# Recommend me some good SF involving time travel **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 6, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361 "2005-09-06T16:51:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tiltypig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dbc845/32.png) [@tiltypig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiltypig)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/21 "2005-09-06T19:11:32Z")
Connie Willis’s **Doomsday Book**. I’ve read some quibbles with it (mainly revolving around cell phones and how she should have predicted their widespread use in her future world) but I thought it was a splendid, moving book. It’s about a very recognizable near-future England in which grad students in history are sent back to do practical exams in the time period they have chosen to specialize in. It’s realistic, although not very scientifically plausible AFAIK, so maybe not up your alley. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/22 "2005-09-06T19:36:44Z")
L. Sprague de Canmp’s **The Glory that Was** , about Periclean Greece. What? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/23 "2005-09-06T19:38:06Z")
Oh, yeah, and also his “A Gun for Aristotle”. And Michael Moorcock’s **Behold the Man** (both short story and book). Guy goes back in time to find Jesus Christ. Bound to be controversial, if nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/24 "2005-09-06T22:08:07Z")
Thanks for all the suggestions - I’ll check them out in the library / on Amazon. I have read “Lightning” (guilty pleasure) and read & seen “Timeline”. ---
**Author:** ![priapus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@priapus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/priapus)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/25 "2005-09-06T22:21:54Z")
[QUOTE=sciguy] Heinlein’s “Door into summer” has a pretty well-done time travel plot halfway through it. Or through the whole book, if you count frozen hibernation as one-way time travel. That guy’s relationship with that little girl made me uneasy.It wrecked the book for me,actually ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/26 "2005-09-07T01:47:59Z")
For a mroe humorous looks, there’s Harry Harrison’s **The Technicolor Time Machine**. The main character owns a near bankrupt mvie studio. He has a weekend to make a picture or his backers will leave and he’ll be bankrupt. The good news is that his scientist friend has invented time travel, so he takes and entire film crew back in time to film the vikings discovering America. Contains one of my favorite things in time travel stories. An object that exists only in a closed loop in time and is never actually created. ---
**Author:** ![mambocrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@mambocrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mambocrow)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/27 "2005-09-07T02:02:43Z")
“Dinosaur Beach” by Keith Laumer (1971) [http://www.iblist.com/book31285.htm](http://www.iblist.com/book31285.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/28 "2005-09-07T02:18:09Z")
“A Bridge of Years” - Robert Charles Wilson A man discovers a “time tunnel” under his 1989 Seattle home that connects to 1962 New York. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/29 "2005-09-07T02:25:58Z")
**Hawksbill Station** by Robert Silverberg is pretty good. And another strong recommendation for “By his Bootstraps” and “All you Zombies” by Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/30 "2005-09-07T02:48:30Z")
> [@](#): > > L. Sprague de Camp’s The Glory that Was, about Periclean Greece. > > What? _You_ know what. Check out the short story “The Sands of Time” by, if I recall, P. Schuyler Miller (may be wrong about that). Hokey by modern standards, but I found it moving when I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/31 "2005-09-07T02:48:36Z")
Robert Silverberg’s _Up the Line_ is one of the few novels that’s actually about time travel rather than just using time travel as a plot device. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/32 "2005-09-07T05:23:16Z")
Steven Baxter’s _Timelike Infinity_ and _The Ring_ both involve time travel based upon hard science concepts. (Well, at least as hard as superstring “theory” allows.) I believe the short story compendium, _Vacuum Diagrams_ also has a couple of stories involving time travel. (I’ll save you the irritation of recommending his _Manifold: \_\_\_\__ novels.) Baxter’s _The Time Ships_ is an “approved” sequel to H. G. Wells _The Time Machine_, so the technology and base setting is Victorian, not contemporary, but very entertaining nonetheless. While it’s not hard SF, one of Harry Harrison’s _Stainless Steel Rat_ novels involves a very amusing time travel story (DiGriz has to go back to Napoleonic Europe to pursue a master criminal), including a “Time Corps” that intrudes part way into the story to protest and police the manipulation of the time stream in the same way that the Special Corps regulates crime in the galaxy. Lamentedly, all of my SSR books mysteriously disappeared a few moves ago. Well worth the read, though. Niven has written several time travel stories, as indicated previously, including “Wrong Way Street”, “Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation”, and “Singularities Make Me Nervous” from _Convergent Series_ (the middle one being the most amusing). There are plenty of SF anthologies that deal specifically with time travel. Check out the local library. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/33 "2005-09-07T06:17:49Z")
> [@Odinoneeye](#): > > Contains one of my favorite things in time travel stories. An object that exists only in a closed loop in time and is never actually created. There’s a special name for that kind of object isn’t there? What was it again? One of the many compilation volumes of Isaac Asimov called “Robot Visions” has a specially written story that combines robots with time travel, a winning combination. ---
**Author:** ![Vintage\_1957](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vintage\_1957](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vintage_1957)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/34 "2005-09-07T08:39:25Z")
I’m making my first post to give a hearty second to “The Anubis Gates” & to point out that it is by **Tim Powers**. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/35 "2005-09-07T10:53:30Z")
_Bones of the Earth_ by **Michael Swanwick** was pretty good. It’s initially set in the present, or very near future. _The Great Time Machine Hoax_ by **Keith Laumer** was great fun! It’s a short novel and has recently been collected into a collection of his called _The Lighter Side_… ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361/36 "2005-09-07T11:31:11Z")
While not dealing with mechanized time travel, nor time travel per se, I recommend [Time’s Arrow](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679735720/qid=1126092742/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0473677-1947854?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Martin Amis. It is a story told in reverse. The protagonist dies, then moments later feels better, then progresses towards his birth. Dialogs end with start with “Goodbye” and end with “Hello.” Factories clean the skies, and the description of going to the bathroom made me wince. While not about someone stepping into a time machine, it has the elements that make time travel stories enjoyable - and while the reverse-time-direction-device is contrived it is very well contrived and provides a fresh perspective on an oft done topic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-good-sf-involving-time-travel/320361.md?page=1)