Most “Rip van Winkle” plots would fill the bill – anything where a character “travels” to the future by going into some kind of suspended animation and finds the world interestingly changed. See Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (has love-story subplot . . . of a kind :rolleyes:), H.G. Wells’ The Sleeper Wakes, Larry Niven’s A World Out of Time, and Matt Groening’s Futurama. Oh, and, of course, Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
I’m a bit confused about the “unless” part. Is it…
Not 1, Not 2 unless 3, Not 4
Not 1, Not 2 unless (3 and/or 4)
Not 1, Not 2 unless 3, Not 4
In any case, while I can see not wanting something like “The Time Traveller’s Wife” which focuses entirely on the love story, you’ll be seriously hard pressed to find any time travel story that contains no romantic or love story plot whatsoever.
My favorite time travel fiction in no particular order
Replay by Ken Grimwood - man dies of heart attack, reboots life again and again from increasingly later points in life giving him multiple second chances
Coplike - no / Endofworld - no / <400yrs - own lifetime / love - moderate
The Green Futures of Tycho, William Sleator - kid finds alien time travel device buried under garden, explores multiple potential futures, YA novel
Coplike - no / Endofworld - alien invasion / <400yrs - own lifetime + more future / love - no
The Man Who Folded Himself, David Gerrold - 20something inherits timebelt from uncle, has existential adventures via his diary
Coplike - no / Endofworld - no / <400yrs - mostly either vague references to long distance time travel or extremely short within a day / love - moderate but interesting
Timefall, James Kahn - archaeologist couple and their smuggler friend find out of place artifact with a map to time tunnels and a dangerous tribe in the Amazon
Coplike - no / Endofworld - vaguely / <400yrs - no / love - moderate
All You Zombies / By His Bootstraps, Robert Heinlein - short stories dealing with very complicated time travel geneology
Coplike - no / Endofworld - no / <400yrs - own lifetime / love - gimmicky premise
The Time Travellers Wife, Audrey Niffeneger - his will jumping through time within his own potential lifetime.
Coplike - no / Endofworld - no / <400yrs - own lifetime / love - YES main theme
A Tale of Time City, Diana Wynne Jones - 1939 girl kidnapped and brought to Time City to preserve history, YA novel
Coplike - no / Endofworld - no / <400yrs - no / love - nah YA
In the Courts of the Sun, Brian D’Amato - Awesome first part in a trilogy, about a South American born American raised mathematical genius recruited to go back in time and discover the secrets of an ancient Aztec fortune telling game in order to prevent a future terrorist threat. A little challenging of a read, definitely not beach fare, but extremely worthwhile if you put in the effort.
Coplike - no / Endofworld - somewhat / <400yrs - no / love - minimal
Do Over, Dan Kirk - gay man has repeated chances to relive his life and loves, and also affect worldwide history through his role in the military
Coplike - no / Endofworld - yes / <400yrs - own lifetime / love - yes
amateur fiction - http://dkstories.gayauthors.org/do-over/index.php
Haven’t read, but have heard good things about:
Behold the Man, Michael Moorcock - time traveller becomes historical Jesus by accident
Coplike - no / Endofworld - no / <400yrs - no / love - nah
Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis - Holocaust characters both victim and inflicter, experience time in reverse, also reversing the apparent tragedy…
Coplike - no / Endofworld - no / <400yrs - sort of, not real time travel / love - nah
The Little Book, Selden Edwards - Described as “A California Yankee in Doctor Freud’s Court.”
Attributes - IDK, haven’t read it, but have seen a few good reviews. Look it up for yourself.
Have you ever read Kage Baker’s Company series? I’m in the middle of it now. You can look up the premise on Wikipedia’s Dr. Zeus Inc. page, but really I enjoyed getting it through the book more–the first volume is In the Garden of Iden.
I second the recommendations for Connie Willis, William Sleator, and Diana Wynne Jones. Doomsday Book has a wonderful sorta-sequel (set in the same universe) called To Say Nothing of the Dog.
Guess I could have been clearer. I’m looking for a time travel novel that does not have a detective or cop as its main character or protagonist, does not contain the premise that unless the time traveler does X the world will be destroyed/cease to exist, does not have the time traveler visit/affect historic events (why do so many time travel stories have the main character visiting the 14th through 19th centuries?), and does not contain a romantic/love story subplot.
The end of the world, unless [the protagonist goes back/forward into the past/future and gets the MacGuffin in time to bring it to Mary Sue in the future/past!].
Her To Say Nothing About the Dog has a bit of a romance subplot. Bit it’s a very little bit. And it’s funny–which you might need after reading the excellent The Doomsday Book.
All of an Instant by Richard Garfinkle. It sort of has an “end of the world” element to it, but it carries time travel speculation a lot further than anything else I’ve read (and I’ve read most of the classic stuff by Heilein, Anderson, Bester, Niven, Zelazny, etc.)
If you eliminate books that have any kind of sub-plot even remotely involving romance, you are going to be left with a very, very short list. Seeing as how the sub-plot in DIS occupies maybe two pages worth of material scattered over the entire book, I’d think it was safe under the OP’s guidelines.