# Good time-travel fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 16, 2006, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916 "2006-06-16T12:39:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/21 "2006-06-16T15:39:51Z")
Avoid the shit movie by all means but do read **Timeline** by Michael Crichton. Very entertaining fast read. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/22 "2006-06-16T16:01:34Z")
Let me get in another plug for Varley’s _Milenneum_. The novel is excellent–one of my all-time favorites. The movie…not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/23 "2006-06-16T16:06:01Z")
[Tunnel Through Time](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0590025341/qid=1150471420/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6866438-6499342?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) by Lester Del Rey is a great book. Basic plot: a physicist invents a time machine and sends a paleontologist back the age of dinosaurs. But he doesn’t come back on schedule, so his son and the physicist’s son go back to search for him. What I like about the book is that these people aren’t a bunch of idiots geting chased by dino’s; they know how to take care of themselves and bring the necessary equipment along, like high-powered rifles and .45 automatics, and survival gear. Due to an accident involving a brontosaurus, the time machine is damaged, and the team can only make it back to the present in short hops. So they end up successively getting chased by T.Rex and Pterodactyls in the Cretaceous, almost freezing to death in the Ice Age, and getting caught up in tribal warfare in the Pleistocene. There’s enough character development to make you really care about the people, and you may even shed a tear or two at the end of the book as you contemplate the unknown fate of the little cave girl G’na. Anyway, I highly recommend it. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/24 "2006-06-16T16:10:36Z")
I came in to say Connie Willis, but I was beaten to the punch, so I’m seconding that. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/25 "2006-06-16T16:11:24Z")
“The Man Who Folded Himself” is really the ultimate time travel novel/novella. You know the time travel cliche where a future version of yourself comes back to advise you about an action you’re about to take? Well, if you had a working time machine, wouldn’t you experience this just about every day? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/26 "2006-06-16T16:20:41Z")
I recommend \*The Light of Other Days \* by Stephen Baxter and Arthur Clarke. It makes time travel not only realistic, but inspiring. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/27 "2006-06-16T16:29:03Z")
For a _really_ different method of time travel (but, if it works, one that every one of us has tried – unsucessfully, but it did have other pleasures), see Ray Nelson’s “Time Travel for Pedestrians” in **Again, Dangerous visions** 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/28 "2006-06-16T16:31:27Z")
[Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812508645/qid=1150475300/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-0650895-6316063?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) by Orson Scott Card is about an attempt to change history by going back to Columbus’s first meeting with the natives of the New World. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/29 "2006-06-16T16:39:31Z")
[QUOTE=hlanelee] I remember reading two books that were entertaining. The titles, I think, were: **The Great Time Machine Hoax** [/quote] by Keith Laumer. > [@](#): > > **Dinatopia** > > I may have imagined them, though. That’s fairly recent, right? The origin of the cliche mentioned in the OP is **A Sound of Thunder** by Ray Bradbury. A nice, complicated, time travel story is **The End of Eternity** by Isaac Asimov. Not one of his best, though. Poul Anderson had a series on the Guardians of Time. Jack Williamson’s Legion of Time was the first instance of a corps of time travellers fixing problems. **The Men who Murdered Mohammed** by R. A. Lafferty is a reasonably plausible one. The most realistic one I know of is **Timescape** by Greg Benford. Time communication, not travel, but I found it quite gripping. I favor the Heinlein stories already mentioned, as working out all the implications in two great stories. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/30 "2006-06-16T17:02:34Z")
I haven’t read it yet, but if it’s as good as his other books, I feel safe recommending [A Shortcut in Time](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765306395/sr=1-1/qid=1150477114/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3479774-0752017?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books) by Charles Dickinson. I second or third the recommendations for Replay and Doomsday Book. **Green Darkness** by Anya Seton might be dated (lots of 70’s references) but I loved it way back when. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/31 "2006-06-16T17:22:56Z")
[QUOTE=Lute Skywatcher] [Time Machines: The Best Time Travel Stories Ever Written](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786710330/qid=1150468639/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-5102539-9755811?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) contains one of my favorite time-travel stories–_The Third Level_ by Jack Finney. [/QUOTE] Also read Time and Again and its sequel From Time to Time. I loves me some Jack Finney! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/32 "2006-06-16T17:43:49Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] **The Men who Murdered Mohammed** by R. A. Lafferty is a reasonably plausible one. [/QUOTE] Alfred Bester, not Lafferty. There’s also George Alec Effinger’s novella, “The Bird of Time Bears Bitter Fruit.” He expanded the idea into **The Bird of Time** , which I haven’t read. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/33 "2006-06-16T18:06:32Z")
Oh, I forgot, Michael K. Swanwick wrote one fairly recently called, I think, _The Bones of the Earth_ that was really good (if a little muddy at the end.) ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/34 "2006-06-16T18:44:22Z")
There is a series of books by Kage Baker that has to do with time travel. They’re called the Company series, but are better known by their individual titles. The first one is _In the Garden of Iden_. The time travel is more a plot device than the point of the story, but the series is still very, very good. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/35 "2006-06-16T21:30:24Z")
_The Technicolor Time-Machine_ by Harry Harrison is a good fun read. In it, the time machine isn’t used for jurassic hunting trips or to solve historical mysteries, but for a much nobler purpose: to make a Viking movie! ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/36 "2006-06-16T21:38:00Z")
Anyone with me on loving that _Choose Your Own Adventure_ book called **The Cave of Time**? [Need I say more?](http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/cyoa001f.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Sparrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sparrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparrow)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/37 "2006-06-16T22:02:19Z")
[QUOTE=Happy Clam] Would that be the one where a guy goes back in time to shoot a brontosaurus, and then gets eaten by the ticks living on its hide? (which are, of course, the size of lobsters) [/QUOTE] I remember that one! And another where a group of dinosaur hunters return to their own time and find it’s all changed - because one of them stepped on an insect in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Sparrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sparrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparrow)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/38 "2006-06-16T22:05:13Z")
And some more - another Biblical one, Let’s Go to Golgotha by Garry Kilworth. And the veteran British SF writer John Wyndham (who wrote Day of the Triffids) did a short story called, I think, Chronoclasm. Also the British SF humour writer Jasper Fforde’s literary detective Tuesday Next does a lot of time travelling with her dad. Quote: “My father had a face that could stop a clock …” (literally!) ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/39 "2006-06-16T22:10:33Z")
There’s this really great novel that’s going to be published next year, and … Crap, I’ve said too much! ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916/40 "2006-06-16T22:23:45Z")
[QUOTE=Sparrow] I remember that one! And another where a group of dinosaur hunters return to their own time and find it’s all changed - because one of them stepped on an insect in the past. [/QUOTE] Can you remember what it was called? I read it in a book of “comic” sf and fantasy, which I have since lost. Always remember that story as being rather grim and glory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-time-travel-fiction/360916.md?page=3)