The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 Related to: Quest for the Future
 from antiquity to 2017



   “The Search”
by A.E. van Vogt
First publication: Astounding, Jan 1943

When salesman Ralph Carson Drake tries to recover his missing memory of the past two weeks, he discovers that he had interactions with a woman named Selanie Johns who sold remarkable futuristic devices for one dollar, her father, and an old gray-eyed, man who is feared by Selanie and her father.

Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.

 “Just grab his right shoulder with that glove, from behind,” SpockPrice was saying. “Press below the collarbone with the points of your fingers, press hard.” 


The story also appeared in August Derleth’s 1948 anthology, Strange Ports of Call.

   “Far Centaurus”
by A.E. van Vogt
First publication: Astounding, Jan 1944

Four men set out for Alpha Centauri on a 500-year journey where each will awaken only a handful of times. That’s not time travel, of course, but be patient and you will run into real time travel.

Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and some fix-up material (especially for “Far Centaurus”) for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.

 We’re here! It’s over, the long night, the incredible journey. We’ll all be waking, seeing each other, as well as the civilization out there. Seeing, too, the great Centauri suns. 




   “Film Library”
by A.E. van Vogt
First publication: Astounding, Jul 1946

Each time a film goes through Peter Caxton’s projector at Tichenor Collegiate, it gets replaced with a different film from the future.

Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.

 Not that he would necessarily have suspected anyway that he had come into possession of films that had been made more than fifty years in the future. 




   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


 

4 items are in the time-travel list for these search settings.
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)