Turtledove
Register
Advertisement
"The Weather's Fine"  
Playboy July1987
Author Harry Turtledove
First Appearance Playboy Magazine
Collected Kaleidoscope;
3xT
The Best of Harry Turtledove
Genre(s) Science fiction
Publication date July, 1987

"The Weather's Fine" is a short story by Harry Turtledove, Playboy, 7/87; Kaleidoscope, Del Rey 1990; 3xT, Baen 2004; The Best of Harry Turtledove, 2021. It is a science fiction tale where time has become something like the weather; when it's in the 60s outside, for example, it means that the world and the people in it adopt the styles and trends of the 1960s. People use "air conditioners" designed to keep a specific time period in place, rather than a specific temperature.

The story follows Tom Crowell, a buyer of goods living in Los Angeles, California. As a consequence of weather patterns, he is able to rekindle a relationship with Donna, a woman he was intimate with throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s before the relationship ended.

Turtledove stated that he got the idea while driving in the car, wondering what would happen if the numbers on the air conditioner, representing temperature, represented years instead.

See also[]

Advertisement