the same, depending on what the things are. The benefit of knowledge, experience, and maturity matters even if you don't also have the benefit of the same setting.
No, I didn't, though I might have quoted someone else who did.
My fault; I misread a comment from someone else.
To me, that's just artificially limiting the genre well below its potential.
If I'm making it too narrow, your conception of "The critical elements are an age change without major loss of knowledge and having the opportunity to live life again" makes it too broad.
That makes almost every Swarm Cycle story and any "fountain of youth" story a do over.
'Swarm Cycle' is a major gap in my reading, so I can't comment. I agree, somewhat, about 'Fountain of Youth' stories.
Genre definitions tend to get slippery around the edges; while I agree that those should be excluded, I wouldn't agree that 'past' is required (again: 'The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins' counts, in my opinion, and the author's), much less 'same past' (too many examples already mentioned). I'd be fine saying it'd be worthwhile to distinguish 'same-world do-over' from other sub-genres.
One could say that a death is required, but it's never clear if, say, the triggering event in 'A Fresh Start' or 'Lightning In A Bottle' or others is a death. Not all do-overs are 'supernatural' ('A New Past' appears to be physics-based, for instance).
One added element is that others in the story accept the person experiencing the do-over as someone else, a pre-existing person in their world, so they have to pick up someone's life (their own, or someone else's) 'on the fly'. That would distinguish it from the others. Off the top of my head I can't think of a story that counts as a 'do-over' to me which violates that rule (which will trigger someone to remind me of one that counts).
So: age reduction (retaining knowledge), living life again, but having to pick up mid-stream with everyone expecting you to be a certain person at your now-current age
I suspect that rules out the others you mentioned.
'Swarm Cycle' is a major gap in my reading, so I can't comment.
The Swarm Cycle universe has body sculpting/medical tech capable of serious age regression to the point of taking a woman at the onset of menopause or a man in his 50s or 60s back to their teens from a strictly physical perspective. A tech based fountain of youth.
If I'm making it too narrow, your conception of "The critical elements are an age change without major loss of knowledge and having the opportunity to live life again" makes it too broad.
Let's add that there needs to be a time displacement. That's pretty much the one thing missing from his criteria.
Let's add that there needs to be a time displacement. That's pretty much the one thing missing from his criteria.
Grey Wolf seems insistent that the time displacement is not necessary.
Grey Wolf seems insistent that the time displacement is not necessary.
The possession of future knowledge is sorta important to the genre. (Maybe if the MC gets precognition, it could work in what's otherwise a body-swap story...)
Primary example is aroslav's 'The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins', which doesn't involve time displacement. The genre is broad, and 'future knowledge' includes more than facts and figures and numbers and dates. One may know that their first life sucked because of personality failings and set out to fix those. They still have 'future knowledge', but it's entirely personal, not centered in the world at large.
I'm more than willing to concede that non-time-displacement do-overs are a small subgenre, though. But, given a working example of one, I'd include it within the broad genre.
There are other do-overs where 'future knowledge' of the situational sort plays a minimal role. 'Second Chance' is one - the protagonist does eventually start using 'future knowledge', but not until they've had multiple do-overs and the 'future knowledge' they have comes from their own prior do-overs. Similarly, the first do-over doesn't seem to involve a time displacement, nor do some of the others.
I'd prefer to say that the genre is broad and includes some mutually contradictory subgenres than to say that those stories aren't do-overs.
as far as your personal life goes you are making new decisions just as blindly as you did the first time around.
And once you start making changes, that's also true even if you are your younger self. Each change cascades. It doesn't take long (unless you are trying to replicate some things) for you to be meeting people you didn't meet, or meeting them at different times and in different situations so they would react to you in ways you can't rely on foreknowledge of...
You get to 'grow up' again, only having knowledge of the world that allows you to take advantage of opportunities you didn't realize were worthwhile. Most people, the desire is more to a) enjoy the process and b) end up in a much better situation by the time they've aged as much. Occupying the younger body of oneself isn't the key.
That's a recurring preoccupation of my main character - noting things that are major deviations from his first life. Since my scope is (so far) mostly within the same basic setting - family, school, etc - there are similarities interweaving with differences constantly. Of course, it helps that he starts off with a sister he never had before, this making it literally impossible for things to not deviate.
Related to the discussion elsewhere of 'future knowledge', and using my story as an example: my MC's main preoccupations upon figuring out what's happening is to fix his personal life. If he'd had to make a decision right away, he'd opt for a better personal life, but the same job, financial situation, etc. So, his initial preoccupations are rearranging friendships, dating, romance, etc. It's not until months into the story that he places a bet on a game to start making some money, and longer still before he starts rethinking career plans.
So, while I'm personally going down what might be closer to the main do-over path, the more you dig into it, the more room for nuance and subgenre appears.
Options may be over, under, around or through. If it isn't a do over, maybe its a do under, a do around or a do through. Or maybe its dodo. (an extinct bird) or deep doo doo.
"To be is to do"—Socrates.
"To do is to be"—Jean-Paul Sartre.
"Do be do be do"—Frank Sinatra.
Sadly I remember this when it first went public
Mea navis aëricumbens anguillis abundant.
to me it's a do-over even when in another body as the person has and utilizes the memories from their old life. But that's only my opinion.
I have no idea why this post says it is a reply to potatoman when I clicked Reply to Topic
I have no idea why this post says it is a reply to potatoman when I clicked Reply to Topic
I have no idea why this post says it is a reply to potatoman when I clicked Reply to Topic
He was the OP... I'd suspect that's related.