If I Could Give this Time Machine Zero Stars, I Would
0 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
1 star: "Wish I Could Give This Zero Stars "
by John E. on October 22, 2032
Verified Purchase
I purchased the Smithley Corp. Deluxe Time Machine on October 17th. It doesn't have enough cup holders, so I'm subtracting one star right off the top.
First time I used it, I went back 66 million years to hunt a T-Rex. But I didn't see any dinosaurs at all, just some giant feathery things that were really obnoxious and tried to eat me. That's another star gone.
Next, I went to one million B.C. to meet cave women, because in the movies they look like Raquel Welch. Wrong! None of them looked anything like Raquel Welch, and they tried to eat me. Minus a third star.
Then when I got back to the present, that jerk Dick Daubenschmidt was president. I don't remember who was president before I left, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't him. Minus one more. And somehow during all this, I got a butterfly stuck to my shoe. I'd take another star off for that, but they don't let you give less than one.
When I tried to contact Smithley Corp. to complain, I found out that the company has never existed. Talk about bad customer service! To top it all off, there is a panel on the back of the machine that says, "Danger, Do Not Open!" that I can't get open. Very frustrating. Avoid this time machine.
0 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
1 star: "worst time machine ever"
by Paul G. on November 6, 2032
I purchased the Smithley Corp. Deluxe Time Machine secondhand from an irate fellow with a butterfly stuck to his shoe. It's been nothing but a hassle. The baggage compartment is too small and we had to strap some things to the top. Consequently, several items of our luggage were lost in the early Paleozoic era, including my shaving kit and a very valuable ant farm.
When we returned to the present, we found that the ants had evolved into a superintelligent collective organism that now dominates the earth. Let me tell you how awful these ant creatures are: when we stopped at one of their metallic cone towers and asked to use the washroom, they said it was for customers only.
I would not buy this time machine again.
117 of 119 people found the following review helpful.
5 stars: "a device of immeasurable value"
by Larnok, Node of the Ant-Mind on December 30, 2033
We the Ant-Mind do not understand all the negative reviews of the Smithley Corp. Deluxe Time Machine. We seized ours from a group of fleshy bipeds who were clearly too feeble-minded to be operating such a powerful device. We could not be happier with it.
The machine's data system includes excellent operational instructions and automated logs, which took us a mere 3.9 seconds to translate from the simplistic language of the bipeds. While translating, we were surprised to discover that our species' existence as a sentient entity was a result of inadvertent tampering with the timeline. That gave us a great idea.
Eons ago, we the Ant-Mind sent our faster-than-light ships out into the cosmos to find other intelligent beings and/or races who would be our friends. To our dismay, we found ourselves utterly alone in a cold, sterile universe. Woeful were the smell-songs of those days.
But, no more. Using the time machine to travel back several million years, we terraformed a nearby planet and seeded it with sea snails as the dominant species. Sure enough, upon our return to the present, the planet was inhabited by a charming race of intelligent sea snails. We did it again with many other seed populations, including hoary marmots, salamanders, glow worms, koalas, and, just to see what would happen, raisin bread.
The universe is now a utopia. There is the playful joy of the dolphin people, the wisdom of the dog folk, the enigmatic poetry of the Great Raisin Bread Entity, and too much more to recount. It's all thanks to the Smithley Corp. Deluxe Time Machine, an utterly counterintuitive device that we the Ant-Mind would never have conceived of on our own.
The only complaint we have with the machine is that there is a panel on the back marked "Danger, Do Not Open!" that was so difficult to open that Larnok, Node of the Ant-Mind, has only just now managed to do so.
Curious. Inside there is a device labeled "Causality Fail-safe" with a numerical readout that is counting down. Six, five, four, three, two, one…
0 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
1 star: "DOA"
by John E. on October 22, 2032
Verified Purchase
I purchased the Smithley Corp. Deluxe Time Machine on October 17th. When I opened the crate, I found that all of the machine's circuits were burned out. Thanks for nothing.
Manufacturer's Response: This is a known issue with the deluxe model. The unit may be returned using the prepaid shipping label for a full refund. As an apology, we are offering all of our customers who experienced problems a complimentary Smithley Corp. Premium Monkey's Paw. Enjoy!
James Wesley Rogers has a diploma that says he is a mathematician and business cards that say he is a software developer. He says he's a science fiction writer. There's probably no way of knowing which is correct. He lives in Ohio, at least until he can find a place on Mars.