Time Travel Stories

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From H.G. Wells onward, the notion of traveling in time has fascinated writers and readers alike. Paradox is often a key element, but as the field developed, the simplistic notion of killing a man's grandfather so that he would never be born has gone by the wayside. Modern time travel fiction is much more sophisticated.

  • The Dancer from Atlantis
    Poul Anderson.

  • Guardians of Time
    Poul Anderson.

  • Seventh Son
    Orson Scott Card
    First in a series about Alvin the Maker. Set in an alternate colonial America, they are written in a colloquial style which drops the reader into a place where "witches" exiled from Cromwell's stuffy England thrive in the American wilderness, performing everyday magic in order to get by. Alvin, the seventh son of a seventh son, has the "knack" stronger than anyone, and must learn to battle his great enemy, the "Unmaker", to survive and fulfill his destiny. Wonderfully written. The others in the series are:
    Red Prophet
    Prentice Alvin
    Alvin Journeyman
    Heartfire


  • The Devil in Velvet
    John Dickson Carr List Price: $4.95 and less.
    The noted mystery writer sends Professor Nicholas Fenton back to Restoration London to solve and maybe prevent a murder. All it takes is a pact with Satan, whom Fenton must also circumvent. A clever plot and breathtaking pacing.

  • The Stone God Awakens
    Philip José Farmer.
    The hero wakes from petrified suspension to find a world so far in the future that humanity is extinct, but intelligence been found by half a dozen other species.

  • The Wind Whales of Ishmael
    Philip Jose Farmer.
    The narrator of Moby Dick finds himself tranported from a wreck in the Pacific to a future so distant the very seas have dried up.

  • Time and Again
    Jack Finney. List Price $12 and less.
    Possibly the most popular time travel story, it does not emphasize the science fiction as much as the immersion in 1880s New York, though there is some interesting twisting of time's tail as the hero tries to avoid leaving the place and girl he has come to love.

  • About Time : Twelve Stories
    Jack Finney. List Price: $11 and less
    Some more Finney stories of time travel.

  • From Time to Time : A Novel
    Jack Finney List Price: $12 and less
    Suffers Sequel Malaise worse than most, seeming far less a novel of a time traveler with an urgent mission than an historians excuse to roam NY in 1912 -- but the hero does see the Titanic safe to port.

  • Then we have the Lord Darcy series from Randall Garrett:
    These are set in a world where Richard the Lionheart recovered from his crossbow wound, his nephew Arthur suceeded him, and where magic became a science under the auspices of the Church. This and the two books to follow are tight mysteries, perfectly resolved, that allow us to explore the Angevin Empire of the 1960s.

  • The Man Who Folded Himself
    David Gerrold.
    How many ways can you meet yourself, coming and going in time, and what does it do to everything else?

  • Watch the North Wind Rise
    Robert Graves.
    In this classic of Waker time-travel, a neo-pagan future finds itself too civilized for its own good.

The Time War series by Simon Hawke follows a time agent through alternate universes where fiction is real. We think the titles tell you everything you need to know.

By Andre Norton:

Roger Zelazny hit on a winning formula with The Chronicles of Amber series: heroes who move through alternate universes at will, have a large Machievellian family warring with each other for power, cliffhanger endings to each book, and complete confusion if you miss one. The worlds are often brilliantly imagined, the plot terrifyingly intricate but plausible, the family personalities predictable and the series' weakest point.

Having followed the intrigues of Prince/King Corwin to this point, the tale takes up anew with Corwin's son, named Merlin. Don't expect the Round Table.