View Full Version : Recommend me some time travel sci-fi
Rob_In_MN
03-04-2011, 08:18 PM
So,
Once I'm done with my current WIP, I'm toying with the idea of trying my hand at sci-fi. Specifically, a time travel story. Even more specifically, something involving the ancient Library at Alexandria.
I haven't read much time travel fiction, so I figure I better bone up a bit to make sure I don't write some tired, retread story :)
So, what are some of your favorite time travel stories? I'm looking for adult fiction, something that attempts to treat the subject seriously.
Torgo
03-04-2011, 08:27 PM
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. Oh, and The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein.
You can never go wrong with a bit of Doctor Who. ;)
Rob_In_MN
03-04-2011, 08:53 PM
I've done some other research and I'm thinking I might go for The End of Eternity by Asimov first.
Torgo
03-04-2011, 08:55 PM
I've done some other research and I'm thinking I might go for The End of Eternity by Asimov first.
That is a good one.
The Time Machine by H G Wells
screamingturnip
03-04-2011, 09:27 PM
Nevemind The Dog by Connie Willis
or
Doom's Day Book same author
Honestly, time travel seems to be more of a conveyance for what if stories than anything else.
Diane Amy
03-04-2011, 11:28 PM
Lightening by Dean Koontz
The Time Traveler's Wife
Good Word
03-05-2011, 08:06 AM
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court -- Mark Twain :)
LaceWing
03-05-2011, 08:49 AM
The Little Book by Selden Edwards
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
RickN
03-08-2011, 06:26 PM
Island in the Sea of Time by Stirling.
mirandashell
03-08-2011, 10:58 PM
Does anyone else have a problem with suspending their disbelief in TT stories?
I keep seeing paradoxes and it does my head in.
I enjoyed Neal Asher's Cowl.
blacbird
03-09-2011, 12:05 AM
You basically have to accept the paradoxes, and go for the ride. H.G. Wells knew this, and made no attempt whatever to "explain" how his machine worked. It just did, and what mattered for the story is what happened during the time-trip, not any pseudoscience about it.
It's no different from accepting the existence of magic, which permeates most Fantasy fiction. Or dragons, or elves, or talking animals, or faster-than-light travel.
BigWords
03-09-2011, 03:36 AM
There might be dissent on this one, but All You Zombies by Heinlein is hilarious.
Torgo
03-09-2011, 03:52 AM
Does anyone else have a problem with suspending their disbelief in TT stories?
I keep seeing paradoxes and it does my head in.
Paradoxes are what makes time travel SF IMHO - they are the interesting things about the concept.
I note Stephen King's new book is a time trace story.
mirandashell
03-09-2011, 11:01 PM
You basically have to accept the paradoxes, and go for the ride. H.G. Wells knew this, and made no attempt whatever to "explain" how his machine worked. It just did, and what mattered for the story is what happened during the time-trip, not any pseudoscience about it.
It's no different from accepting the existence of magic, which permeates most Fantasy fiction. Or dragons, or elves, or talking animals, or faster-than-light travel.
I'm not sure I agree. Magic I find easier to accept because its use is explainable within the story. And you tend not to get the paradoxes that you get with time travel. I'm not talking about how it works either. I mean the situations that TT gets the characters into that are just not possible. And that's what bounces me out of the story.
HG Wells set his traveller so far in the future that it was basically a different world. I had no problem with it. But when situations happen in a world like our world.... hmmmm.
blacbird
03-10-2011, 12:58 AM
I'm not sure I agree. Magic I find easier to accept because its use is explainable within the story. And you tend not to get the paradoxes that you get with time travel. I'm not talking about how it works either. I mean the situations that TT gets the characters into that are just not possible. And that's what bounces me out of the story.
Then my recommendation is you don't read time-travel stories. I don't read category romance novels or techno-thrillers for much the same reason: can't abide the implausibility.
mirandashell
03-10-2011, 01:02 AM
Then my recommendation is you don't read time-travel stories. I don't read category romance novels or techno-thrillers for much the same reason: can't abide the implausibility.
You're right. And no, I don't read time travel stories much! LOL!
You're right. And no, I don't read time travel stories much! LOL!
You will do, one day. Just don't ask me how I know.
mirandashell
03-10-2011, 01:19 AM
:tongue ;)
Dawnstorm
03-10-2011, 03:15 AM
A classic:
Michael Moorcock: Behold the Man. Not for the easily offended Christian. A time traveller goes back in time to prove that Jesus Christ is a Jungian archetype...
shawkins
03-10-2011, 05:09 AM
There was one called Thrice Upon A Time that made a semi-serious effort to work within the boundaries of plausibility. For instance, it only allowed information to move through time--morse coded tachyon streams, IIRC--as opposed to Our Hero & His Mighty Raygun. They aimed the streams to account for the movement of the planet as time passed, and so forth.
I don't recall it being wildly entertaining, but it was harder SF than time travel stories usually are.
Mac H.
03-10-2011, 05:17 AM
It's weird - I don't have a problem with time travel - but it bothers me that someone leaps 6 months into the future and they are somehow at the same place relative to the landmarks ... despite the landmarks (and the planet) is on the other side of the star by now.
If we ever get time travel working I suspect it will be used for launching satellites etc - just jump a few months into the future and you've launched your vehicle into space and a long way from the planet.
No paradoxes - just convenience.
Mac
benbradley
03-10-2011, 05:42 AM
A Sound of Thunder (http://www.lasalle.edu/%7Edidio/courses/hon462/hon462_assets/sound_of_thunder.htm). <-- there's your link right there, a classic SF time travel short story by Ray Bradbury. Click the link, read it Right Now.
It was made into a movie a few years ago, but I haven't seen it and I don't think it did so well, apparently most people haven't even heard of it.
Does anyone else have a problem with suspending their disbelief in TT stories?
I keep seeing paradoxes and it does my head in.
Yeah and no - many stories handle that, or are even built around the paradoes and things, coming up with novel explanations for them and such.
But as a counterexample, there's Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love," though it uses time travel (backwards, and only toward the end of the book) in an "ordinary" way as just another tool to move characters around, not something that got scientifically explained or anything. I think of it more as an "interstellar adventure" novel. I enjoyed it greatly, despite the very "real" problem that the character became very close to "annihilating" his younger self. <giggles thinking of the situation>
You basically have to accept the paradoxes, and go for the ride. H.G. Wells knew this, and made no attempt whatever to "explain" how his machine worked. It just did, and what mattered for the story is what happened during the time-trip, not any pseudoscience about it.
It's no different from accepting the existence of magic, which permeates most Fantasy fiction. Or dragons, or elves, or talking animals, or faster-than-light travel.
Well, again, yes and no - as I say, some stories do recognize the paradoxes.
There might be dissent on this one, but All You Zombies by Heinlein is hilarious.
I must have read it as I've read all of Heinlein's stuff, but I don't recall it. I should find it and (re)read it.
It's weird - I don't have a problem with time travel - but it bothers me that someone leaps 6 months into the future and they are somehow at the same place relative to the landmarks ... despite the landmarks (and the planet) is on the other side of the star by now.
If we ever get time travel working I suspect it will be used for launching satellites etc - just jump a few months into the future and you've launched your vehicle into space and a long way from the planet.
No paradoxes - just convenience.
Mac
I know of at least two novels that take into account this very thing (the Earth, Solar System, galaxy etc., all moving in relation to the Universe over time) into account - these aren't really time TRAVEL stories, but rather involve the transmission of information over time: Macroscope by Piers Anthony (basically his only Real SF story), and Timescape by Gregory Benford. I recommend both.
benbradley
03-10-2011, 05:43 AM
There was one called Thrice Upon A Time that made a semi-serious effort to work within the boundaries of plausibility. For instance, it only allowed information to move through time--morse coded tachyon streams, IIRC--as opposed to Our Hero & His Mighty Raygun. They aimed the streams to account for the movement of the planet as time passed, and so forth.
I don't recall it being wildly entertaining, but it was harder SF than time travel stories usually are.
I haven't read it, but that sounds remarkably like what they try to do in Timescape.
Torgo
03-10-2011, 04:01 PM
It's weird - I don't have a problem with time travel - but it bothers me that someone leaps 6 months into the future and they are somehow at the same place relative to the landmarks ... despite the landmarks (and the planet) is on the other side of the star by now.
If we ever get time travel working I suspect it will be used for launching satellites etc - just jump a few months into the future and you've launched your vehicle into space and a long way from the planet.
No paradoxes - just convenience.
Mac
Kurt Vonnegut, in The Sirens of Titan, dealt with this, I think.
nevada
03-12-2011, 09:24 AM
I just picked up the ARC for The Map of Time by Felix J Palma. It looks incredible.
http://www.amazon.com/Map-Time-Novel-F%C3%A9lix-Palma/dp/1439167397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299908934&sr=1-
published to massive acclaim in Spain, Félix J. Palma’s rollicking page-turner boasts a cast of real and imagined literary characters and cunning intertwined plots, as a skeptical H.G. Wells becomes a time-traveling investigator in Victorian London.
Jack the Ripper, Allan Quartermain, Dracula author Bram Stoker, the Elephant Man, and Jules Verne are among the players in Félix J. Palma’s captivating and ambitious novel. To save innocent lives—including that of his own wife—H. G. Wells the author of The Time Machine must discover the truth about purported incidents of time travel. The mysteries involve an aristocrat in love with a murdered prostitute from the past; a woman bent on fleeing the strictures of Victorian society by searching for her lover somewhere in the future; and a fourth-dimensional plot to murder celebrated authors in order to steal their fictional creations.
Awarded the 2008 XL Ateneo de Sevilla Novela Prize and lauded as “a miracle from beginning to end…a masterpiece” ( Qué Leer ) on its original publication , The Map of Time is an audacious historical fantasy executed with uncommon skill. It is a story full of love, adventure, and extraordinary imagination. (www.lushbudgetproduction.com)
I'll let you know how it is.
nevada
03-15-2011, 04:23 AM
80 pages in and i'm loving it! It's written in an old fashioned tone with reader asides by the writer, which i normally hate, but the "writer/narrator" is so awesome and his asides are so dry, they're fabulous. I've even stopped knitting at lunch so I can read and that's a big thing. I'll keep you updated.
nevada
03-25-2011, 06:25 PM
OMG the writer delivers! In a huge way. This is one of the best books I've read in ages. I had to pass it on to someone at work but I asked her to give it back to me so I can read it again. Be prepared for much thinking about time travel paradoxes and the dynamics of time travel. Plus a great primer for what it was liek at the end of the 19th century and their view on science and technology. Did you know that the director of the patent office in England thought it shoudl be closed since everything had been invented and nothing new could possibly be invented?
This really was an incredible book. It makes me want to learn Spanish so I can read his other novels and his short stories. For me he ranks up with Zafon. What an incredible book.
Rob_In_MN
03-25-2011, 06:54 PM
wow, that's quite the endorcement. I'll have to check that book out! :)
Komnena
03-25-2011, 07:36 PM
Lest Darkness Fall by L Sprague De Camp.
Time and Again by Jack Finney
regdog
03-25-2011, 11:22 PM
Not sci fi but The Outlander series is a great time travel series.
pangalactic
03-25-2011, 11:59 PM
As well as all the other great suggestions, I'd suggest reading the 3rd Harry Potter book (Prisoner of Azkaban). I for one thought the handling of time travel in that was really well done. Also, another vote for The Time Traveller's Wife, simply because it's TT outside of a classic sci-fi setting.
Skyblaze
03-26-2011, 12:09 AM
The Forever War and The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
Alessandra Kelley
03-31-2011, 05:04 PM
John Crowley's The Great Work of Time
Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife (which I haven't read)
And if I may put in a shameless plug for my husband the author,
Richard Garfinkle's All of an Instant
(All of an Instant came out from Tor in 2000 and should be available in libraries or secondhand -- and I should thank you for making me think of it because I just looked it up on Amazon and it has some really nice reviews)
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