# 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:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/21 "2002-08-28T21:24:50Z")
I will enthusiastically, heartily second Heinlein’s “By his own bootstraps”. It is without question the best-written piece of time-travel fiction ever written. Well, at least, ever written up to now; I can’t speak for future works. Heinlein also did a good job with time travel in _The Door into Summer_, _Time Enough for Love_, and “All You Zombies”. Be careful, though: He also did a lot of **bad** time travel stories. Don’t bother with _The Number of the Beast_, _The Cat who Walked through Walls_, or _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_ unless you’re a hardcore Heinlein fan. Asimov wrote _The End of Eternity_ to prove that he could write good time-travel stories, too. He failed miserably. The best time travel story Asimov wrote was the short “The Red Queen’s Race”. I haven’t read Crichton’s _Timeline_, but he tends to research a subject just enough to sound plausible, but not enough to actually be right. What I’ve heard of _Timeline_ seems to confirm this. Time travel is rather incidental in Carl Sagan’s _Contact_, but it was a very good book and well worth the reading. Piers Anthony’s _Bearing an Hourglass_ didn’t do a particularly good job on the time travel front, but it makes for a fun read. I would recommend that you read the series in order, though, starting with _On a Pale Horse_ The earliest example of time travel was Dickens’ _A Christmas Carol_, and Mark Twain wrote _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_, but in neither of those is the mechanism scientific. Finally, any story entailing reliable prophecy will wncounter the same peculiar situations as does time travel. The best modern example is probably Heinlein’s “Lifeline”, but the ancient Greeks were also fairly adept at the genre. ---
**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, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/22 "2002-08-28T21:53:45Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Chronos \* > \*\* > Piers Anthony’s Bearing an Hourglass didn’t do a particularly good job on the time travel front, but it makes for a fun read_\* How could you not like that book? You’re the star… 😃 Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/23 "2002-08-29T00:14:44Z")
If time Dialation type of travel counts, Steven Baxter’s _Manifold: Space_ is a good read. So is Poul Anderson’s _Boat of a Million Years_. (though this is about Immortals more than Time Dialation) Another one I should mention that follows this Dialation theme would be Larry Niven’s _A World Out Of Time_. Closer to the mark of time travel, though not quite hard sci-fi is Ben Bova’s _Orion_. In which our hero travels backwards in time, from the future to the dawn of mankind to fight an age old enemy bent on our destruction. Certainly entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/24 "2002-08-29T01:54:02Z")
Is Roger MacBride Allen ever going to publish a second novel in The Depths of Time series? ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/25 "2002-08-29T08:12:04Z")
Y’all wanna get yourself a copy of the “Encyclopedia of Science Fiction”, a huge, amazingly researched, and quite well written book. Search on the topic of “time travel” and be prepared to spend some quality moments with [amazon.com](http://amazon.com) hunting down books that sound too tantalizing to miss. My first time travel story was “The Time Traders” by Andre Norton. Basic stuff, but fun. ---
**Author:** ![Bindlestiff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Bindlestiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bindlestiff)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/26 "2002-08-29T13:39:04Z")
I have to second The Technicolor Time Machine - Tons of fun, vintage Harry Harrison with a final plot kicker I just love. Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps (a short story) is the first time-loop paradox story. Keith Laumer’s The Great Time Machine Hoax is light and very entertaining. ---
**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 29, 2002, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/27 "2002-08-29T14:15:17Z")
If we can include short stories, Ray Bradbury’s “The Toynbee Convector” has an entertaining twist in it. Poul Anderson’s novel _There Will Be Time_ was about people born with the ability to travel through time. He also wrote _The Dancer from Atlantis_, in which a 20th century man, a medieval Russian, a Hun and a woman from the distant past are all swept together; it’s actually very poignant. ---
**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 29, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878/28 "2002-08-29T14:16:42Z")
Oh – I forgot. Isaac Asimov did write what I think is a great time-travel story: “The Ugly Little Boy”. I think that’s one of the stories that he and Robert Silverberg expanded into a novel in the 1980’s; haven’t read the novel, but the story is unforgettable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-time-travel-novels-potential-spoilers/125878.md?page=1)