The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1960 to 1970



   Dell’s The Time Machine
adapted by Alex Toth
First publication: Mar 1960

The second comic book adaption was drawn by the talented storyteller and artist Alex Toth who closely followed the movie script in Dell’s Four Color 1085. Online sources indicate that this was March of 1960, though that would be several months before the movie.

A black and white reprint appeared in the 2005 Alex Toth Reader (Volume 2).

 The year is 1900. The place is London, England, at an imposing mansion overlooking the river Thames. Impatient dinner guests sit in the library, awaiting an overdue host . . . 




   “I Love Galesburg in the Springtime”
by Jack Finney
First publication: McCall’s, Apr 1960

Reporter Oscar Mannheim has many opportunities in his long life, but never wants to leave the midwest Galesburg that he grew up in—and neither do its many other citizens and artifacts of the past.

 Tomake sure, I walked over to a newsboy and glanced at the stack of papers at his feet. It was The World; and The World hadt been published for years. The lead story said something about President Cleveland. Ive found that front page since, in the Public Library files, and it was printed June 11, 1894. 




   The Boy and the Pirates
by Bert I. Gordon, Lillie Hayward and Jerry Sackham (Gordon, director)
First release: 13 Apr 1960

Young Jimmy Warren asks a genie to send him from present-day Massachusetts to the time of Blackbeard where in order to avoid becoming a genie himself, Jimmy must trick the pirate into returning to Massachusetts.

 This is a funny lookin’ bottle—yeah, neat. But I bet if I took it home, Pop would say, “Its just another piece of junk.” Nobody lets me do anything I want to. I wish I was far away from here; I wish I was on a pirate ship. 


   “Flirgleflip”
by William Tenn
First publication: Of All Possible Worlds, Jun 1960

It’s difficult living in the intermediate era—the first to have an official Temporal Embassy from the future—because the embassy is always bossing people around and canceling promising research, but Thomas Alva Banderling won’ be stopped from sending his Martian archaeologist flirglefliper friend Terton to the past so that Banderling himself can get credit for inventing the time machine.

 Exactly. The Temporal Embassy. How can science live and breathe with such a modifier? Its a thousand times worse than any of these ancient repressions like the Inquisition, military control, or university trusteeship. You cant do this—it will be done first a century later; you cant do that—the sociological impact of such an invention upon your period will be too great for its present capacity; you should do this—nothing may come of it now, but somebody in an allied field a flock of years from now will be able to integrate your errors into a useful theory. 




   Beyond the Time Barrier
by Arthur C. Pierce
First release: July 1960

Major Bill Allison flies the experimental X-80 into the future where a plague has turned most humans into subhuman mutants and the rest (one of whom is a beautiful proto-Betazoid) are mostly mutes who live in an enclave wearing prototype Star Trek uniforms.

 Other nations? Mutants? What kind of talk is this? 




   “The Covenant”
by Anderson, Asimov, Sheckley, Leinster and Bloch
First publication: Fantastic, Jul 1960

Captain Ban, son of the Warden, is told by an oracle that he alone must fly to the island stronghold of those masters of time, the Cloud-People.

 Your world is a slope and you roll down it all the time. Down and down until you wear out and die. 


   “Time Enough”
by Damon Knight
First publication: Amazing, Jul 1960

Through the magic of time travel, young Jimmy has the opportunity to relive a traumatic moment with a group of other young boys at the quarry and change the outcome.

 Im a little tensed up, I guess, but I can do it. I wasnt really scared; it was the way it happened, so sudden. They never gave me a chance to get ready. 




   George Pal’s The Time Machine
adapted by David Duncan (George Pal, director)
First release: 17 Aug 1960

The time traveller now has a name—H. George Wells (played by Rod Taylor)—and Weena has the beautiful face of Yvette Mimieux.

 When I speak of time, Im speaking of the fourth dimension. 


   “The Habit”
by A. Bertram Chandler
First publication: Amazing, Aug 1960

Pilot Tillot (still grieving over the recent loss of Valerie—yes, the car accident was quite likely his fault) and inventor Abbotsford set out to test the first ftl engine, which turns out to not move so quickly in space after all, although it does make some interesting moves in time.

I’ve seen this listed as a retrofitted alternate timeline story in Chandler’s Rim World series, but I haven’t read enough of that series to know where the ftl time machine would fit in. Stay tuned for updates.

 He remembered then that he had been awakened that morning by just such a call. 




   Archie Comics (Superheroes)
created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
First time travel: Adventures of the Fly 8, Sep 1960

Simon and Kirby created The Fly as part of Archie Comics attempt to ride the silver age superhero craze. He flew through time at least five times, with the first episode (in issue 8, no longer Simon and Kirby) being a trip to 3rd century Persia. The Jaguar also trekked at least six times starting in Pep 5 (Oct 1961) and continuing in the Man of Feline’s own comic book, Adventures of the Jaguar as well as Laugh Comics. And the Shield had some time-travel adventures, beginning in The Fly 37 (May 1966) where he met a gladiator from the future.

 My colleagues, clever as they are, would never dream of the angle I’ll use to get rid of the Fly! I’ll destroy him with beauty! 

—the evil Dovi in Adventures of the Fly 22 while bringing




   “Welcome”
by Poul Anderson
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct 1960

Tom Barlow, the world’s first time traveler, receives a welcome from Earth’s rulers 500 years in the future.

Tom departed from the late twentieth century because of its unpleasant political climate, but the description of Barlow’s orginal time reads more as if Anderson got a peek at 2016 Donald Trump.

 Disgust would be the simplest word. 




   Tooter Turtle
First episode: 15 Oct 1960

In each of the 39 short episodes (aired as part of King Leonardo and His Short Subjects), young Tooter would visit Mr. Wizard with the latest passionate idea of what he wanted to be. Mr. Wizard would magically make him into his wish (often back in time), but it would always end up with Tooter learning a lesson.

 Be just vhat you is, not vhat you is not. Folks vhat do zis are ze happiest lot. 




   “Gun for Hire”
by Mack Reynolds
First publication: Analog, Dec 1960

Hit man Joe Prantera is transported to the year 2133 to knock off a bad guy since nobody of that time is capable of doing violence.

 Ya think Im stupid? I can see that. 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
“The Other Wife” by Jack Finney, The Saturday Evening Post, 30 Jan 1960 [alternate timelines ]
aka “The Coin Collector”

Tales of Magic #6: The Well-Wishers by Edward Eager, Mar 1960 [no time travel ]

“Chronopolis” by J.G. Ballard, New Worlds , Jun 1960 [despite title, no time travel ]

“Trouble with Time” by Arthur C. Clarke, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Jul 1960 [despite title, no time travel ]



   “Extempore”
aka “The Beach Where Time Began”
by Damon Knight
First publication: Far Out, 1961

Mr. Rossi yearns so much to travel through time that he manages to do so with only the power of his mind, but now he’s traveling is out of control: a series of moments past to present to future, which keep repeating but never the same.

 He found a secondhand copy of J.W. Dunnes An Experiment with Time and lost sleep for a week. He copied off the charts from it, Scotch-taped them to his wall; he wrote down his startling dreams every morning as soon as he awoke. There was a time outside time, Dunne said, in which to measure time; and a time outside that, in which to measure the time that measured time, and a time outside that. . . . Why not? 




   “The End”
aka “Nightmare in Time”
by Fredric Brown
First publication: The Dude Magazine, May 1961

I like Fredric Brown and his creative mind, but this was just a gimmick short short time-travel story in which the gimmick didn’t gimme anything. Now, if he had used this gimmick and the story had actually parsed, that would have caught my attention.

  . . . run backward run . . . 




   “My Object All Sublime”
by Poul Anderson
First publication: Galaxy, Jun 1961

A man becomes fast friends with a real estate entrepreneur who, one night, tells him a fantastic story of time-travelers in the far future who use the past as a criminal dumping ground.

 The homesickeness, though, thats what eats you. Little things you never noticed. Some particular food, the way people walk, the games played, the small-talk topics. Even the constellations. They're different in the future. The sun has traveled that far in its galactic orbit. 




   “Of Time and Eustace Weaver”
aka “The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver”
by Fredric Brown
First publication: Ellery Queen’ Mystery Magazine, Jun 1961

When the eponymous hero invents a time machine, he’s quite happy to embark on a career of larceny, gambling, and playing the market to make his riches, knowing that if things go awry, he can always return to the start.

When the story was reprinted in Nightmares and Geezenstacks it was presented as three separate vignettes (’The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver, Parts I, II and III), but the original EQMM publication had just one entry (Of Time and Eustace Weaver) in its table of contents.

 He could become the richest man in the world, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. All he had to do was to take short trips into the future to learn what stocks had gone up and which horses had won races, then come back to the present and buy those stocks or bet on those horses. 




   Walt Disney’s Classic Cartoons
First time travel: 21 Jun 1961

Even before the modern Duck Tales that my kids watched, I’ll bet Mickey and his friends went romping through time numerous times. The only one that I remember seeing as a kid myself was a trek by a singing father and son to see the invention of the wheel by a prehistoric Donald Duck (“Donald and the Wheel”).
  1. Donald and the Wheel (21 Jun 1961) Donald Duck
  2. Sir Gyro de Gearloose (6 Oct 1987) Duck Tales
  3. Time Is Money (25 Nov 1988) Duck Tales
  4. Goofy Baby (27 Jan 2008) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
  5. Pluto’s Dinosaur Romp (3 Jul 2010) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

 This cat is really nowhere; in some circles, wed call him square. 


   “The Zookeeper”
by Otis Kidwell Burger
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jul 1961

Some 18,000 centuries in the future, one remaining being from the past looks after the animals and artifacts in the zoo where They keep Their collectables including Ruth, a reflective and naive woman of the long-lost past.

 Having conquered Time and Space, They have now returned to them, as children do to long-forgotten toys. The collectors of string, match-boxes, old bottle-caps, have finally inherited the earth, and the City, built in the first star-reaching flush of power, has now become a dusty antique shop stuffed with every period Man ever knew. People in queer costumes parade the streets; the Old Vehicles Club has outings along SP@ Ave. (and only They, who can control time and motion, could keep Anglo-Saxon carts and Hexabiles from the 4th archy going at the same pace.) 


   “The Kappa Nu Nexus”
by Avram Davidson and Morton Klass
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Aug 1961

Spending a night at the Kappa Nu fraternity, potential freshman pledge Hank Gordon is the recipient of visits from Thaïs, Cleopatra, Nell Gwynn, and other ladies on their way from the past to their future patrons.

 Upon the bit of flimsy fabric which emphasized, rather than concealed, her bosom, was a large name-pin reading Cleopatra. This she removed, the action revealing to astonished Hank two small but distinct areas on which he had never till this moment realized that rouge might be applied. 


   “Green Sunrise”
by Doris Pitkin Buck, circa 1920
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nov 1961

Alfred loves his time machine more than his wife, but when she pushes him into it and he meets Zopheeta and others from an unspecified future time, he gets almost as confused as I was while reading this story.

 Too late. Emmelines little pale wreath slithered down the curve of a hoop and knocked a switch and two spirals as it did so. Again the Machine quivered. But this time something delecate near the circlet—another spiraled wire—was flicked to a new position. The Machine jarred. Al reached toward the three switches but only had time to pull one. 


The story also appeared in this 1961 collection.   “The Other End of the Line”
by Walter Tevis
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nov 1961

After accidentally telephoning himself two months in the future, George Bledsoe wonders what would happen if he doesn’t answer that call.

 Don’t argue, dammit. I m talking to you from October ninth. Im sitting in a boat, twenty-eight miles and two months from where you are and Ive got a pile of newspapers, Georgie, that havent even been printed yet, back there in August where youre talking from. 




   “Rainbird”
by R.A. Lafferty
First publication: Galaxy, Dec 1961

At the end of this life, Higgston Rainbird, a prolific inventor of the late 18th century, invents a time machine to go back in time to tell himself how to be even more prolific.

 Yes, Ive missed so much. I wasted a lot of time. If only I could have avoided the blind alleys, I could have done many times as much. 




   “Remember the Alamo!”
by R.R. Fehrenbach
First publication: Analog, Dec 1961

John Ord goes back to observe the Alamo and perhaps to persuade some reluctant defenders that even if the Alamo falls, it’ll nevertheless be the turning point in winning the west.

 “The Alamo, sir.” A slow, steady excitement seemed to burn in the Britainers bright eyes. “Santa Anna wont forget that name, you can be sure. Youll want to talk to the other officers now, sir? About the message we drew up for Sam Houston?” 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
“Random Quest” by John Wyndham, Consider Her Ways and Others, 1961 [parallel universes ]

   “Where the Cluetts Are”
by Jack Finney
First publication: McCall

Ellie and Sam Cluett build a house that duplicates every fine detail of a house from Victorian times, and over time, the house gradually takes them back to that time.

 Were looking at a vanished sight. This is a commonplace sight of a world long gone and weve reached back and brought it to life again. Maybe we should have let it alone. 




   Clyde Crashcup
created by Ross Bagdasarian
First time travel: 31 Jan 1962

As a separate feature in The Alvin Show, Quirky Clyde Crashcup (with his assistant Leonardo) invented everything from babies to a time machine that reverses all time.

 I should like to remind you that all of you who witnessed this demonstration are five minutes younger than you were when we started. 




   The Three Stooges Meet Hercules
by Norman Maurer and Elwood Ullman (Edward Bernds, director)
First release: 15 Feb 1962

I’m a disgrace to my gender, as I coitainly never received the Three Stooges gene.

 Ill smash the first guy who says its all Greek to him. 








   Times Without Numbers Stories
by John Brunner
First story: Science Fiction Adventure, 25, Mar 1962

In an alternate Spanish-dominated 20th century, Don Miguel Navarro is a time traveller in the western world’s Society of Time who are locked in a time-travel cold war with the Confederacy of the East, not to mention their task of tracking down various time crimes.

I try to avoid major spoilers (stop reading now, if you wish), but the reason that Don Miguel ends up in a world without time travel is one that I thought of (long after Brunner) based on fixed-points in mathematics. That idea alone gives the story an extra star.

The original three stories appeared in three consecutive issues of Science Fiction Adventure, and they were later fixed up into a short novel that was subsequently expanded. It’s the expanded version that I read from the CU library.
  1. Spoil of Yesterday (Mar 1962) Science Fiction Adventure
  2. The Word Not Written (May 1962) Science Fiction Adventure
  3. The Fullness of Time (Jul 1962) Science Fiction Adventure
  4. Times Without Numbers (1962) fix-up novel
  5. Times Without Numbers (1969) expanded

 It wasnt only the embarrassing experience of being shown off around the hall by her—as it were, a real live time-traveller, exclamation point, in the same tone of voice as one would say, “A real live tiger!” That happened too often for members of the Society of Time not to have grown used to it; there were, after all, fewer than a thousand of them in the whole of the Empire. 




   “Brown Robert”
by Terry Carr
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jul 1962

Arthur Leacock has his eye on his boss, young Robert Ernsohn, who has invented a time machine and is about to try it out on himself. Young professors, such as Robert, are not to be trusted with the young girls on campus.

I found the story to be quite a scary character sketch of Arthur, but was disapponted that the time travel aspect dealt with that worn-out aspect of the Earth moving away from the time traveler.

 The machine, the time machine, was ready for operation. It was clean and had been checked over for a week; all the parts which were doubtful had been replaced, and on a trial run yesterday it had performed perfectly. Roberts sweater—oberts, of course, not Arthurs—had been sent two days into the future and had come back. It had been sent six months and then five years into the future, and it had still come back. But of course Arthur had never doubted that it would. 












   Marvel Comics (Superheroes)
fearlessly led by Stan Lee
First time travel: Fantastic Four 5, Jul 1962

The Marvel Brand began as early as 1939 with the first edition of Marvel Comics. Throughout the ’40s and ’50s, some of the Timely and Atlas comics had the slogan “A Marvel Magazine,” ”Marvel Comic,” or a small “MC” on the cover (such as Tiny Tessie 24, which I found in my dad’s stash).

As for me, I was hooked when Marvel started publishing the Fantastic Four in 1961. During the sixties, I devoured all 830 Marvel superhero comics as they arrived at the local Rexall Drug Store, not to mention 13 issues of Marvel’s zany Not Brand Echh. By my count, 39 of those 843 issues in the ’60s involved superhero time travel, starting with Fantastic Four 5 in July 1962. After 1969, there was no time travel in comic books, not ever (or, if you prefer, you may count everything as time travel, but never mind). Are you suprised that Spider-man never took off in time during the ’60s? He did come close in Avengers 11, but in any case, here are those occurrences:
  1. Fantastic Four 5 (Jul 1962) FF to time of Blackbeard
  2. Journey into Mystery 86 (Nov 1962) Thor vs Zarkko, the Tomorrow Man
  3. Strange Tales 111 (Aug 1963) Doc Strange & Mordo thru time (1 panel)
  4. Tales of Suspense 44 (Aug 1963) Iron Man to time of Cleopatra
  5. Fantastic Four 19 (Oct 1963) FF to ancient Egypt
  6. Fantastic Four 23 (Feb 1964) Dinosaur to Baxter Building
  7. Journey into Mystery 101 (Feb 1964) Thor travels to future to be Zarkko slave
  8. Journey into Mystery 102 (Mar 1964) Thor returns to the present, a free god!
  9. Strange Tales 123 (Aug 1964) Doc Strange sends Thor’s hammer back
  10. Avengers 8 (Sep 1964) Kang the Conqueror from the future
  11. Fantastic Four Annual 2 (Sep 1964) FF vs Rama-Tut [reprint and new]
  12. Strange Tales 124 (Sep 1964) Doc Strange to time of Cleopatra
  13. Avengers 10 (Nov 1964) Immortus (aka Kang) from the future
  14. Avengers 11 (Dec 1964) Kang (again) and Spider-Man (sort of)
  15. Fantastic Four 34 (Jan 1965) Gideon uses Doom’s machine
  16. Strange Tales 129 (Feb 1965) Doc Strange travels back an hour or so
  17. Strange Tales 134 (Jul 1965) FF vs Kang
  18. Fantastic Four Annual 3 (Sep 1965) Cadre of villains sent to the past
  19. Avengers 23 (Dec 1965) Avengers defeated by Kang in the future
  20. Journey into Mystery 122 (Nov 1965) Thor moves Hobbs through time
  21. Avengers 24 (Jan 1966) Avengers defeat Kang in the future!
  22. Tales to Astonish 75 (Jan 1966) Hulk to post-apocalyptic future
  23. Tales to Astonish 76 (Feb 1966) Hulk vs King Arrkam in the future
  24. Tales to Astonish 77 (Mar 1966) Hulk vs the Executioner in the future
  25. Tales to Astonish 78 (Apr 1966) Hulk returns from post-apocalyptic future
  26. Avengers 28 (May 1966) Collector/Beetle in time machine
  27. Strange Tales 148 (Sep 1966) Book of Vishanti to ancient times
  28. Strange Tales 150 (Nov 1966) Doc Strange to ancient Babylon
  29. Thor 140 (May 1967) Thor vs Growing Man (Kang’s minion)
  30. Not Brand Echh 2 (Sep 1967) Ironed Man vs Magnut, Robot Biter
  31. Avengers 56 (Sep 1968) To World War II
  32. Avengers Annual 2 (Sep 1968) The Scarlett Centurion (aka Kang)
  33. Iron Man 5 (Sep 1968) Warriors from 24th century
  34. Marvel Super-Heroes 18 (Jan 1969) Guardians of the Galaxy from the Future
  35. Marvel Super-Heroes 20 (May 1969) Diablo uses Doom’s time platform
  36. Silver Surfer 6 (Jun 1969) To the future and back by traveling fast
  37. Avengers 69 (Oct 1969) Avengers vs Kang in 41st century
  38. Avengers 70 (Nov 1969) Avengers vs Squadron Sinister
  39. Avengers 71 (Dec 1969) Avengers to 1941 vs Invaders

 And now I shall send you back . . . hundreds of years into the past! You will have forty-eight hours to bring me Blackbeard’s treasure chest! Do not fail! 

—Dr. Doom in Fantastic Four 5






   Dell/Gold Key Comics (Spin-Offs)
First time travel: Dell Movie Classics 208, Aug 1962

In addition to the well-known comic book adaptation of The Time Machine, Dell and Gold Key comics had numerous movie and tv spin-offs in the 60s, some of which had time travel. Some were just one-shots (such as The Three Stooges Meet Hercules in Dell Movie Classics 208; and Hector Heathcote in 1964) while others were series (such as the short-lived two issues of The Time Tunnel in 1967). The second issue of The Outer Limits had a cover story, “The Boy with the Incredible Time Machine Saved the World,” which was reprinted in The Outer Limits 18. They were big on boys saving the world, usually from aliens. Tooter Turtle appeared in seven issues of King Leonardo and His Short Subjects, some of which were before Aug 1962, but their time travel pedigre is dubious because the issues I saw could have occured in the present day.

As I find other time travel stories, I’ll add them to my time travel comic book page.

 Two scientists are hurled helpless into the lost world of time! 

—from the cover of The Time Tunnel 1.


   “Le notaire et la conspiration”
English title: “The Notary and the Conspiracy” (translated from French)
by Henri Damonti
First publication: Fiction, Sep 1962
Reprinted in: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec 1962

Mssr. Duplessis, a notary, joins a secret club that allows him to lead a parallel life in fifteenth century Florence, which with plagues and conspiracies against the prince turns out to be a more dangerous second life than he’d anticipated.

 I GUARANTEE UNUSUAL DIVERSIONS—NO ENTRANCE FEE—ONE TRIAL WILL CONVINCE YOU—APPLY NOW—BECOME A MEMBER OF OUR SOCIETY—DISCRETION ASSURED—ADDRESS BOX 322628 




   “The Winds of Time”
by James H. Schmitz
First publication: Analog, Sep 1962

Schmitz wrote a popular series of novels and stories about a galactic federation called the Hub. This is the only one of the stories that I’ve read—about Gefty Rammer, the captain of a space freighter that is commissioned by a secretive man named Maulbow who claims to be from a race of future time travelers.

 Also, according to Maulbow, there was a race of the future, human in appearance, with machines to sail the current of time through the universe—to run and tack with the winds of time, dipping in and out of the normspace of distant periods and galaxies as they chose. 




   Harvey Comics
published by Alfred Harvey
First time travel: Richie Rich 13, Oct 1962

Richie Rich 13 was the first Harvey Comic that I ever bought (the same month as Fantastic Four 7). On the cover, the poor little rich boy was watching his big-screen tv with a master control that also indicated movies, hi-fi, phono-vision, short wave and satellites. And inside he time traveled to visit his ancestor Midas Rich. What more could a six-year-old want?

Other Harvey time-travel comics are listed on my time travel comics page.

 Away we go, Mawster Richie! 

—Alas, I no longer have that original Richie Rich comic, so I don’t know whether Cadbury said this or not, but he should have!




  Tales of Magic #7
Seven-Day Magic
by Edward Eager
First publication: Oct 1962

After two books with no time travel and possibly no magic, the series’ final book returns to both realms with the immediate appearance a magical book that brings forth dragons and 19th century Little House on the Prairie. Admitedly, it‘'s not clear whether any of the locales of the past are more than places out of fiction for Barnaby, John, Susan, Abbie, and Fredericka—but never mind.

 “I knew it was a book!” whispered Susan excitedly. “Its the girl in the Half Magic picture! Its the little girl in the last chapter who finds the charm after Jane and Mark and Katharine and Martha pass it on!” 


   “The Unfortunate Mr. Morky”
by Vance Aandahl
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct 1962

When Mr. Morky runs into the carny-man, the result is a plethora of funhouse mirrors, time travel, and a possible explanation for why people nowadays are so much alike.

For many years, Vance Aandahl was an English professor at nearby Metro State College in Denver, and among his students was another favorite Colorado writer, James Van Pelt.

 On the way, he met the other Mr. Morky, who was still struggling to get back, and there was a collision. He fused with himself. Unfortunately, it was an abnormal fusion, quite cancerous; all that custard pie started dividing and re-dividing and re-re-dividing into an infinite multiple division. 




   “Time Has No Boundaries”
aka “The Face in the Photo”
by Jack Finney
First publication: The Saturday Evening Post, 13 Oct 1962

Young physics Professor Weygand is questioned by Instructor Martin O. Ihren about the disappearance of several recent criminals who have shown up in very old photos.

 I did, and saw what he meant; a face in the old picture almost identical with the one in the Wanted poster. It had the same astonishing length, the broad chin seeming nearly as wide as the cheekbones, and I looked up at Ihren. “ Who is it? His father? His grandfather?” 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
Worlds of the Imperium by Keith Laumer [alternate timelines ]

The Wrinkle in Time Series by Madeleine L’Engle, 1962 [despite title, no time travel ]

Time Traders #3: The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton, Feb 1962 [no time travel ]

“The Heart on the Other Side” by George Gamow, The Expert Dreamers, Oct 1962 [4D spacial topology ]



   鉄腕アトム
English title: Astro Boy (translated from Japanese)
created by Osamu Tezuka
First U.S. syndication: 1963

Astro Boy began as a Japanese comic (manga) in 1952 and then became an anime cartoon before anybody knew what anime was. The cartoons of the 21st century Pinocchioish robot boy were dubbed in English and syndicated in the U.S. starting in 1963. I do remember one time-travel episode in which Astro Boy stopped a time-traveling collector from the future who was after ancient animals and people for his zoo; and I suspect there was more time travel in the manga and later U.S. cartoons.

 Dads taking animals and plants and even people back with him to display in the 23rd century. 

—“Time Machine” (1963)




   Time Cat
by Lloyd Alexander
First publication: 1963

Jason’s cat, Gareth, calmly reveals that he can take Jason to nine different times, and the history lessons ensue.

 I can visit nine different lives. Anywhere, any time, any country, any century. 




   “Who Else Could I Count On?”
by Manly Wade Wellman
First publication: Who Fears the Devil?, 1963

Wellman’s tall-tales character of John the Balladeer has a conversation with an old man who came from forty years in the future to stop a terrible war.

 Ive come back to this day and time to keep it from starting, if I can. Come with me, John, well go to the rulers of this world. Well make them believe, too, make them see that the war mustnt start. 




   The Yesterday Machine
by Russ Marker (Marker, director)
First release: 1963

After the 1960 success of The Time Machine, how could you not predict a follow-up with this title. And a time machine. Plus teens who go where they know they shouldn’t go. And Nazis trying to change the outcome of World War II! And a director who also wrote the script. All indicators are pointing in the right direction.

 Margie [examining WARNING! KEEP OUT sign]: Oh, Howie, look. I dont think we oughta go on that property.
Howie: Look, you wanna get to the game, dontcha?
Margie: Of course I do!
Howie: Then come on . . .  


   “Myths My Great-Granddaughter Taught Me”
by Fritz Leiber
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jan 1963

A grandpa living in the Cold War era receives a visit from his great-granddaughter who wants to know details about Norse mythology.

 “That's right,” she told me, nodding. “Khrushchev was the giant Skymir, Im pretty sure. Jotunheim and Asgard are Russia and America, all set to shoot missles at each other across England and Europe, which must be Midgard, of course—though sometimes I think the English are the Vanir.” 


   “The Nature of the Place”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Feb 1963

Paul Dearborn is quite certain that he’ll go to hell, a prospect that bothers him in only one way: the uncertainty of what it will be.

And the only thing that bothers me is that I just had to read this in the month of my own sixtieth birthday. Oh, that no-goodnick Silverberg!

 He thought back over his sixty years. The betrayals, the disappointments, the sins, the hangovers. He had some money now, and by some standards he was a successful man. But life hadn't been any joyride. It had been rocky and fear-torn, filled with doubts and headaches, moments of complete despair, others of frustrated pain. 




   Brain Boy
created by Herb Castle and Gil Kane
First time travel: Brain Boy 4, Mar/May 1963

All you really need to be a superhero is to be really smart. That’s Brain Boy, and he battled a time machine in issue 4 (Mar/May 1963).

 And you havent asked what the late Professor Krisher was working on. It was the practical application of a theory of time travel! Going back in time—say to civil war days, or the days of the Roman Empire! 




  Time Traders #4
Key Out of Time
by Andre Norton
First publication: Mar 1963

Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe take a team of telepathic dolphins and their Polynesian friend back in time to a water planet whose past may hold the key to the murderous time travelers who visited Earth long ago.

 Do you mean, have we changed the future? Who can answer that? 


   “The Histronaut”
by Paul Seabury
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Apr 1963

Political scientist Paul Seabury, an expert on U.S. foreign policy during the cold war, wrote just one sf story speculating on how a cadre of time travelers, one of whom is assigned to Vladimir Lenin, might become the next weapon of choice for the war-prevention strategy of mutually assured destruction.

Janet and I spent an enjoyable Saturday morning tracking down this single extant photo of Professor Seabury.

 As Professor Schlesinger pointed out, some Soviet historians doubtless were already preparing the assassination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Florida in 1933—so that the “historically necessary” contradictions of capitalism would emerge in the administration of President John Nance Garner. 


   “Now Wakes the Sea”
by J.G. Ballard
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1963

At night, Richard Mason hears an ancient sea outside his house, a sea that has not existed for a thousand, thousand years; eventually, he is drawn to it.

 Off-shore, the deeper swells of the open sea surged across the roofs of the submerged houses, the white-caps cleft by the spurs of isolated chimnies. 


   A Hoax in Time
by Keith Laumer
First publication: Fantastic Stories of Imagination, Jun-Aug 1963

I haven’t yet read this serialized version that Laumer expanded to the novel The Great Time Machine Hoax in 1964, though I think this shorter version might have been published in the Armchair Fiction Double Novel 31 in 2011).



  
 Time at the Top #1
Time at the Top
by Edward Ormondroyd
First publication: Jun 1963

When motherless young Susan Shaw stumbles into a seventh floor porthole to the 19th century where she meets two fatherless children, the story from seems predictable, but Ormondroyd (and I) still had fun with it. Of course, at the end we all assume that Susan’s success at dragging her father back to 1881 will have a happy ending at the alter—but wait! There’s a sequel.

 It had come to her that part of the seventh floor must have been converted in o a very realistic stage set, and that the woman and the girl had been rehearsing their parts in a play. But no, that couldnt be it. No stage set that she had ever seen was so realistic thatyoucould hear cows and smell flowers and feel the warmth of the sunlight. 


   “Flux”
by Michael Moorcock and Barrington J. Bayley
First publication: New Worlds, Jul 1963

When the government of the European Economic Community has no idea what to do next, they send Marshall-in-Chief Max File ten years into the future to find out the eventual effects of their actions.

Although this story was too abstract for my taste, I did enjoy the early presentation of what today might be called a Boltzmann Brain.

 The world from which he had come, or any other world for that matter, could dissipate into its component elements at any instant, or could have come into being at any previous instant, complete with everybodys memories! 




   Dr. Weird Comics
by Howard Keltner
First publication: Star-Studded Comics #1, Sep 1963

Dr. Weird was Howard Keltner’s creation, appearing in the first issue top comic book fanzine of the early 1960s, Star-Studded Comics. Although, George R.R. Martin claims he was unrelated to the contemporaneous Dr. Strange, both projected themselves into the astral plane to fight occult menaces. Weird’s menaces, though, were certainly darker—and he came from the future.

I don’t know whether any episodes after the origin included time travel.

 Slowly and warily, the Astral Avenger approached a huge black wall. His substance seemed to waver and fade as he passed effortlessly through it into the blackened inside. 

—from Martin’s prose Dr. Weird story, “Only Kids Are




   The Gasman Cometh
by Michael Flanders and Larry Swann
First aired: At the Drop of Another Hat, 2 Oct 1963

When Janet asked why I was listening to this favorite of hers one Saturday morning, I told her I was adding it to my time travel page. She just rolled her eyes and said, “I never would have guessed.”

 ’Twas on a Monday morning, the gasman came to call . . . 




   The Outer Limits
created by Leslie Stevens
First time travel: 14 Oct 1963

The original series ran only a season and a half with 49 episodes on the science fiction end of The Twilight Zone mold, but a full hour long. At least four episodes had some time travel.
  1. The Man Who Was Never Born (14 Oct 1963) back to stop a plague
  2. Controlled Experiment (13 Jan 1964) comedy pilot with time travel
  3. Soldier (19 Sep 1964) future soldier to 1964
  4. Demon with a Glass Hand (17 Oct 1964) aliens invade from future

 There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about the experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to . . . The Outer Limits! 




   Dr. Who
created by Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber, and Donald Wilson
First episode: 23 Nov 1963

Sadly, I’ve never been a vassel of the Time Lord, though I’ve seen his pull on his other subjects such as my student Viktor who gave me a run-down of the tv and movie series and spin-offs. In exchange, I guaranteed him at least a 4-star rating and he promised to never again mention the short story, comic book, audio book, radio, cartoon, novel, t-shirt, stage and coffee mug spin-offs.
  1. Dr. Who (23 Nov 1963 - 6 Dec 1989) original series
  2. Dr. Who and the Daleks (23 Aug 1965) theatrical movie
  3. Daleks’s Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (5 Aug 1966) theatrical movie
  4. K-9 and Company (28 Dec 1981) spin-off series
  5. P.R.O.B.E. The Zero Imperative (1994) direct-to-video
  6. P.R.O.B.E. The Devil of Winterborne (1995) direct-to-video
  7. P.R.O.B.E. Unnatural Selection (1996) direct-to-video
  8. P.R.O.B.E. Ghosts of Winterborne (1996) direct-to-video
  9. Dr. Who (12 May 1996) tv movie
  10. Dr. Who (26 Mar 2005 - present) series revival
  11. Torchwood (22 Oct 2006 - 15 Sep 2011) spin-off series
  12. The Sarah Jane Adventures (1 Jan 2007 - 18 Oct 2011) spin-off series
  13. K-9 and Company (31 Oct 2009 - 3 Apr 2010) spin-off series
  14. Counter-Measures (Jul 2012 - Jan 2014) audio spin-off
  15. Class (Dec 2016) spin-off aimed at teens

 Hard to remember. Some time soon now, I think. 

—The Doctor answering a police officer’s query as to his date of birth




   The Tree of Time
aka Beyond the Barrier
by Damon Knight
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec 1963—Jan 1964

Professor Gordon Naismith unexpectedly discovers that he’s a warrior Shefth from the future, and now the Uglies from the future wants him to return to kill an alien Zug who managed to get through the time barrier that’s meant to keep out the Zugs.

The full version, called Beyond the Barrier, was published shortly after the shortened two-part serial (about 45,000 words) appeared in F&SF.

 Let us say there was a need to be inconspicuous. This is a dead period, for hundreds of years on either side. No one knows about this abandoned liner except us, and no one would think of looking here. 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
“Green Magic” by Jack Vance, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jun 1963 [differing time rates ]

Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein, F&SF, Jul–Sep 1963 [parallel universes ]

“The Right Time” by John Berryman, Analog, Dec 1963 [precognition ]

The Sword in the Stone by Bill Peet, 25 Dec 1963 [despite title, no time travel ]



   “Waterspider”
by Philip K. Dick
First publication: If, Jan 1964

Aaron Tozzo and his colleague Gilly travel back to a 1950s science fiction convention (to them, a Pre-Cog Gathering) to ’nap Poul Anderson because they believe that sf writers have pre-cognition of their own time that can solve their current space travel problem. A cute story with descriptions of many writers of the time, but the ending takes that turn that I never like of Tozzo slowly losing his memory of the original world after they inadvertantly change something.

 “Yes,” he said to Poul, “you do strike me as very, very faintly introve—no offense meant, sir, I mean, it’s legal to be introved.” 




   Herbie, the Fat Fury
created by Richard E. Hughes (as by Shane O’Shea) and Ogden Whitney
First time travel: Herbie 1, Apr/May 1964

Herbie Popnecker was the prototypical cool nerd before there were cool nerds, and his lollipops and grandfather clock took him to different eras 13 times, the first episode being in the first issue of his own comic (after five monotime appearances in ACG’s Forbidden Worlds). He also had an early cameo in a time-travel story in Unknown Worlds #20 (Jan 1963). All in all, the fat fury time traveled in Herbie numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and the odd issues in 9 through 23 (not to mention a 1994 cameo in Flaming Carrot 31).

 Civil War . . . wonder how it’s going to turn out? 




   Farnham’s Freehold
by Robert A. Heinlein
First publication: If, Jul to Oct 1964

Hugh Farnam makes good preparations for his family to survive a nuclear holocast, but are the preparations enough to survive a trip to the future?

 Because the communists are realists. They never risk a war that would hurt them, even if they could win. So they wont risk one they cant win. 


   “The Second Philadelphia Experiment”
by Robert F. Young
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jul 1964

No, the first Philadelphia experiment wasn’t the one you’re thinking of. Instead, it was Ben Franklin’s first kite-flying escapade. Bet you didn't know he had a second kite that produced a message that Franklin struggled to interpret.

 —to the Dick the Disk Show, brought to you by W-D-U. 


   “A Bulletin from the Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Research at Marmouth, Massachusetts”
by Wilma Shore
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Aug 1964

After Dr. Edwin Gerber’s death, a tape recording surfaces that purportedly has him interviewing a man from the year 2061.

 Q. How does it feel to go back a hundred— 




   Charlton Comics (Superheroes)
First time travel: Blue Beetle 2, Sep 1964

When I turned 10, Steve Ditko broke my heart by leaving Marvel and rejoining Charlton Comics, which published only two superheroes at that time. I loyally bought the new Blue Beetle (aquired from Fox Comics in the ’50s) and Captain Atom (whom Ditko had first drawn in 1960’s Space Adventures), but I no longer have them and I can’t remember whether they had any time travel in the ’60s. Nevertheless I know of a few possible time-travel moment in the ’60s Charlton superhero comics: the pre-Ditko Blue Beetle 2 (Sep 1964) features on its cover the Man of Dung vs. a mammoth and a saber-tooth tiger; Charton Premiere 1 (Sep 1967), which (among other items) has Pat Boyette’s time traveling Spookman; and Hercules 9 (Feb 1969) with Thane of Bagarth vs a 21st century time traveler.

 The mightiest man battles reds from today, and monsters from yesterday! 

—from Blue Beetle 2, Sep 1964




   The Great Time Machine Hoax
by Keith Laumer
First publication: Sep 1964

When Chester W. Chester inherits an omniscient computer, he and his business partner Case Mulvihill arrange to promote the machine as if it were a time machine.

 Now, this computer seems to be able to fake up just about any scene you want to take a look at. You name it, it sets it up. Chester, weve got the greatest side-show attraction in circus history! We book the public in at so much a head, and show ’em Daily Life in Ancient Rome, or Michelangelo sculpting the Pietà, or Napoleon leading the charge at Marengo. 






   The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
aka Alfred Hitchcock Presents
created by Alfred Hitchcock
First time travel: 28 Sep 1964

As a kid, I knew of the iconic theme song and profile of Alfred Hitchcock, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I spotted one episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour with time travel—namely, their adaptation of John Wyndham’s “Consider Her Ways.”

 This evenings tale begins with a nightmare-like experience, but that is only a prelude to the terrifying events which follow. And now, speaking of terrifying events . . . 




   The Time Travelers
by Ib Melchor and David L. Hewitt (Melchor, director)
First release: 29 Oct 1964

When group of time travelers accidentally see that the world will be desolate 107 years in the future, an electrician, two scientists and finally the curvaceous blonde technician all jump through the portal, only to have the portal collapse behind them, whereupon they are chased on the surface by Morlockish creatures who are afraid of thrown rocks and they meet an advanced, post-apocalyptic, underground society that employs androids and is planning a generation-long trip to Alpha Centauri.

 Keep an eye out for them. Get as many rocks as you can. 




   “When Time Was New”
by Robert F. Young
First publication: If, Dec 1964

At the behest of a paleontological society, adventurer Howard Carpenter, heads back to the Age of Dinosaurs to scope out an anachronistic fossil, where among other things, he runs into two terrified kids from Mars and a gang of Martian kidnappers.

 79,061,889 years from now, this territory would be part of the state of Montana. 79,062,156 years from now, a group of paleontologists digging somewhere in the vastly changed terrain would unearth the fossil of a modern man who had died 79,062,156 years before his disinterment—Would the fossil turn out to be his own? 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
“Gunpowder God” by H. Beam Piper (paratime), Analog, Nov 1964 [alternate timelines ]
aka “Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen”

   “Famous First Words”
by Harry Harrison
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jan 1965

For the most part, this story is about a cantankerous inventor who merely listens in on past historical events—which, of course does not qualify as time travel. But there is that for-the-most-part part.

 Thor, will you please take care of . . . 




   The Flintstones
created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
First time travel: 15 Jan 1965

Everyone gathered around the tv to watch America’s favorite stone-age family on Flintstones night in the 60s. In one episode of their final season (“Time Machine”, the Flintstones and the Rubbles turn the tables on America by visiting the 1964 World’s Fair (among other times in the future).

 Oh, its marvelous, absolutely marvelous. You just step inside and I throw a lever. And things spin and lights go on and off, and you wind up somewhere in the future. 




   “The Kilimanjaro Machine”
aka “The Kilimanjaro Device”
by Ray Bradbury
First publication: Life, 22 Jan 1965

This story is Bradbury’s tribute to Hemingway, a time-traveling tribute told from the point of view of a reader who admired him and felt that his Idaho grave was wrong.

 On the way there, with not one sound, the dog passed away. Died on the front seat—as if he knew . . . and knowing, picked the better way. 






   Campfire Tales from Philmont Scout Ranch
by Al Stenzel
First publication: Boys’ Life, Mar 1965

A Navaho who steps through the cave finds himself at a vast inland sea; at first it is populated by dinosaurs, but each subsequent strip takes him to a later time.

Jon Shultis told me of this comic strip that told the tale of the Cave of Time in many of the Boys’ Life issues from March 1965 through March 1967.

 This is all wrong! If I dare change their stone age way of life, it may affect the whole future of their race. 




   “Double Take”
by Jack Finney
First publication: Playboy, Apr 1965

Jake Pelman is hopelessly in love with Jessica, the breathtaking star in a movie that he works on, but it takes a breathless trip to the 1920s for Jess to realize what her feelings for Jake might be.

 Out of the worlds three billion people there cant be more than, say, a hundred women like Jessica Maxwell. 


   “Man in His Time”
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: Science Fantasy, Apr 1965

Janet Westerman is trying to cope with the return of her husband Jack from a mission to Mars in which some aspect of the planet made it so that his sensory input now comes from 3.3077 minutes in the future.

 Dropping the letter, she held her head in her hands, closing her eyes as in the curved bone of her skull she heard all her possible courses of action jar together, future lifelines that annihilated each other. 




   “Wrong-Way Street”
by Larry Niven
First publication: Galaxy, Apr 1965

Ever since an accident that killed his eight-year-old brother, Mike Capoferri has been interested in time travel, and now he thinks one of the alien artifacts found on the moon is a time machine.

 Mike was a recent but ardent science-fiction fan. “I want to change it, Dr. Stuart,” he said earnestly. “I want to go back to four weeks ago and take away Tonys Flexy.” He meant it, of course. 






   The Corridors of Time
by Poul Anderson
First publication: Amazing, May-Jun 1965

While awaiting trial for a self-defense killing, young Malcolm Lockridge is approached by a wealthy beauty, Storm Darroway, who offers to defend him in return for him joining her in what he eventually finds out are Wars in Time between the naturalist Wardens and the technocrat Rangers.

For many years, I thought this novel was part of Poul’s Time Patrol series, until Bob Hasse mentioned this as one of his favorites that is not in the series. The beginning reminded me of Heinlein’s Glory Road, and the rest is remniscent of Asimov’s The End of Eternity, both of which captivated me in the summer of 1968. Poul’s book holds up well in that company.

 A series of parallel black lines, several inches apart, extended from it, some distance across the corridor floor. At the head of each was a brief inscription, in no alphabet he could recognize. But every ten feet or so a number was added. He saw 4950, 4951, 4952 . . . 




   My Favorite Martian
created by John L. Greene
First time travel: 20 Jun 1965

Three seasons with at least 8 time-travel episodes All time travel occurs with Martin’s CCTBS, a cathode-ray, centrifugal, time breakascope.
  1. Time Out for Martin (20 Jun 1965) to 1215 England
  2. Go West, Young Martian (12 Sep 1965) to 1849 St. Louis
  3. The Time Machine Is Waking Up . . . (21 Nov 1965)    Jesse James from 1870
  4. The O’Hara Caper (19 Dec 1965) back to lunchtime
  5. Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (2 Jan 1966) to 1920/45 Cleveland
  6. When You Get Back Home . . . (27 Feb 1966) back to the morning
  7. Martin Meets His Match (27 Mar 1966) Da Vinci from 1400s
  8. Pay the Man the $24 (1 May 1966) to 1626 Manhattan

 What a planet for me to get marooned on. 




   Gorgo
by Joe Gill, Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano and ROcco Mastroserio
First time travel: Gorgo 23, Sep 1965

I don’t know which was conceived first: the movie version of Gorgo giant-monster-from-the-sea (who turns out to be a baby) or the comic book version, but the comic book version from Charlton first appeared in December 1959, whereas the movie wasn’t released until 1961. More importantly, however, the final issue of the comic (Gorgo 23, Sep 1965) has time travel when Dr. Hobart Howarth rescues Gorgo from an evil Pentagon attack by sending the giant lizard back to the late Jurassic.
Sadly, as a child, I bought only one Gorgo comic, which was not the time-travel issue, but the stories are definitely drawn by Steve Ditko, hooray!

 I, Senator Sam Brockton tell you this, my fellow citizens, the great danger to our world isnt communism it is Gorgo and the female that spawned him! 

Gorgo 16




   I Dream of Jeannie
created by Sidney Sheldon
First time travel: 25 Sep 1965

Five seasons with 3 time-travel episodes, all with Jeannie (who was the primary reason I wanted to be an astronaut).

Naturally, I never had any refined taste (as indicated by the Bronze Eloi Medal awarded tp Jeannie), but I was a product of my 60s childhood, and, besides, Jeannie (occassionly and briefly) had a belly button (including Season 5’s “Mrs. Djinn-Djinn”).
  1. My Hero? (25 Sep 1965) to ancient Babylon
  2. My Master, the Pirate (13 Mar 1967) to Captain Kidd’s time
  3. My Master, Napoleon’s Buddy (3 Apr 1967)    to Napoleaon's time

 Were at the marketplace, master. Oh, and there is Ali, the man who hit me. 

—from “My Hero?”




The story also appeared in this paperback of Simak stories with a beautiful Eddie Jones cover, which I bought in Scotland at Christmas break in 1977.
   “Small Deer”
by Clifford D. Simak
First publication: Galaxy, Oct 1965

Alton James has a bent for all things mechanical and an interest in dinosaurs, so when his mathematically minded friend describes how a time machine should be built, Alton builds it and heads for 65 million B.C. to see what killed off the dinosaurs.

 We were lucky, that was all. We could have sent that camera back another thousand times, perhaps, and never caught a mastodon—probably never caught a thing. Although we would have known it had moved in time, for the landscape had been different, although not a great deal different. But from the landscape we could not have told if it had gone back a hundred or a thousand years. When we saw the mastadon, however, we knew we’d sent the camera back 10,000 years at least.
I wont bore you with how we worked out a lot of problems on our second model, or how Dennis managed to work out a time-meter that we could calibrate to send the machine a specific distance into time. Because all this is not important. What is important is what I found when I went into time.
Ive already told you Id read your book about Cretaceous dinosaurs and I liked the entire book, but that final chapter about the extinction of the dinosaurs is the one that really got me. Many a time Id lie awake at night thinking about all the theories you wrote about and trying to figure out in my own mind how it really was.
So when it was time to get into that machine and go, I knew where I would be headed.
 


   時をかける少女
English title: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (translated from Japanese)
by Yasutaka Tsutsui (David Karashima, translator)
First publication: Chu̅aku Sannen, Nov 1965 — Taka Ichi, May 1966

After an earthquake and a fire keep her up late, junior high school girl Kazuko Yoshiyama rushes late to school with her friend Goro, and they both are run down by a speeding truck, but then she finds herself waking up again in a seemingly ordinary morning with no last-night earthquake, no last-night fire, and no runaway truck—at least not at this moment.

 As the first period of math class began, Mr. Komatsu—the fat math teacher—wrote down an equation on the board, and Kazuko began to frown. It was the very same problem theyd solved just the day before. But more than that, Mr. Komatsu had written the problem on the board at exactly the same time before, and Kazuko had been called to the front of the class, where shed struggled for some time over the solution. 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
The Other Side of Time by Keith Laumer, Fantastic, Apr 1965 [alternate timelines ]

“Of Time and the Yan” by Roger Zelazny, F&SF, Jun 1965 [despite title, no time travel ]

“Down Styphon!” by H. Beam Piper (paratime), Analog, Nov 1965 [alternate timelines ]

my 1970 paperback copy

   October the First Is Too Late
by Fred Hoyle
First publication: 1966

Dick, a composer, and his boyhood friend John, now an eminent scientist, find themselves in a patchwork world of different times from classical Greece to a far future that humanity barely survives.

My favorable rating is no-doubt reflective of the time when I read it (the summer of 1970, nearly 14, moving from Washington State to Alabama). Perhaps the fiction doesn’t hold up as well for me in 2015 Colorado, but the issues of time still interest me as does the idea that different parts of different times were copied and patchworked together. And, similar to Asimov, Hoyle served to cultivate my interest in the natural sciences.

 To the Reader: The “science” in this book is mostly scaffolding for the story, story-telling in the traditional sense. However, the discussions of the significance of time and the meaning of consciousness are intended to be quite serious, as also are the contents of chapter fourteen. 

—Hoyle’s preface




   Tunnel Through Time
by Lester del Rey
First publication: May 1966

When Bob Miller’s dad invents a time machine and sends Doc Tom gets trapped in the time of the dinosaurs, there’s only one possible solution: send a pair of 17-year-olds (including Bob) back on a rescue mission!

This was the first book that I got through the Scholastic Book Club when we moved to Bellevue in 1968. Each month, the club would give you a flier where you ticked off the books that you wanted, and the next month the books would magically show up at school!

 But theyd overlooked someone. Me. Somehow, by hook or crook, I was going to make that trip, too. Doc Tom wasnt the only one who liked dinos! 








   Bewitched
created by Sidney Sheldon
First time travel: 26 May 1966

Eight seasons with at least 19 time-travel episodes, all with the enchanting Samantha. (I had a scheme to become the third Darrin.)
  1. What Every Young Man Should Know (26 May 1966) courtship days
  2. A Most Unusual Wood Nymph (13 Oct 1966) to 1300s
  3. My Friend Ben (8 Dec 1966) Ben Franklin
  4. Samantha for the Defense (15 Dec 1966) more Ben
  5. Aunt Clara’s Victoria Victory (9 Mar 1967) Queen Victoria
  6. Bewitched, Bothered, and Infuriated (13 Apr 1967) back a few minutes
  7. Samantha’s Thanksgiving to Remember (23 Nov 1967) to 1620
  8. Samantha’s Da Vinci Dilemma (28 Dec 1967) Da Vinci
  9. Samantha Goes South for a Spell (3 Oct 1968) to 1868
  10. Samantha’s French Pastry (14 Nov 1968) Napoleon
  11. The Battle of Burning Oak (13 Mar 1969) back a few minutes
  12. Samantha’s Caesar Salad (2 Oct 1969) Julius Ceasar
  13. Samantha’s Hot Bedwarmer (8 Oct 1970) 1600 Salem
  14. Paul Revere Rides Again (29 Oct 1970) Paul Revere
  15. Samantha’s Old Salem Trip (12 Nov 1970) 1600 Salem
  16. The Return of Darrin the Bold (4 Feb 1971) to 1300s
  17. How to Not Lose Your Head I/II (15/22 Sep 1971) Henry VIII
  18. George Washington Zapped Here I/II (19/26 Feb 1972)    George Washington

 Oh, my stars! 




   Warren Comics (Anthologies)
published by James Warren
First time travel: Creepy 9, Jun 1966

In the late 1960s, these horror comics were a little risqué for a young teen. After all, they were the size of a magazine, printed in black-and-white, were sold next to Playboy in the 7-11, and just for your teenaged-boy mind, they featured scantily clad, buxom women. I have only one issue that I actually managed to hang on to (Vampirella 13 from 1970), but I surreptitiously soaked up many other issues of Creepy and Eerie with fabulous covers by Frazetta and Krenkel. The earliest Eerie time travel that I’ve found so far was an adaptation of Robert Bloch’s story “The Past Master” in Eerie 12; and Creepy 9 had an (original?) Alex Toth (who adapted The Time Machine for George Pal) story called “Out of Time” in June 1966.

 Be silent . . . there is little time! From the pages of the great black book came the incantation that has drawn you from the future. 

—“Out of Time”, Creepy 9




   “Divine Madness”
by Roger Zelazny
First publication: Magazine of Horror, Summer 1966

A man has seizures that reverse small portions of his life that he must then relive.

 The door slammed open. 




   “The Man from When”
by Dannie Plachta
First publication: If, Jul 1966

A man goes to investigate an explosion and finds a time traveler.

 A calculated risk, but I proved my point. In spite of everything, I still think it was worth it. 




   “Behold the Man”
by Michael Moorcock
First publication: New Worlds, Sep 1966

The first version of this story that I read was the 24-page graphic adaptation scripted by Doug Moench and illustrated by Alex Nino in final issue of my favorite comic magazine of 1975, the short-lived Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction. In the complex story, Karl Glogauer travels back to 28 A.D. hoping to meet Jesus, but none of the historical figures he meets are whom he expected.

 The Time Machine is a sphere full of milky fluid in which the traveler floats enclosed in a rubber suit, breathing through a hose leading into the wall of the machine. 

—from the graphic adaptation




   The Time Tunnel
created by Irwin Allen
First episode: 9 Sep 1966

When the senate threatens to cut off funding for Project Tic-Toc, Tony Newman and Doug Phillips set out to prove that the project is viable, but instead they are trapped moving from one past time (perhaps the Titanic!) to another (could be the first manned mission to Mars) each week.

 He could be living in yesterday or next week or a million years from now. 




   It’s About Time
created by Sherwood Schwartz
First episode: 11 Sep 1966

Astronauts Gilligan and the Skipper Mac and Hector get thrown from the space age to the stone age, complete with Tyrannosaurus Rex, English-speaking cavemen, a beautiful cavewoman (Imogene Coca) and the requisite hyjinx. Partway through the first season, the cavepeople came to modern-day New York.

During my 2012 visit to Bellevue, my college roommate Paul Eisenbrey reminded me of this show from our childhood.

 Its about time, its about space, about two men in the strangest place. 




   Star Trek
created by Gene Roddenberry
First time travel: 29 Sep 1966

There once was a Captain named Kirk
Who was known near and far as a flirt
Into hearts his show grew to
Undoubtedly due to
McCoy and that pointy-eared jerk
  —Michael Main, 1973
Gene Roddenberry is the most famous person that I’ve ever met. In 1975 he came to Pullman and I wangled the job of interviewing him for The Daily Evergreen. I didn’t know what to expect from a famous person, and was thrilled to find him friendly and interested in what I was studying at WSU (journalism at that time). Is this a good place to post my Star Trek limerick (from the fanzine, Free Fall, that Paul Chadwick, Dan Dorman and I published in high school)?
  1. The Naked Time (29 Sep 1966) back 71 hours
  2. Tomorrow Is Yesterday (26 Jan 1967) to 1969
  3. The City on the Edge of Forever (6 Apr 1967) to the 1930s
  4. Assignment: Earth (29 Mar 1968) to 1968
  5. All Our Yesterdays (14 Mar 1969) 5000 years ago

 Peace and long life. 




   NoMan
created by Wally Wood, Len Brown and Larry Ivie
First time travel: NoMan 1, Nov 1966

NoMan, a cloaked hero with the power of invisibility, was a memeber of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a team of superheroes first published in 1965 by Tower Comics. I didn’t read them until 1976, when I bought a black and white reprint comic, Uncanny Tales, when I was in Stirling. I don’t know whether any of the other agents time traveled, but NoMan did in both of the issues of his own comic (in Nov 1966 and Mar 1967).

 Trapped in the Past! 

—from the cover of NoMan 1




   Marvel Superhero Cartoons
First time travel: 10 Nov 1966

Admittedly, I watched Marvel cartoons on ABC Saturday morning as early as 1966, but I was never enamoured by them as I was with the comic books. I can list the first time travel in many series—including what I think is the first actual time travel of Spider-Man in any medium—but I have watched only a few.
  1. The Tomorrow Man (10 Nov 1966) Marvel Super Heroes
  2. Rama Tut (9 Dec 1967) Fantastic Four (original)
  3. Vine (16 Nov 1968) Spider-Man
  4. The FF Meet Dr. Doom (21 Oct 1978) Fantastic Four (revival)
  5. The Ghost Vikings (12 Oct 1979) Spider-Woman
  6. The Creature and the Cavegirl (30 Oct 1982) The Hulk
  7. Meets the Girl from Tomorrow (22 Oct 1983) SM and His Amazing Friends
  8. Days of Future Past (13 Mar 1993) X-Men
  9. Hulk Buster (10 Feb 1996) Iron Man
  10. The End of Eternity (16 May 1998) Silver Surfer
  11. Kang (13 Nov 1999) Avengers: United They Stand
  12. Ascension, Part 2 (25 Oct 2003) X-Men: Evolution
  13. Out of Time (15 Sep 2007) FF: World’s Greatest Heroes
  14. Future X (8 Nov 2008) [or earlier?] Wolverine and the X-Men
  15. World War Witch (30 Oct 2010) The Super Hero Squad
  16. Iron Man 2099 (6 Jun 2012) Iron Man: Armored Adventures
  17. New Avengers (25 Jun 2012) Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes  
  18. Planet Doom (8 Dec 2013) Avengers Assemble!

 Hey, listen to this! ‘This is my last entry. I have set the machine to three million B.C. The door will remain open for any who wish to follow.’ 

—“Vine”, Episode 30 of the original Spider-Man cartoon




   Space Ghost
by Lewis Marshall, et. al.
First time travel: 26 Nov 1966

Back in 1966, there was a certain excitement about the each fall’s new lineup of cartoons. Maybe it was because the networks (CBS in the case of Space Ghost) made a big deal about it, even advertising in Marvel Comics; or maybe it was because kids had relatively few choices compared with today’s cable extravaganza. Whatever the reason, I do remember anxiously anticipating the new cartoons in 1966, including Space Ghost and Dino Boy. Space Ghost traveled through time at least once, back to the time of the Vikings in “The Time Machine.”

 Spaaaaaaaaaace Ghoooooooooost! 




   The Monkees
created by Bob Rafelson and Burt Schneider
First time travel: 12 Dec 1966

I knew that if I rewatched these reruns long enough, the space-time continuum would bend. In the episode “Dance, Monkee, Dance” (12 Dec 1966), Martin Van Buren himself comes for a free dance lesson.

 ♫ Im in love, Im a believer, I couldnt leave her if I tried. ♫ 




   The Wild Wild West
created by Michael Garrison
First time travel: 30 Dec 1966

Agents James T. West and Artemus Gordon (in hindsight, quite likely agents of Warehouse 12) traveled in time at least one time when they met none other than Ricardo Montalbán (aka Kahn) who plays Colonel Noel Barley Vautrain with a scheme to travel back to kill Ulysses S. Grant in “The Night of the Lord of Limbo”.

 The concept of a warp in the fabric of space, a break that could permit an object—or a group of Marco Polos if you please—to enter and go voyaging through space’s unlimited fourth dimension: time. 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
“The Evil Eye” by Alfred Gillespie, New Worlds of Fantasy, 1967 [visions of possible futures ]

The Time Bender by Keith Laumer [parallel universes ]

“Traveler’s Rest’” by David I. Masson, Worlds Best Science Fiction, 1966 [differing time rates ]

“The Great Clock” by Langdon Jones, New Worlds, Mar 1966 [despite title, no time travel ]

“Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday” by Philip K. Dick, Amazing, Aug 1966 [odd entropy ]

   The Time Hoppers
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: 1967

The High Government of the 25th century has directed Joe Quellen (a Level Seven) to find out who’s behind the escapes in time by lowly unemployed Level Fourteens and put a stop to it.

 Suppose, he thought fretfully, some bureaucrat in Class Seven or Nine or thereabouts had gone ahead on his own authority, trying to win a quick uptwitch by dynamic action, and had rounded up a few known hoppers in advance of their departure. Thereby completely snarling the fabric of the time-line and irrevocably altering the past. 


   “Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne”
by R.A. Lafferty
First publication: Galaxy, Feb 1967

The Ktistec machine Epiktistes and wise men of the world decide to change one moment in the dark ages while they carefully watch for changes in their own time.

 We set out basic texts, and we take careful note of the world as it is. If the world changes, then the texts should change here before our eyes. 




   Super Green Beret
aka Tod Holton, Super Green Beret
by Otto Binder (story), Carl Pfeufer (art) and Wayne Marston (art)
First issue: Apr 1967

When teenager Tod Holton dons the magical green beret that was given to him by his uncle, Tod turns into a muscular adult green beret soldier himself with whatever magic power seems to be needed at the moment—including the power of time travel. In the first issue, Tod travels back to a World War II battle in the Black Forest; in the second (and final) issue, Tod plays a role in the American Revolution.

 This is a new one on me! Can my green berets supernatural powers even transport me back in time?? 


   “The Doctor”
by Theodore L. Thomas (as by Ted Thomas)
First publication: Orbit 2, Jun 1967

A doctor named Gant volunteers to be the first time traveler and ends up stranded in a time of cave people.

 There had been a time long ago when he had thought that these people would be grateful to him for his work, that he would become known by some such name as The Healer. 


The story also appeared in this 1970 collection.   “The Hole on the Corner”
by R.A. Lafferty
First publication: Orbit 2, Jun 1967

When Homer Hoose arrives home to his perfect home one evening, he is met by other Homers whom the Diogenes Pontifex insists are not Jung’s alternate versions of ourselves, but instead are actual versions of ourselves occupying the same space. None of which has to do with time travel, but the brilliant Diogenes does mention in passing his experiments in other fields. I suppose that’s another Lafferty story, but I haven’t run into it yet.

 “You speak of it as if . . . well, isnt this the twentieth century?” Regina asked.
“This the twentieth? Why, you’re right! I guess it is,” Diogenes agreed. “You see, I carry on experiments in other fields also, and sometimes get my times mixed.”
 


   “Hawksbill Station”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Galaxy, Aug 1967

Jim Barrett was one of the first political prisoners sent on a one-way journey to a world of rock and ocean in 2,000,000,000 BC; now a secretive new arrival threatens to upset the harsh world that he looks after.

 One of his biggest problems here was keeping people from cracking up because there was too little privacy. Propinquity could be intolerable in a place like this. 




   Lost in Space
created by Irwin Allen
First time travel: 13 Sep 1967

Three seasons with 2 time-travel episodes.
  1. Visit to a Hostile Planet (13 Sep 1967)   to 1947
  2. Time Merchant (17 Jan 1968) back to the launch

 Danger Will Robinson, danger! 




   An Age
aka Cryptozoic!
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: New Worlds, Oct–Dec 1967

Once again, here’s an example that’s not time travel. Instead, an artist name Edward Bush (and others) “mind travel” to the Jurassic (and other ages) where they may view the past without physically traveling. Viewing the past is not time travel. Interestingly, though, the authoritarian government can’t seem to get their hands on the travelers while they’re traveling, so I am gonna count this as time travel.

 On his last mind into the Devonian, when this tragic illness was brewing, he had intercourse with a young woman called Ann. 






  
 Dragonriders of Pern #1
Dragonflight
by Anne McCaffrey
First publication: Analog, Oct 1967 (“Weyr Search”) and Dec 1967–Jan 1968 (“Dragonrider”)

By the time that Lessa of Ruatha Hold becomes Weyrwoman of the only remaining dragon weyr, the end of all Pern seems a possibility since a single weyr is not enough to fight off the falling threads from the Red Star.

Allison Thompson-Brown reminded me that dragons can go when as well as where, and the travel through time always results in a stable time loop, so that dragon travel can never change anything known to be certain in the past. The actual whening part (or going between time, as it’s called) didn’t come until the third installment (Part 2 of “Dragonrider” in the Jan 1968 Analog), but I’ll date the concept back to the slightly earlier appearance of the first story (“Weyr Search” in Oct 1967). The two stories were fixed up into the first Pern novel, Dragonflight, in July of 1968, but it was another ten years before I discovered it.

 “Dragons can go between times as well as places. They go as easily to a when as to a where.”
Robinton’s eyes widened as he digested this astonishing news.
“That is how we forestalled the attack on Nerat yesterday morning. We jumped back two hours
between times to meet the Threads as they fell.” 


Aldiss’s story was one of eight that were selected for the first (1969) of three separate paperback volumes that together comprised the original anthology.

   “The Night That All Time Broke Out”
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: Dangerous Visions, Oct 1967

Aldiss confessed that this story contains one of the whackiest ideas that he ever had. Does it contain time travel? You should read the story first and decide for yourself, but here’s my spoil-laden take on the matter:

An invisible, subterranean gas can be supplied right to your house along with controls that let you control its delivery to your brain. Depending on the concentration, the result is to bring aspects of your previous consciousness (or that of your ancestors) right into your present-day brain: physical sensations, bodily abilities, mental attitudes, and the psychological make-up of the chanelled person all take over your body, although you remain present. To me, this could be ancestral memory—perhaps passed down genetically and triggered by the newly discovered gas—but I’m going to list it as time travel.

 Fifi could not understand what on earth he was talking about. Every since leaving Plymouth, she had been adrift, and that not entirely metaphorically. It was bad enough playing Pilgrim Mother to one of the Pilgrim Fathers, but she did not dig this New World at all. It was now beyond her comprehension to understand that the vast resources of modern technology were fouling up the whole time schedule of a planet. 




   “The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World”
by Harlan Ellison
First publication: Dangerous Visions, Oct 1967

A pedestrian blood-and-guts version of Jack the Ripper is pulled from 1888 into a sterile city of the future where he promptly slays Hernon’s granddaughter, an occurrance that leaves the equally evil Hernon unrattled.

 He had looked up as light flooded him in that other place. It had been soot silent in Spitalfields, but suddenly, without any sense of having moved or having been moved, he was flooded with light. And when he looked up he was in tht other place. Paused now, only a few minutes after the transfer, he leaned against the bright wall of the city, and recalled the light. 




   Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
created by Irwin Allen
First time travel: 3 Dec 1967

In the fourth season, the futuristic submarine Seaview and its crew had four time-traveling escapades, including the finale.
  1. Time Lock (12 Nov 1967) to the far future
  2. A Time to Die (3 Dec 1967) to 1,000,000 B.C.
  3. The Death Clock (24 Mar 1968)   Captain Crane is a time-machine guinea pig
  4. No Way Back (31 Mar 1968) to the time of Benedict Arnold

 Suppose we had a working time device. Would we be able to get back aboard Seaview before the explosion, find out what caused it, and prevent it from happening? 

—Admiral Nelson to Mr. Pem in “No Way Back”




   Dark Shadows
created by Dan Curtis
First time travel: 17 Nov 1967

If you were a cool kid in the 60s, you ran home from school to watch Dark Shadows, a vampiresque soap opera that presaged Twilight by about four decades. I wasn’t that cool myself, but my sister Lynda was, and from time to time I overheard her and the cool kids talking about the inhabitants of Collinwood trekking to the late 1700s (in episodes from late 1967 through early 1969) and the late 1800s (in the March 1969 episodes). There may well be other time-travel escapades that have escaped me.

 Im afraid you must forgive me, miss. If we have met before, Im sorry to say that I dont remember it. 

—Barnibus to Victoria Winters when she unexpectedly travels to 1795 for the first time




   Journey to the Center of Time
aka Time Warp
by David L. Hewitt (Hewitt, director)
First release: a forgetable day in 1967

Hewitt was able to take the same plot from his 1964 The Time Travelers, change the blonde to a brunette, and make an even worse movie, which Tim and I really did try to watch on dvd.

 Dr. Gordon: And since space-time is a continuum, the present is only a point moving along that continuum.
Mr. Stanton: When you put it like that, doctor, even I can understand it. 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick, Feb 1967 [odd entropy ]

“The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy...” by J.G. Ballard, New Worlds, Mar 1967 [despite title, no time travel ]

The Jewels of Elsewhen by Ted White, Apr 1967 [despite title, no time travel ]

“To Outlive Eternity” by Poul Anderson, Galaxy, Jun 1967 [time dilation ]

“Compound Interest” by Christopher Anvil, Analog, Jul 1967 [despite title, no time travel ]

   Hawksbill Station
aka The Anvil of Time
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: 1968

The novelization pads out the original nine chapters of the novella and adds five new chapters with Barrett’s backstory as a revolutionary, right to the point where he’s sent back to the station.

I didn’t get much from the new chapters, and between the novel and the original story, I would recommend reading the 5-star original only.

 So Hawksbills machine did work, and the rumors were true, and this was where they sent the troublesome ones. Was Janet here too? He asked. No, Pleyel said. There were only men here. Twenty or thirty prisoners, managing somehow to survive. 




   Sam, of de Pluterdag
English title: Where Were You Last Pluterday? (translated from Dutch)
by Paul Van Herck
First publication: 1968

I’m often confused as to whether an author is being humorous or being artsy, but if I’m not laughing a lot and it sounds a little like Kurt Vonnegut, then I assume it’ art. That’s the case here when science fiction writer Sam is put out of a job because science fiction has been banned, all of which happens just as he falls in love with the beautiful and carefree heiress Julie Vandermasten, who asks him to meet her next Pluterday—and yes, there’s a time machine involved, too, because he needs to go back after missing the Pluterday rendezvous.

 Sam got out of his bed. “Pluterday!” he rejoiced. And today he had an appointment with Julie. He did some push-ups, meditated a short while on the word om, which he didnt find fulfilling today, washed himself abundantly, and cursed the normal being that called Sunday a beautiful day. 




   Star Trek, the Blish Adaptations
adapted by James Blish
First time travel: Star Trek 2, Feb 1968

I bought the first four of these collections in July of 1971 in Huntsville, and the rest I snapped up as they were issued in the ’70s (plus Blish’s original novel Spock Must Die!). At that point in my life, I could recite them by heart. Here’s the list of time-travel adaptations, which does not include “The Naked Time” (in Star Trek 1) since the 71 hours of time travel was omitted in the Blish version:
  1. Tomorrow Is Yesterday (Feb 1968) in Star Trek 2
  2. The City on the Edge of Forever    (Feb 1968) in Star Trek 2
  3. Assignment: Earth (Apr 1969) in Star Trek 3
  4. All Our Yesterdays (Jul 1971) in Star Trek 4

 “Jim,” McCoy said raggedly. “You deliberately stopped me . . . Did you hear me? Do you know what you just did?”
Kirk could not reply. Spock took his arm gently. “He knows,” he said. “Soon you will know, too. And what
was . . . now is again.” 

—The City on the Edge of Forever


   “The Chronicle of the 656th”
by George Byram
First publication: Playboy, Mar 1968

In a flash of light, a U.S. Army 656th Regimental Combat Team is transported from a training exercise in 1944 Tennessee to 1864 where the Northerners and Southerners debate whether they can or should try to affect the War Between the States.

 We could see the cavalry, the caissons and the old-time cannon. The men said we must of lost our way—and wed run into a movie outfit makin a Civil War picture. 




   The Goblin Reservation
by Clifford D. Simak
First publication: Galaxy, Apr-Jun 1968

Professor Peter Maxwell sets out for one of the Coonskin planets, but his beam is intercepted and later returned to Earth only to find that his beam was actually duplicated, his duplicate has been killed, and his friends (some goblins, a ghost, and a time-traveling neanderthal among others) have already buried him.

I wonder whether this was the first transporter accident story (which, as we all know, eventually leads to two Will Rikers).

 You mean there were two Pete Maxwells? 


   The Masks of Time
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: May 1968

To me, this seemed like Robert Silverberg’s answer to Stranger in a Strange Land, although this time the stranger is Vornan-19, who claims to be from the future.

 Theres no economic need for us to cluster together, you know. 


   “Backtracked”
by Burt K. Filer
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jun 1968

At forty-something, Fletcher sends his current well-honed body back ten years where his out-of-shape thirty-something mind and his thirty-something wife must now accept it without really knowing why the transfer was done.

 Maybe he should call Time Central? No, they were duty bound to give him no help at all. Theyd just say that at some point ten years in the future he had gone to them with a request to be backtracked to the present—and that before making the hop his mind had been run through that clear/reset wringer of theirs. 




   “The Beast That Shouted Love”
aka “The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World”
by Harlan Ellison
First publication: Galaxy, Jun 1968

For me, this nontraditional story didn’t bring any clarity to the notion of evil—but perhaps that’s what was intended, to artistically portray the incomprehensible nature of evil. Still, even without clarity, it was worth reading the award-winning story of evil being distilled and somehow sent throughout time by two future aliens: it stretched my understanding of story and helped me comprehend The Incredible Hulk 140.

 Seven dog-heads slept. 




   Yellow Submarine
by Lee Minoff, et. al.
First release: 17 Jul 1968

The psychedelic animation and pretense of a plot to save Pepperland from the Blue Meanies served as a pun-filled vehicle for a more than a dozen Beatles’ songs, but sadly the Beatles themselves had little participation in the film. On the upside, though, their journey did involve meeting themselves passing backwards through time.

 Old Fred: Now I dont want to alarm you, mates, but the years are going backwards.
George: Whats that mean, Old Fred?
Old Fred: It means tht if we slip back through time at this rate, pretty soon well all disappear up our own existence! 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
“The Time of His Life” by Larry Eisenberg, F&SF, Apr 1968 [bizarre physiological aging ]

“For a Foggy Night” by Larry Niven, Decal, Jul 1968 [paralell universes ]

Assignment in Nowhere by Keith Laumer, Aug 1968 [parallel universes ]

“All the Myriad Ways” by Larry Niven, Galaxy, Oct 1968 [many-worlds quantum mechanics ]



   “The Future Is Ours”
by Edward D. Hoch (as by Stephen Dentinger)
First publication: Crime Prevention in the 30th Century, 1969

Hoch was a mystery and detective story writer who sent two stories to the Crime Prevention anthology, so this one was published under his Dentinger pseudonym. In the story, a modern-day detective is sent forward to the year 2259 so he can bring back future crime fighting methods, but what he finds is rather less than impressive.

 I understand that it can transport me three hundred years in the future to study techniques of crime prevention and law enforcement. 




   Slaughterhouse-Five
or the Children’s Crusade

by Kurt Vonnegut
First publication: 1969

Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran and sometimes zoo occupant on a far-off planet, lives one moment of his life, then he’s thrown back to another, then forward again, and so on amidst the sadness of what men do to each other in this deterministic and fatalistic universe.

 All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasnt his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. 


   “Praiseworthy Saur”
aka “If”
by Harry Harrison
First publication: If, Feb 1969

At least three lizards from the future (Numbers 17, 35 and 44) project themselves into the past to protect their remote ancestor.

 The centuries will roll by and, one day, our race will reach its heights of glory. 




   Magnus, Robot Fighter
created by Russ Manning
First time travel: Magnus, Robot Fighter 26, May 1969

There were times in the 60s when there simply weren’t enough Marvel comics, so I picked up the occassional issue of Magnus, including issue 26 where the nemesis of robots was stranded in the distant future.

 No robot may harm a human, or allow a human to come to harm . . . 

—from the splash page of Magnus 1. By the 60s, Asimov’s first law had become so ingrained that the good doctor was not cited as the source of the law


   “Nine P.M., Pacific Daylight Time”
by Ronald S. Bonn
First publication: Venture Science Fiction, May 1969

Mad scientist Maxwell Scheinst gives a science writer a paradox: If time travel is possible, then where are all the time travelers? Scheinst also provides an answer: They haven’t arrived yet because nobody has built a receiver . . . until now!

Mathematician Fred Galvin from Kansas University pointed me to this gem, which also got me wondering who was the first to pose the paradox. Both Clarke and Hawking have mentioned the problem, but where did it originate? I'm working on tracking that down. Let me know if you have any leads!

 Id say the reason that no time traveler has ever arrived from the future is precisely the same reason that Galileo failed to discover radio astronomy. 


   “The Timesweepers”
by Keith Laumer
First publication: Analog, Aug 1969

I haven’t yet read this short story that Laumer expanded to the novel Dinosaur Beach in 1971, though perhaps some day I will spot the Ballantime paperback, Timetracks, that collected it along with four other stories.



   Woody Woodpecker
created by Bugs Hardaway, Walter Lantz and Alex Lovy
First time travel: 1 Sep 1969

I found one cartoon where the screwball woodpecker travels back in time: “Prehistoric Super Salesman” from 1969 where Professor Grossenfibber needs a subject for his time tunnel.

 Now my time machine is all ready for the experiment. All I need is somebody . . . is somebody . . . ah, the woodpecker, ya! 




   Land of the Giants
created by Irwin Allen
First time travel: 21 Dec 1969

When a suborbital ship gets caught in a space storm, it ends up on a planet where everything and everyone is twelve times bigger than normal, providing fodder for adventure and at least two treks through time (“Home Sweet Home” on 12 Dec 1969, and “Wild Journey” on 8 Mar 1970).

The writing, acting and sets had little appeal to me, though I did enjoy Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) in “Wild Journey”, aka Marta, the green Orion dancer from the third season of Star Trek.

 But dont you see: If we never take that flight out, there would have never been a crash, and the others would have never been stranded on this planet. 

—from “Wild Country”



No Time Travel.
Move along.
The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier [viewing the past ]

H.R. Pufnstuf (the Clock family's time machine) produced by Sid Krofft and Marty Krofft, 6 Sep 1969 [bizarre aging ]

“Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones’” by Samuel R. Delany, New Worlds, Dec 1968 [despite title, no time travel ]



   Quest for the Future
by A.E. van Vogt
First publication: 1970

Hey, I got an idea! Let’s take three unrelated time-travel stories, change the name of the protagonist to be the same in all three, paste in some transition material, and call it a novel!

To be fair, I did enjoy this paperback when I bought it in the summer of 1970, but when I went to read van Vogt’s collected stories 42 years later, bits kept seeming familiar, which is when I discovered the truth. If I were a new reader, I’d just as soon read the individual stories and skip the conglomeration. The three stories are “Film Library,” “The Search” and “Far Centaurus” (all in van Vogt’s Transfinite collection).

 A new novel by “the undisputed idea man of the futuristic field” (to quote Forrest J. Ackerman) is bound to be an event of major interest to every science fiction reader. 

—from the back cover of the 1970 paperback


   “A Shape in Time”
by Anthony Boucher
First publication: The Future Is Now, 1970

Time-traveling, Marriage-prevention specialist Agent L-3H has her first failure while trying to intervene in the 1880 marriage of Edwin Sullivan to Angelina Gilbert.

 Temporal Agent L-3H is always delectable in any shape; thats why the Bureau employs her on marriage-prevention assignments. 




   Time and Again
by Jack Finney
First publication: 1970

Si goes back to 19th century New York to solve a crime and (of course) fall in love.

This is Janet’s favorite time-travel novel, in which Finney elaborates on themes that were set in earlier stories such as “Double Take.”

 Theres a project. A U.S. government project I guess youd have to call it. Secret, naturally; as what isnt in government these days? In my opinion, and that of a handful of others, its more important than all the nuclear, space-exploration, satellite, and rocket programs put together, though a hell of a lot smaller. I tell you right off that I cant even hint what the project is about. And believe me, youd never guess. 




   The Year of the Quiet Sun
by Wilson Tucker
First publication: 1970

Brian Chaney—researcher, translator, statistician, a little of this and that—is unwillingly drafted as the third member of a team (which includes Major Moresby and Lt. Commander Saltus) to study and map the central United States at the turn of the century, at about the year 2000.

For me, I see the tone of several later items, such as the tv show Seven Days, as descendants of Tucker’s novel—and we finally understand why the Terminator arrives at his destination naked.

 She said: “It’s a matter of weight, Mr. Chaney. The machine must propel itself and you into the future, which is an operation requiring a tremendous amount of electrical energy. The engineers have advised us that total weight is a critical matter, that nothing but the passenger must be put forward or returned. They insist upon minimum weight.”
    “Naked? All the way naked?”
 




  
 Time Trap #1
Time Trap
by Keith Laumer
First publication: Aug 1970

Roger Tyson is caught in a madcap changewar between aliens and time travelers from the future

  . . . it would be our great privilege to bring to the hypergalactic masses, for the first time in temporal stasis, a glimpse of life on a simpler, more meaningless, and therefore highly illuminating scale. I pictured the proud intellects of Ikanion Nine, the lofty abstract cerebra of Yoop Two, the swarm-awareness of Vr One-ninety-nine, passing through these displays at so many megaergs per ego-complex, gathering insights into their own early evolutionary history. I hoped to see the little ones, their innocent organ clusters aglow, watching with shining radiation sensors as primitive organisms split atoms with stone axes, invented the wheel and the betatron, set forth on their crude Cunarders to explore the second dimension . . . 




   Timeslip
created by Ruth Boswell and James Boswell
First episode: 28 Sep 1970

Serious Simon and Emotional Elizabeth use the Time Barrier to travel to different doctorwhoish pasts and presents, never meeting the Time Lord himself, of course, but sometimes meeting versions of themselves and their families.

 Oold Beth: Sometimes in life you have to make decisions and hope they come out for the best. Youll know about that soon enough.
Young Liz: But Ill never make your decisions, will I?
Oold Beth: Then how did I come to make them? Were the same, Liz. But Im like a person Youll never be, and youre like a person I never was, never. 

—from “The Time of the Ice Box”


   “One Life,
Furnished in Early Poverty”

by Harlan Ellison
First publication: Orbit 8, Oct 1970

At 42, Gus Rosenthal is in a place of security, importance, recogntion—in short, the perfect time to dig up that toy soldier that he buried in his back yard 30 years ago with the knowledge that doing so will take him back to that time to be an influence on an angry, bullied 12-year-old Gus.

 My thoughts were of myself: I’m coming to save you. I’m coming, Gus. You won’t hurt any more . . . you’ll never hurt. 


   “The Weed of Time”
by Norman Spinrad
First publication: Alchemy and Academe, Nov 1970

Spinrad’s tells of a man for whom every event in his life happens simultaneously, which is perhaps the ultimate in time travel.

 They will not accept the fact that choice is an illusion caused by the fact that future time-loci are hidden from those who advance sequentially along the time-stream one moment after the other in blissful ignorance. 


   “The Ever-Branching Tree”
by Harry Harrison
First publication: Science Against Man, Dec 1970

A Teacher takes a group of disinterested children on a field trip through time to see the evolution of life.

 Yesterday we watched the lightning strike the primordial chemical soup of the seas and saw the more complex chemicals being made that developed into the first life foms. We saw this single-celled life triumph over time and eternity by first developing the ability to divide into two cells, then to develope into composite, many-celled life forms. What do you remember about yesterday? 



No Time Travel.
Move along.
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson [time dilation ]

Scrooge adapted by Leslie Bricusse (Ronald Neame, director), 19 Dec 1970 [a christmas carol ]

 


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Thanks for visiting my time-travel page, and thanks to the many sources that provided stories and more (see the Links and Credits in the menu at the top). —Michael (
main@colorado.edu)