The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 Related to: Tales of Tomorrow
 from antiquity to 2017

   “What You Need”
by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore (as by Lewis Padgett)
First publication: Astounding, Oct 1945

Reporter Tim Carmichael visits Peter Talley, a shopkeeper on Park Avenue who provides for a select clientele things that they will need in the future.

I never include prescience stories in my list, but like Heinlein’s “Life-Line,” this one is an exception, both because of its tone and because it was made into episodes of both Tales of Tomorrow (the tv show) and The Twilight Zone.

   




   “The Little Black Bag”
by C.M. Kornbluth
First publication: Astounding, Jul 1950

In a 25th century where the vast majority of people have stunted intelligence (or at least talk with poor grammar), a physicist accidentally sends a medical bag back through time to Dr. Bayard Full, a down-on-his-luck, generally drunk, always callously self-absorbed, dog-kicking shyster. Despite falling in with a guttersnipe of a girl, Annie Aquella, he tries to make good use of the gift.

 Switch is right. It was about time travel. What we call travel through time. So I took the tube numbers he gave me and I put them into the circuit-builder; I set it for ‘series’ and there it is-my time-traveling machine. It travels things through time real good. 




   Tales of Tomorrow
aka Tomorrow Is Yours
by Theodore Sturgeon and Mort Abrahamson
First time travel: 8 Feb 1952

When Sturgeon and Abrahamson sold the idea of this anthology show to ABC, they had the backing of the Science Fiction League of America, giving ABC first shot at any stories written by league members. They took good advantage of the deal, including stories by Fredric Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, C.M. Kornbluth, and others including Henry Kutter and C.M. Moore’s “What You Need”. That excellent 1945 story involves future prediction without time travel, but I included it in my time-travel list just because I liked it so much (and it was later made into a Twilight Zone episode, too). Hence, I’ll count the Feb 1952 airing of the story as the first time travel in Tales of Tomorrow. There were at least four other see-into-the-future-or-past episodes, but I won’t include them in the list below. After all, one must have standards!

In general, I’d place the stories on the more horrific end of the science fiction scale, but certainly worth watching.
  1. What You Need (8 Feb 1952) Henry Kuttner and C.M. Moore
  2. The Little Black Bag (30 May 1952) C.M. Kornbluth
  3. Ahead of His Time (18 Jul 1952) Paul Tripp
  4. The Chase (19 Sep 1952) Mann Rubin
  5. Another Chance (13 Feb 1953) Frank De Felitta
  6. Past Tense, with Boris Karloff (3 Apr 1953) Robert F. Lewine

 After my treatment, you’l awake. You’ll find yourself in a room a thousand miles from here and back seven years in time. You’ll have absolutely no remembrance of these past seven years. The slate will be clean. 

—“Another Chance”




   “The Old Die Rich”
by H.L. Gold
First publication: Galaxy, Mar 1953

Dang those drop-dead beautiful, naked redheads with a gun and a time machine! How did actor Mark Weldon start out investigating the starvation deaths of rich, old vagrants and end up at the wrong end of a derringer being forced into a time machine invented by Miss Robert’s mad scientist father?

 She had the gun in her hand. I went into the mesh cage, not knowing what to expect and yet too afraid of her to refuse. I didn’t want to wind up dead of starvation, no matter how much money she gave me—but I didn”t want to get shot, either. 


The Danville, VA, Bee,
26 Mar 1953, announcing the evening’s programs, including
“The Old Die Rich”

   Tales of Tomorrow
hosted by Omentor (aka Raymond E. Johnson)
First time travel: 26 Mar 1953

The radio program spun off from the tv show of the day, but instead of having a deal for stories with the entire SFLA, it exclusively aired stories from Galaxy, including at least one time travel story, H.L. Gold’s “The Old Die Rich” on 26 Mar 1953.

 This is your host, Omentor, saying, “Hello.” I’d like to take a little trip to another century, just name your choice: You can go back through the years as far as you’d like or forward to the future and visit civilizations as yet unknown. Fantastic? Not if you use the proper vehicle, which in this case is a time machine. What’s that? Where do you find a time machine? Well, I found one in a remarkable story from Galaxy magazine. 


 

5 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)