Can time travel be fantasy or science fiction?

Either, depends on how it is presented. I can think of a few major fantasy novels incorporating time travel: Stephen Donaldson's The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Madeline L'engle's Wrinkle in Time (and sequels), and the Dragonlance Legends series all have time travel as central themes.

Yes...

It can definitely be fantasy.

The only thing I want to point out though is that if you open the fantasy door you do want to consider what other fantastic things also exist. i.e. if time travel magic exists what other forms of magic are there?

I think properties such as The Time Machine and Back to the Future handle the idea of isolated time travel because in both cases it's lose inventors working on the projects so it's accepted that the invention exists even w/out any other significant technological breakthroughs for society (FTL, etc).

In any event, it's basically just a portal fantasy and time travel is the maguffin that gets the character to the party... and there is nothing wrong with that.

It's not that big of a deal or a worry for you. Time travel is a concept, not a genre progenitor lol. It can be Sci-Fi or Fantasy

Most physicists will tell you without hesitation that time travel is pure fantasy.

I think time travel has the "feel" of science fiction only because the idea was first explored in that genre. As far as I'm concerned, it's a plot element that is at home in any speculative genre. Regardless of the reasons given, it operates according to the same general ideas and has a similar effect on the story.

Depends on how it's done, in my view. Time travel is not entirely ruled out, and travel forward in time is possible. There is some speculation on going back, for example using wormholes.

Time travel based on science = Science Fiction. Time travel based on magic = Fantasy.

(don't all jump on me)

My suggestion to the OP, read more...

LearningTwoWrite said:

If you have time travel does that automatically make the story science fiction?

I have a story I thought of but the method of time travel is more fantasy. It's not based on any science and is more of an enchanted item that allows passage through time.

But time travel itself seems to be sci-fi. When you start changing the past, producing different futures and what not that sound sci-fi to me.

Can you have time travel and non-science based methods of travel?

What is it? Sci-Fi or Fantasy?

If it's fantasy I feel like I can get by with a lot more "stuff" that's not scientific and concentrate more on the characters and their quest instead of worrying about how plausible my methods time travel and their results are.

Thanks.

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My next book has an element of time travel. The book is definitely fantasy. No science fiction about it. I do not dwell on the trip back in time. The MC has no understanding of how it's done. She's just the passenger so all that's described is what the process does to her physically and emotionally.

Legend of Zelda: The Oracle of Ages focused strongly on a time travel element, and yet it was very clearly a fantasy game. It's all about how you put the time--travelling into context. If you say the thing that does it is magic and don't then show some plot twist or evidence to the contrary, fantasy readers probably won't have a big problem with it.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Legend of Zelda: The Oracle of Ages focused strongly on a time travel element, and yet it was very clearly a fantasy game.

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Or the much-better-known Ocarina of Time.

To the OP - Like others have said, time travel isn't an exclusively SF idea. Read around and become more comfortable in the boundaries of spec fic and you'll probably gain some more confidence in this kind of thing.

Good luck!

Smiling Ted said:

Most physicists will tell you without hesitation that time travel is pure fantasy.

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Yes, this.

Sci fi is supposed to be based on scientific plausibility. It isn't fantasy. So yeah, time travel really shouldn't be in sci fi at all.

Smiling Ted said:

Most physicists will tell you without hesitation that time travel is pure fantasy.

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While I suspect they're right, 'most scientists' have been wrong about plenty of things in the past. There do seem to be some theoretical possibilities for time travel in situations which probably can't be created in reality, so I wouldn't go as far as saying it's impossible quite yet.

As for time travel there are a ton of books and movies where time travel happens with no explanation, and I'd say they at least have to be considered fantasy. I don't see any reason why time travel has to be considered SF.

Brutal Mustang said:

Sci fi is supposed to be based on scientific plausibility.

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Err, actually there's no manual on what all SF is "supposed to be." There is plenty of fuzzy SF out there that's wildly implausible (Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica immediately jump to mind.) There are SF fans who enjoy realism and others who enjoy mad machines and fanciful space adventures set in the future or on distant planets. Neither is right or what SF is "supposed to be;" it's a matter of taste. There are readers and writers for both types.

Furthermore, if you limit yourself to what modern science understands, then your fiction is going to be really dated really fast. What appears to be purely fantasy now may well be possible in the future. No SF novelist could have predicted the internet in the 1950s, but she would have been a damn good spec fic writer if she'd dreamed it up and written about it.

SF is still fiction, it doesn't have to be something we literally expect will happen int he future.

Brutal Mustang said:

Yes, this.

Sci fi is supposed to be based on scientific plausibility. It isn't fantasy. So yeah, time travel really shouldn't be in sci fi at all.

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Um, wow! Way to invalidate most of the genre... XD

Brutal Mustang said:

Yes, this.

Sci fi is supposed to be based on scientific plausibility. It isn't fantasy. So yeah, time travel really shouldn't be in sci fi at all.

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Unless speculative science based on current science is allowed. The question is really about going back in time, and there are some ideas about that, with wormholes for example. So no, it's not pure fantasy. Forward is the easy part, really.

LearningTwoWrite said:

After reading, I am convinced, at the moment anyway, that changing the past is not possible. Being and observer is possible and going forward is possible but changing the past is logically impossible.

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Point 1 what is possible in you book is what you decide is possible this is more true in the scifi/ fantasy field than any other

2
Your op post seems best answers by a what is sci-fi or fantasy a definition i got form a lecture is
sci-fi is when you make a serious attempt it explain it i.e. someonea builds something it dose x in the end you try to make it appear that given the right time tools and knowledge anyone could build a dues x machine

Fantasy however there is no explanation or an explanation is given that docent have one itself i.e.
How do you open portals to other times?
Oh it’s easy if you have the knack.
Oh that makes sense than (no attempt made to answer how he can do that he just can
Or I have this amulet that lets me
etc.
The difference can get very fuzzy or be very clear and As others have posted above some worlds combine the two together, some story elements are sci-fi and others are fantasy this is also okay.
hing that I had thought up.

LearningTwoWrite said:

If you have time travel does that automatically make the story science fiction?

I have a story I thought of but the method of time travel is more fantasy. It's not based on any science and is more of an enchanted item that allows passage through time.

But time travel itself seems to be sci-fi. When you start changing the past, producing different futures and what not that sound sci-fi to me.

Can you have time travel and non-science based methods of travel?

What is it? Sci-Fi or Fantasy?

If it's fantasy I feel like I can get by with a lot more "stuff" that's not scientific and concentrate more on the characters and their quest instead of worrying about how plausible my methods time travel and their results are.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Time travel of one kind or another (including sleeping for hundreds of years) can be either Sci Fi or Fantasy.

I guess the iconic books might be H G Wells the Time Machine (1895)
and something like E. Nesbit's The Amulet (1906), but time travel of various kinds is very wide-spread at the Sci Fi/Fantasy end of the Fiction Spectrum

Smiling Ted said:

Most physicists will tell you without hesitation that time travel is pure fantasy.

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Except the ones working on it.

Buffysquirrel said:

Time travel based on science = Science Fiction. Time travel based on magic = Fantasy.

(don't all jump on me)

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I agree with this.

Didn't Thomas and Pug travel back to the beginning of the universe and then back again?