# Recommend some time travel novels (potential spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 28, 2002, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878 "2002-08-28T02:48:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [August 28, 2002, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/1 "2002-08-28T02:48:39Z")
I just finished Allen Steele’s Chronospace in which time-traveling scientists from the future travel back to 1937 to closely observe and record the Hindenburg disaster. As usual, Something Goes Awry. I give it a 6. I didn’t care for the payoff. I’ve just started Roger MacBride Allen’s _Chronicles of Solace_ trilogy with The Depths of Time. It appears to be more to my liking. Howzabout some recommendations? I tend to lean toward hardware-type stories. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Wearia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Wearia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wearia)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/2 "2002-08-28T03:26:06Z")
Timeline by Micheal Crichton (the guy who wrote Jurrasic Park) I enjoyed it quite a bit. Plus its being made into a movie. I don’t know why that matters, I just thought I’d mention it 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Genseric](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Genseric](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Genseric)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/3 "2002-08-28T03:28:43Z")
Sorry, I know some good ones, but they’re non-hardware type (if by hardware-type, you mean hard sci-fi.) Ah, what they hey, lots of folks read these threads, so maybe someone else will be interested, too. I’ll list 'em anyway. _The Anubis Gates_ by Tim Powers. One of the best time travel books I’ve ever read. Period. The time travel system is magic based, but the book isn’t really a fantasy. Basically a modern historian is invited to lecture a group about Samuel Taylor Coleridge. What he doesn’t know, is that the group is actually going to travel back to 1810 to see a reading by Coleridge himself. Taking advantage of a mysterious time gap recently discovered, they journey back. Things immediately start going awry, and the historian finds himself trapped in the past contending against an ancient Egyptian sorceror, a sadistic clown, and a mysterious serial killer, all the while searching for a missing poet and dealing with a confused clone of Lord Byron. Great book. Julian May’s _Saga of Pliocene Exile_ is excellent as well. It is a four book series that starts off in the year 2110. In short, a benevolent Galactic confederation of psychic aliens has inducted the earth into it’s civilization after humans develop their psychic powers (it sounds stupid, I know, but it works really well in the book). Not every human has psychic abilites, however, and many of those who don’t feel they fit in to the society. A scientist in France, however has developed a one-way time gate to the south of France circa 6,000,000 years ago. This functions as something of an illicit siphon for the outcasts and mistfits. They travel back, with hope of a better life in a more primitive time. At the start of the book, tens of thousands of people have gone back. No one really has any idea of what things are like back there, but that hasn’t stopped many. We follow a group of a bout a dozen people of all types back and find that things are far beyond what anyone ever imagined. The books in this series are as follows: _The Many-Colored Land_ _The Golden Torc_ _The Nonborn King_ _The Adversary_ This series is followed by a telling of the back story, _Intervention (Book 1:The Surveillance, and Book 2: The Metaconcert)_ which starts in 1945 and tells the story of the dawn of human metapsychic abilities and the beginning of the human interaction with the benevolent aliens. This is followed with the _Galactic Milieu Trilogy: Jack The Bodiless, Diamond Mask, and Magnificat_. Which continues the tale some time later and tells the story of the Metapsychic Rebellion and leads directly back into _The Saga of Pliocene Exile_. It’s a really great series, even though it’s not all that much about time-travel besides the first four books. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/4 "2002-08-28T03:42:14Z")
Hardware type stories? Not strictly “time travel”, but try The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clark and Stephen Baxter. It’s not really a time travel book, but it puts a whole new spin on the idea of time travel. It’s also a “hard science” fiction story. You will never think of wormholes the same way afterward, believe me. ---
**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:** [August 28, 2002, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/5 "2002-08-28T03:46:06Z")
Well, I’d start with the original novel on the subject, _The Time Machine_ by H.G. Wells. There had been fantasies about time travel before, but they generally involved ghosts or visions; as far as I know old H.G. was the first human being to invision a technological way to travel in time. Pretty impressive. Then I’d read the brilliant pastiche-sequel, _The Time Ships_, written a few years ago by Stephen Baxter. Actually I’d call this a must for any Wells fan. Another true classic is _Lest Darkness Fall_ by L. Sprague de Camp, although it doesn’t involve a time machine per se; a 20th century historian is struck by lightning and finds himself in 5th century Rome, where he decides to keep the Dark Ages from happening. _By His Bootstraps_ by Robert Heinlein is a great novella-length story that rigorously works out a paradox; it may seem old hat now, but was pretty innovative in the 1940’s. _Up the Line_ by Robert Silverberg is an entertaining novel about a tourist agency that takes people to popular historical events. _The Man Who Folded Himself_ by David Gerrold is a pretty thorough examination of the implications of personal time travel. Lot of sex, too. _The Technicolor Time Machine_ is a comedic novel by Harry Harrison in which, with the help of an inventor, a Hollywood director travels back in time to film a Viking movie using real Vikings. Of course, there are many others; the subject is endlessly fascinating. (By the way, although it’s a matter of taste, my advice is to skip _Timeline_ because it sucks and Michael Chricton can’t write. Just my two cents.) ---
**Author:** ![Greywolf73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d9b06d/32.png) [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/6 "2002-08-28T03:46:54Z")
Can’t really recommend any in the “hard science” category, but I can recommend my favorite time-travel novel: The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. I cannot say enough good things about this book. It’s wonderful. ---
**Author:** ![ResIpsaLoquitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/7 "2002-08-28T03:55:15Z")
_Guns of the South_ by Harry Turtledove. The time-travel is really incidental to the story; the author wanted to show what America would have been like had the South won the Civil War, and cheats by having White Supremacists from 2015 provide AK-47s to the Confederacy. Fun stuff, tho. ---
**Author:** ![Sassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sassy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/8 "2002-08-28T06:14:41Z")
**If I Never Get Back** by Darryl Brock Hard to describe, but it’s got time travel, baseball and Irish revolutionaries - and somehow it works! ---
**Author:** ![New\_Improved\_Scott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f17d59/32.png) [@New\_Improved\_Scott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Improved_Scott)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/9 "2002-08-28T06:32:11Z")
Well, I just finished one that I enjoyed alot “Pastwatch; The Redemption of Christopher Colombus” by Orson Scott Card. I picked it up in a used book store at the Toronto Dopefest, but just got around to it recently, and it was interesting and I enjoyed it muchly. The only other one I can think of is “The Time Police” by Poul Anderson, which was okay, a little dry though, on account of the main character being not terribly interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Genseric](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Genseric](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Genseric)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/10 "2002-08-28T06:41:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Baldwin \* > \*\* > (By the way, although it’s a matter of taste, my advice is to skip _Timeline_ because it sucks and Michael Chricton can’t write. Just my two cents.) \*\* Nah, _Timeline_ was pretty good. I mean it was no _Jurassic Park_, but, uh, erm, what was I talking about again? It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember liking _Lightning_ by Dean Koontz. It’s not just time travelling, it’s **Nazi Time Travelling**. Der Blitzenstrasse and all that. I’ve always wanted to read Michael Moorcock’s _Behold The Man_, but I haven’t ran across a copy yet. ---
**Author:** ![Linus\_Van\_Pelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Linus\_Van\_Pelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linus_Van_Pelt)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/11 "2002-08-28T07:13:45Z")
It doesn’t focus on the hardware, but I really enjoyed the first book of Simon Hawke’s _Time Wars_ series, The Ivanhoe Gambit. The rest of the books in the series were sort of hit or miss, but the first one was quite engaging. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/12 "2002-08-28T07:47:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ResIpsaLoquitor \* > \*\*_Guns of the South_ by Harry Turtledove. The time-travel is really incidental to the story; the author wanted to show what America would have been like had the South won the Civil War, and cheats by having White Supremacists from 2015 provide AK-47s to the Confederacy. > > Fun stuff, tho. \*\* That’s the one I was going to reccomend, too. OTOH, ISTR (from the afterward of the printing of the novel I have), he wasn’t inspired so much by the alternate history idea as by a conversation with another fantasy writer about how the sword a character on the cover of one of her (other writer) novels was as anachronistic for the character as it would be for Robert E Lee to be holding an Uzi. Of course, eventually he did decide to write ‘What if the Confederacy Won’ for its own sake (probably inspired by doing GotS), with a real ‘What if’ conciet (vital Confederate plans DIDN’T fall into Union hands, so a siege of Washington (or was it Philidelphia?) wasn’t averted, and the CSA won. I think it (How Few Remain, The Great War, American Empire) is better done than GotS overall, but GotS is a great novel. Now, back, partially on-topic, since novels have been expanded into shorter forms by another poster, I’ll reccomend Ray Bradbury’s The Sound of Thunder. ---
**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:** [August 28, 2002, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/13 "2002-08-28T12:59:07Z")
I’ve got a copy of Timeline I picked up when the local library was flushing out it’s inventory ($5 for a not-to-used hardcover, who could resist?)/ I haven’t gotten to it yet. I hope to do so before the movie comes out, though. I did mean hard-science, it was late, I was groggy :D. I like reading about high-tech hardware that Goes Horribly Awry. ---
**Author:** ![Zoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/6de8d8/32.png) [@Zoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoff)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/14 "2002-08-28T13:08:59Z")
I enjoyed _Time and Again_ by Jack Finney. It’s a time travel mystery that takes place in 1880’s New York City. ---
**Author:** ![Powers106](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@Powers106](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers106)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/15 "2002-08-28T13:14:33Z")
Another good one related to the personal implications of time travel (no hardware at all) is Replay by Ken (?) Grimwood. This is a book that I’ve owned and lent for about 10 years and never once didn’t the reader start recommending it to people they knew. I’ll let you search Amazon or something for a synopsis, I don’t want to spoil anything here… ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/16 "2002-08-28T14:21:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Greywolf73 \* > \*\*The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. > I cannot say enough good things about this book. It’s wonderful. \*\* Niether can I. Great, Great book. Only SF book ever to make me cry. Another great time travel book by her (although more funny than sad) **To Say Nothing of the Dog** ---
**Author:** ![EchoKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@EchoKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EchoKitty)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/17 "2002-08-28T14:40:21Z")
I was just going to suggest Time and Again. A great read! ---
**Author:** ![Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myron_Van_Horowitzski)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/18 "2002-08-28T14:47:30Z")
Heinlein’s _the Door Into Summer_ is also a total classic. I also recommend Larry Niven’s “Wrong Way Street” from _Convergent Series._ ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/19 "2002-08-28T15:07:10Z")
Another nod for David Gerrold’s The Man Who Folded Himself. It’s out of print, but can usually be found on Ebay or used on Amazon. It’s a short read, but very deep in terms of how time travel affects the time-traveller. Ditto with the nod to Turtledove’s Guns of the South. Although not told from the story of the time-travellers (but rather from the POV of the Civil War soldiers) it is an excellent book. If you like Star Trek, then Peter David’s Imzadi (you’ve got to love a book that starts with “The End”) deals with time travel. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![lurkernomore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@lurkernomore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurkernomore)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/20 "2002-08-28T16:29:59Z")
I liked \* Guns of the South \* but they really don’t travel much - it takes place all in the past. - Lest Darkness fall \* was OK. - Technicolor Time machine \* ? How can you not like a book where they hire a Viking for a bottle of Jack Daniels a day? The \* Timewars \* series was OK. Have to admit I read the whole thing. How about a book where you don’t actually have time TRAVEL, but time DILATION means a lot? Haldeman’s \* Forever War \* [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878.md?page=2)