# Time Travel Fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228 "2010-03-29T17:01:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Normal\_Phase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Normal\_Phase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Normal_Phase)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/121 "2011-11-14T22:04:31Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Nonsense. It’s very funny and very intricately plotted. His best work. I adore the gag with the couch. Pretty much every time I’m helping to wrestle furniture up or down stairs I wind up remembering that and laughing. ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2011, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/122 "2011-11-14T22:48:59Z")
Some of my favorites that haven’t already been mentioned: Star Diaries of Ivon Tichy by Stanislaw Lem. Satirical, with a lot of silly time traveling. I loved this book as a middle school age kid and still enjoy it. The Danger Quotient by Annabel and Edgar Johnston. I haven’t read this since the afore mentioned middle school, but I vividly remember it. 12 Monkeys sort of reminded me of it with the storyline being a person from a severely impaired future going into the past to find a solution – Millennium did this too. Well, that’s another one not yet mentioned, Milllennium by John Varley. Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick. Not for kids, this one. Interesting though. In my late teens, Swanwick became a favorite author when I read UF0 in Aboriginal (to which I subscribed). edit: thought of more I liked as a kid Time at the Top by Edward Ormondroyd - kids visit the past in an elevator The Visitors by John Rowe Townsend - sort of similar to previously mentioned Vintage Season by C. L. Moore, but a whole novel length. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/123 "2011-11-15T00:50:05Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > Millennium did this too. Well, that’s another one not yet mentioned, Milllennium by John Varley. > > Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick. Not for kids, this one. I liked these two too. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/124 "2011-11-15T01:23:37Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > I know it was a Spider Robinson story; I’m less sure that the title is “Father Paradox”. I recall the punch line, which was (approximately, quoted from memory): > > As he died, he thought he was an unlucky bastard, never knowing just how right he was. Robinson certainly wrote a story called “Father Paradox” [Title: Father Paradox](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?351411) ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/125 "2011-11-15T02:10:05Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > YA aurhot Margaret Haddix, for example, has a new series out which involves time travel. Which series is that? Found/Sent/Sabatoged? ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/126 "2011-11-15T02:53:11Z")
I am glad this zombie thread was revived. I still love Well’s original ‘The Time Machine’ and the George Pal movie rendition of the machine was beautifully done. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2011, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/127 "2011-11-15T10:33:36Z")
I see one of my favorites has already been mentioned: _The Men Who Murdered Mohammed_ by the great Alfred Bester. Here’s two that haven’t. First one of the moist romantic and moving time travel stories ever written, [The Dandelion Girk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dandelion_Girl) by Robert F Young. And secondly Philip K Dick’s _A Little Something For Us Tempunauts_. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2011, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/128 "2011-11-15T12:19:25Z")
Two I didn’t see so far are [Millenium](http://www.amazon.com/Millennium-John-Varley/dp/0441006779) by Varley, and [Wildside](http://www.amazon.com/Wildside-Steven-Gould/dp/0765342464/) by Gould. Wildside is technically a parallel timeline, but counts well enough. What I liked most about it was the way the character deals with the practicalities of exploring a place where there is no way to get help. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/129 "2011-11-15T14:26:48Z")
Yes, MaxtheVool, that is the Haddix series I was referring to. I do like the youth series I mentioned in the OP better. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/130 "2011-11-16T01:06:02Z")
Hogan’s **Thrice Upon A Time** is a wonderful book about communication into the past. I really recommend it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/131 "2011-11-17T00:49:03Z")
> [@Frostillicus](#): > > The best time travel series by far is **the Axis of Time Trilogy by John Birmingham**. It revolves around what happens when a 21st century battle fleet is accidentally sent back in time and ends up right in the middle of the Battle of Midway. Needless to say, this event has a major impact on the ultimate outcome of WWII. > > [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb\_sb\_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=john+birmingham](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=john+birmingham) You mean someone decided to use a similar idea to the movie “The Final Countdown” except without chickening out at the end? 😃 For those who haven’t seen the movie: The modern nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is based out of Pearl Harbor in the present (1980, when the movie was made). While on routine patrol, it’s caught in an unexplained “time storm” that sends ship and crew (but not the escort vessels) back to December 6, 1941. Part of the movie is spent, of course, figuring out that’s when they are. After a brief debate, the captain and officers decide to counter the December 7th attack with the Nimitz’s jet fighters. “If the United States falls under attack, our job is to defend her in the past, present and future.” intones Kirk Douglas as the captain. Hoooowever… just as the jet squadrons are in sight of the Japanese air fleet, the time storm reappears in the Nimitz’s path so that it’s clear the Nimitz is going back to the future. (Sorry. ;)) The Nimitz’s air fleet is recalled literally moments before attacking so that they’re not stranded in 1941. :mad::smack: The movie’s still one of my favorites, it just avoids in the end the issues the whole rest of the movie seemed to be building up to. However, it **does** have an interesting spin on the paradox already mentioned from “Back to the Future” (who wrote “Johnny Be Good”?) and “Somewhere In Time” (the watch). In the movie, the Nimitz and the rest of its class of nuclear carriers were designed and built by Tideman Industries, with the implication that much of the innovations came from the genius Mr. Tideman personally. The audience’s substitute (civilian to whom the naval officers can make explanations) is a Tideman efficiency expert, played by Martin Sheen, on board the Nimitz ostensibly to evaluate efficiency of the ship and crew at sea. At the beginning of the movie, Mr. Tideman sees Sheen’s character off at the docks but never gets out of his limo or lowers its smoked windows so nobody sees **him**. In the course of the movie, one of the Nimitz’s officers is stranded in 1941. I think you can see where this is going, yes? When the Nimitz returns to the present and is met at the docks by every admiral at Pearl Harbor 😉 Tideman’s limo is there again and out comes Mr. Tideman – the stranded officer. So who then actually designed the Nimitz and its ilk!? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/132 "2011-11-17T00:53:39Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > You mean someone decided to use a similar idea to the movie “The Final Countdown” except without chickening out at the end? 😃 Precisely. The books take the situation seriously, and don’t chicken out, and furthermore take a lot of time with the 2nd order effects of the event - like how the spread of history books to the WWII generation affects things; Stalin knows who will betray him, and the UK knows who Kim Philby works for, etc., etc. and like how the conflict between social norms plays out. Good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/133 "2011-11-17T05:12:10Z")
I ADORE most of the Diane Gabaldon books; I’m not too crazy about the “Lord John” series. She needs to get back to Jamie and Claire! If any of the men can find a way to camoflage the books, I really enjoyed _Remembrance,_ by Nora Roberts, and _A Knight in Shining Armor,_ by Jude Deveraux. Warning: getting pulled in by the extended family tree in Jude Deveraux’s books can become a frustrating investment in time and money. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![mambocrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@mambocrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mambocrow)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/134 "2011-11-17T15:07:15Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Keith Laumer’s “Dinosaur Beach” is all about the problems of time travel and the problems that can be caused when you try to fix the problems you’ve caused. I’ll second this. An overlooked classic I think. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/135 "2011-11-17T22:19:34Z")
It’s not a zombie thread, it’s a thread that traveled forward from the past! I see that I already recommended The Anubis Gates earlier, but haven’t yet (in this thread) given a call out to [Richard Garfinkle’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garfinkle) All of an Instant, which is the time-travel novel for people who are totally jaded by time-travel novels. Basically asks “what if everyone who wanted to go change the past went and did it”? And then manages to make a sort of sense out of the complete chaos. ---
**Author:** ![windskisong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/edb3f5/32.png) [@windskisong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/windskisong)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/136 "2013-03-20T15:37:12Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Seconding the Frankowski, but only the first 4 books. After that they get repetitive and silly. Have to agree - and I think Mr. Frankowski had some very bad relationships with women (if you look at his website, that confirms it). However, the first part of the series is truly one of the best “modern person stranded in history” tellings I’ve seen, and if the author uses a few deux ex machinas to enable his hero to survive what is admittedly a very brutal time, he at least is honest enough to admit it. The neo-horse is a bit overboard, but the sword is really cool! ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/137 "2013-03-20T16:00:50Z")
…Mr. Peabody ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/138 "2013-03-20T16:27:43Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I see one of my favorites has already been mentioned: _The Men Who Murdered Mohammed_ by the great Alfred Bester. Same here. Another of my favorites is _Scherzo with Tyrannosaur_ by Michael Swanwick (the 2000 Hugo winner for short stories), mainly for its rather novel ending:Someone has to make a choice of whether or not to report a time-based incident to the alien race that gave humans the power of time travel, knowing that if he does, the most likely result would be that the race would not only take time travel away, but do so _retroactively_ to the point where no one would ever remember doing it. I have two “theories” of my own about time travel, and I don’t think I have seen either of them used. Number one - “time travel” is actually jumping from one universe to another; you can go back and change history, and then return to the “present” and the changes would have taken effect, but as far as anyone who saw you go back into the past (or future) is concerned, you disappeared and nothing else changed. _The Men Who Murdered Mohammed_ is a variation on this, but the time traveler simply returns to the same (i.e. unchanged) present that he left. Number two - you can’t “jump” from point in time to another any more than you can jump from one point in space to another, and if you try to go back in time, then when you reach the point 0.000001 seconds in the past, you will be prevented from going into the past by something in the way - namely, your past self, which will already be occupying that space at that time. (Of course, that wouldn’t make for a decent story, as nobody could actually go back into the past.) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/139 "2013-03-20T16:41:37Z")
Be aware that this is the second resurrection of a zombie. Still interesting discussion though. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228/140 "2013-03-20T17:00:10Z")
I vaguely remember reading this thread previously; it mentions quite a few favorites. Fritz Leiber’s _The Big Time_ is his first Change War story. What if mysterious powers called Snakes & Spiders are fighting a war through all space & time–& enlisting humans (& aliens) to do the fighting? _No Great Magic_ is another story in that setting–which I read on its first publication in _Galaxy_. Both available [here](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25421). Then there’s R A Lafferty’s “Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne”–in which the gang at the Institute for Impure Science get up to their usual antics. Gosh, what would happen if we tried to change history? What could possibly go wrong? To read it, find a used copy of\* Nine Hundred Grandmothers\*. Or hope the folks at Locus, who supposedly bought the rights to most of Lafferty’s work, succeed in finally getting his stuff back in print… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-fiction/534228.md?page=8)