The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1980 to 1989



   Barney Miller
created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker
First time travel: “The Child Stealers,” 24 Jan 1980

In the sixth season, one episode of the show had a man named Mr. Boyer who claimed to be a time traveler from the future. The show never settled whether he was an actual time traveler or merely a candidate for Bellevue Hospital’s psych ward, but consider this: Just how else did he get on top of the Washington Arch> And wasn’t he dead on about the price of gold which crashed from an all-time high of over $2000 per troy ounce on the day of the show’s airing to about $350 over the next two decades. So even if Mr. Boyer was not a time traveler, he saved Sgt. Harris a bundle of money. The precint also got Boyer`'s thoughts on the price of Zinc, the future of gay rights, and the Denver Broncos.

 I had no intentionof jumping, you know. The only reason I was up there is my coordinates were off. 






Three collections of the puzzles were published in the 1980s.		   Martin Gardner’s SF Puzzles
by Martin Gardner
First time travel puzzle: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 1980

Growing up, I read every Martin Gardner science book that I could lay my hands on. Janet even claims that I ignored her on our honeymoon in order to read Gardner’s Relativity for the Million (which is absolutely not true—it was The Ambidextrous Universe). Gardner was a colleague and friend of Asimov’s, which led to a series of sf puzzle stories beginning in the first issue of IASFM and continuing through November of 1986. There was a mention of tachyons in the Mar/Apr 1978 puzzle (“The Third Dr. Moreau”), and the May 1979 puzzle (“How Bagson Bagged a Board Game”) had a device to view the past, but the first actual time travel didn’t occur until February of 1980, quickly followed by another in July 1980 (which coincidentally was the month of the disputed honeymoon).
  1. Professor Cracker’s Antitelephone (Feb 1980) reverse-time phone
  2. The Backward Banana (Jul 1980) fruit travels in time
  3. The Queer Story of Gardner’s Magazine (Aug 1980) magazine from 2556
  4. Parallel Pasts (26 Oct 1981) to the past in a parallel world

 Somewhere in the text is a block of letters which taken forward spell the last name of a top science fiction author who has written about time travel. 

—“The Backward Banana”




Sadly, Galactica 1980 had neither Laurette Spang . . .

nor Jane Seymour

   Galatica 1980
created by Glen A. Larson
First time travel: 10 Feb 1980

I eagarly awaited the reboot of Battlestar Galactica in 1980, shortly before I left to join my soon-to-be wife in England. Sadly, the reboot was a disappointment: poor plots, poor characters, the same few seconds of special effects and explosions endlessly repeated—and not even Cassiopeia (Laurette Spang, whom I was in love with in 1978) or Serina (Jane Seymour, whom I am in love with now).

However, I later discovered one redeeming feature: Time travel in Part Three of the 1980 Galactica pilot show, when the warriers follow an evil scientist back to 1944 and foil his plot to give modern technology to the Nazis. I think this was the only hint of time travel in the Galactica franchise, although the same future wife whom I went to meet in 1980 now tells me that this bit of time travel may have planted a seed in writer Donald P. Bellisario for his later series, Quantum Leap.

 The great ship Galactica, majestic and loving, strong and protecting, our home for these many years we endured the wilderness of space. And now we near the end of our journey. Scouts and electronic surveillance confirm that we have reached our haven, that planet which is home to our ancestor brothers. Too many of our sons and daughters did not survive to share the fulfillment of our dream. We can only take comfort and find strength in that they did not die in vain. We have at last found Earth. 




   Thrice Upon a Time
by James P. Hogan
First publication: Mar 1980

In answer to his least favorite question, James Hogan explained (in the Jan 2006 Analog) that the idea for this novel came from an all night conversation with Charles Sheffield about the classic time-travel paradox of what happens if you send something back in time and the arrival of that thing is the very cause of you not sending said thing back in time. Much of the novel is a similar conversation between physicist Murdoch Ross, his friend Lee, and Murdoch’s Nobel Prize winning grandfather Charles who has invented a way to send messages through time.

 Suppose your grandfather’s right. What happens to free will? If you can send information backward through time, you can tell me what I did even before I get around to doing it. So suppose I choose not to? 


   “A Touch of Petulance”
by Ray Bradbury
First publication: Dark Forces, Aug 1980

On his way home on the train, Jonathan Hughes meets Jonathan Hughes + 20 years and receives a warning that his marriage to a lovely young bride will end in murder.

 Me, thought the young man. Why, that old man is . . . me. 




   The Final Countdown
by Thomas Hunter, Peter Powell, David Ambrose, et. al. (Peter Vincent Douglas, director)
First release: 1 Aug 1980

Observer Warren Lasky is aboard the U.S.S. Nimitz when a storm takes her back to World War II, and then they are returned to the present before they can do anything vaguely cool.

 Today is December 7, 1941. I’m sure we are all aware of the significance of this date in this place in history. We are going to fight a battle that was lost before most of you were born. This time, with God’s help, it’s going to be different. . . . Good Luck. 






   The Muppet Show
created by Jim Henson
First time travel: 5 Aug 1980

The most excellent Muppet Show, its successor Muppets Tonight, the short Muppet Movie Mania episodes, and the online From the Balcony couldn't totally ignore time travel.
  1. Chris Langham (5 Aug 1980) working on a time travel aparatus
  2. Michelle Pfeiffer, (8 Mar 1996) Dr. Honeydew bippie time manipulation
  3. The Kerminator (1999) The title says it all.
  4. From the Balcony #27, (Jun 2006) Superman reverses time

 Aparatus travel time a it’s. Moment the at on working I’m what is this. Hello! 

—Guest host Chris Langham


   “Appointment on the Barge”
by Jack Ritchie
First publication: Microcosmic Tales, Sep 1980

After Professor Bertoldt delivers a speech about his theories on how to send a person back to an earlier incarnation, he gets two visitors wanting to go back in time because they claim to be Cleopatra and Anthony.

 I have hesitated to use a human until I can be positive that no psychic harm will result to my subject. However, I do believe that last week I did succeed in sending a chimpanzee back several generations. How far back, I can't be certain. We had a bit of difficulty in communication. 


German edition of Microcosmic Tales   “Murder in the Nth Degree”
by R.A. Montana
First publication: Microcosmic Tales, Sep 1980

An insurance agent from Cleveland is selected as the representative of Earth in a galactic trial for multiple crimes against life, but it’s not until the verdict that you’ll see the time travel angle.

 Representative? I’m an insurance agent from Cleveland, Ohio! I got a wife and three kids and about the worst thing I’ve ever done was voting Republican in the last election. How can I be a representative? 


1992 paperback edition   “Package Deal”
by Donald Franson
First publication: Microcosmic Tales, Sep 1980

Vernon Lewis has a theoretical idea for a time machine, but no money to build it, so he hatches a plan to send himself various money-making artifacts from the future and use the money to build the machine that will send the items back—and one day, in the afternoon mail, the package arrives.

 He ripped the tape off, unwrapped the brown paper. There it was—an almanac. 




   Cosmos: A Personal Journey
hosted by Carl Sagan
First publication: 28 Sep 1980

Carl Sagan’s original 13-part PBS series introduced us to the Ship of the Imagination. Although it was used only in the first episode, each of the other episodes also took us on a journey through space and time.

 We’re going to explore the Cosmos in a ship of the imagination, unfetered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies: It can take us anywhere in space and time. 




   The Number of the Beast
by Robert A. Heinlein
First publication: Oct 1980

Semi-mad scientist Jake Burroughs, his beautiful daughter Deety, her strong love interest Zeb Carter, and Hilda Corners (“Aunt Hilda” if you prefer) use Gay Deceiver to visit many time periods in many universes (including that of Lazurus Long), soon realizing the true nature of the world as multiperson pantheistic solipsism.

 Sharpie, you have just invented multiperson pantheistic solipsism. I didn’t think that was mathematically possible. 


   “Prairie Sun”
by Edward Bryant
First publication: Omni, Oct 1980

On the Oregon trail west of Laramie in 1850, 13-year-old Micah Taverner asks two scavenger men from the future to cure his sister Annie from the smallpox.

Janet and I heard this read by James Whiteman in 2004 at a series of dramatic readings called Colorado Homegrown Tales. The other stories at the February session were “Hungry” by Steve Rasnic Tem, “The Dream of Houses” by Wil McCarthy, and my own “Childrey Green” read by Debbie Knapp.

 The road was lined with all manner of belongings thrown away by the exhausted, overburdened men and women barely halfway along their arduous journey. 




   Somewhere in Time
by Richard Matheson (Jeannot Szwarc, director)
First release: 3 Oct 1980

A woman presses a pocketwatch into a man’s hand, beseeching him to come find her in time, so he does.

Wayne Winsett, owner of Time Warp Comics, tells me that this is his favorite time travel movie. I can’t argue with his predilection for Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

 Come back to me. 




   “Eight Ball Blues”
by Jack C. Haldeman II
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec 1980

A time traveler from the 21st century comes to a Florida bar to talk with pool shark Tucker “Skeeter” Moore about his choices in marriage and about saving the world.

 Now wait a minute! I married—er, I’m going to marry—Betty-Ann? 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Travels” by Carter Scholz, Asimov’s, Apr 1980 [no definite time travel ]

  “Trans Dimensional Imports” by Sharon N. Farber, Asimov’s, Aug 1980 [alternate timelines ]



   The Saga of Pliocene Exile
by Julian May
First book: 1981

A band of twenty-second century exiles steps through a gate to the Pliocene where they hope to start a new life, but they didn’t expect to find exotic aliens for company.
  1. The Many-Colored Land (1981)
  2. The Golden Torc (1982)
  3. The Nonborn King (1983)
  4. The Adversary (1984)

 “None of the above,” said Aiken Drum. “I choose Exile.” 




   “Death in Vesunna”
by Harry Turtledove and Elaine O’Byrne (as by Eric Iverson and Elaine O’Byrne)
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 19 Jan 1981

Lou Muller and his partner-in-crime Mark Alvarez (a.k.a. Lucius and Marcus) travel back from 2059A.D. to obtain Sophokles’s lost play Aleadai, but when the owner of the rare manuscript won’t part with it, they kill him and take it, counting on the obscurity of the backwater second-century town to stop the Time Patrol from discovering their foul deed. That may be so, but they didn’t count on Gaius Tero, one of the second century’s finest, and the sharp-tongued physician Kleandros.

 Whatever. And as for the Time Patrol, why are we here in the boondocks instead of at the library of Alexandria? Why do we insist on so much privacy when we make our deals? Just so they won’t run across us. And they won’t. 


   “The Final Days”
by David Langford
First publication: A Spadeful of Spacetime, Feb 1981

During an important presidential election between the slick Harman and the less polished Ferris, scientists detect eyes that are watching Harman from the future, perhaps because he is fated to be such an important political figure.

 The people have this hint of the winning side, as they might from newspaper predictions or opinion polls—but the choice remains theirs, a decisions which we politicians humbly accept. 


   “Graffiti”
by Gary Alexander
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 19 Apr 1981

Seventeen years working as the nighttime janitor in the Winston Building and Harv Blasingame has neer seen the likes of this futuristic graffiti that refuses to be obliterated.

 THE ALLIANCE IS AN IMPOTENT SHAM, IT’S PRINCIPAL EXPORT BEING STUPIDITY AND TREACHERY. 


Some of the stories were collected in this 1985 collection.   The Pshrinks Anonymous Stories
by Janet Asimov (as by J.O. Jeppson)
First time travel: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 13 Apr 1981

I haven’t read all of psychiatrist Janet Asimov’s stories of a lunchclub whose Pshrink members relate to each other stories about various patients, but the two I did read had fantastic case studies involving time travel.
  1. The Hotter Flash (13 Apr 1981) Menopausal time travel in Asimov’s
  2. The Time-Warp Trauma (21 Dec 1981) Central Park time warps in Asimov’s

 Doctors don’t know anything. I lived through it, and I know that my hot flashes certainly were hotter. 

—“The Hotter Flash”


   The Cases of Ben Hardy, Time Detective
by Warren Salomon
First story: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 11 May 1981

For me, Salomon’s first story of Ben Hardy, hard-boiled temporal private eye, was about one Delorean shy of having enough boisterous fun that I could completely ignore the inconsistencies in the time-travel model—but even so, I had fun as Ben attempted to restore time to its rightful path for heiress Patricia Wadsworth (and in the process try to figure out the familial relations between himself, Pat, Pat’s parents, the inventor of time travel, and that dastardly lawyer).
  1. Time & Punishment (11 May 1981) first story in Asimov
  2. Time on My Hands (Oct 1982) in Asimov’s
  3. As Time Goes By (Feb 1984) in Asimov’s

 They all say that. “Why is it,” I asked her, “you seem to remember the, ah, original sequence? In a reality change, memories are altered along with everything else. How can you be certain that time has been tampered with?” That question usually ends it right there. 




   Star Trek: The Entropy Effect
by Vonda N. McIntyre
First publication: Jun 1981

Spock and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise transport a time-traveling criminal, Dr. Georges Mordreaux, between planets.

 The effort required to change an event is proportional to the square of its distance in the past. The curve of a power function approaches infinity rather quickly. 




   The Day Time Ended
aka Time Warp, aka Vortex, aka Earth’s Final Fury, aka Black Thunder
by Wayne Schmidt, J. Larry Carroll, David Schmoeller, et.al. (Bud Cardos, director)
First release: 31 Jul 1981

After an hour or so of mundane conversation, a triple supernova, a UFO, a tiny mannikin/alien, and creepy lights, the Williams family and their horses are transported through a time-space warp to an unknown time for the other twenty minutes of the movie. (The creepy lights stick around, too.) It’s hard to tell for sure, but I think they’re going to live out their lives amongst the weird lights and crystal structures of this new time. Sadly, I never did see the giant lizard.

 Steve, you know what this is, don’tcha? It’s a time-space warp. 


   “Dinosaur Weather”
by Dona Vaughn
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 3 Aug 1981

The real reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs becomes apparent, a reason that makes a certain restaurant cat very happy and very fat.

 I frowned and made a mental note to buy an umbrella. 


   “On the Nature of Time”
by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
First publication: Amazing, Sep 1981

A boy grows up hating his father; hence, when he invents a time machine, he uses it to go back and kill his father before his own conception.

 When I was sixteen I wished that the dream of my father’s murder had not been a dream at all. 




   Superbook
by Akiyoshi Sakai
First episode: 1 Oct 1981

Young Chris Peeper finds a magic Bible that transports him, his friend Joy, and his robot Gizmo back to Old Testament happenings. The first run was anime, followed by a second run of 3-D CGI animation.

 ♫ Chris and Joy and everyone were having lots of fun. Superbook fell off the shelf: look what they’ve done. When it hit the computer, oh, they were surprised. Superbook got programmed in; now it’s computerized.♫  




   Ulysses 31
created by Jean Chalopin and Nina WOlmark
First time travel: 31 Oct 1981

When a future Ulysses angers the gods, he and his children are exiled to travel space forever. Time travel occurs in the ninth episode, when they enter the domain of Chronos, and in a later episode where they head back to meet the original Ulysses.

 Time! I must turn it back! This must work! 




   Time Bandits
by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin (Gilliam director)
First release: 6 Nov 1981

A boy’s bedroom is invaded by six midgets who have stolen The Almighty One’s map which then leads the whole lot of them on adventures through time.

 Is it all ready? Right. Come on then. Back to creation. We mustn’t waste any more time. They’ll think I’ve lost control again and put it all down to evolution. 


   “End Game”
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: Asimov`'s Science Fiction, 21 Dec 1981

Thing wonderous: a review that is palindromic. Yes, palindromic! Is that review a wonderous thing?

 Thunder. Distant sound.
Questions posed shake universes like constructs , like universes, shake posed questions, sound distant thunder. 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “These Stones Will Remember” by Reginald Bretnor, Asimov’s, 16 Feb 1981 [viewing the past ]

  “The Jaunt” by Stephen King, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, Jun 1981 [differing time rates ]

  “The Gernsback Continuum” by William Gibson, Universe 11, Jun 1981 [alternate timelines ]

  “Liros: A Tale of the Quintana Roo” by James Tiptree, Jr., Asimov’s, 28 Sep 1981 [no definite time travel ]
  aka “What Came Ashore at Lirios”

  “The Pusher” by John Varley, F&SF, Oct 1981 [time dilation ]

   Bound in Time
by D.F. Jones
First publication: 1982

Mark Elver, a terminally ill doctor, agress to be the first time traveler with a destination some four centuries in the future. His first contact upon arrival is with a pair of children, but the world has more beyond them.

 The birthplace of time-travel, a collection of huts huddled together well away from the main campus, did not look impressive. A cheap sign nailed to the paint-hungry door stated ‘Dept., of Physics—Project Four’, below that a thumb-tacked notice, the lettering faded added a little more information: ‘Go away. If you must, ring bell.’ 


   “Fish Night”
by Joe Lansdale
First publication: Specter!, 1982

Rather more frequently than I’d like, it’s hard to tell whether a story involves time travel or not. This could just be a ghost fish story, but there are some indications that the old toothless door-to-door salesman might be traveling back to the time of the early fish.

 Millions and millions of years ago this desert was sea bottom. Maybe even the birthplace of man. Who knows? 




   “The Winds of Change”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: Speculations: 17 Stories . . ., 1982

Jonas Dinsmore is not half the physicist as his colleagues, the politically astute Adams and the brilliant Muller, but in their presence, he claims to have figured out how to interpret Muller’s Grand Unified Theory to allow time travel.

 Time-travel, in the sense of going backward to change reality, is not only technologically impossible now, but it is theoretically impossible altogether. 




  Humboldt Series #2
The Humboldt Effect
by Delia Huddy
First publication: Jan 1982

Years ago, in Time Piper, Luke discovered that Tom Humboldt, the boss of his summer research project, had a time machine. Now Luke is on a submarine version of the machine. One crew member has disappeared overboard, and the time machine has grabbed a noted Biblical man.

  




   Miss Switch to the Rescue
created by Barbara Brooks Wallace
First aired: 16 Jan 1982

After the Miss Switch children’s book and cartoon, there was a longer ABC Weekend Special (“Miss Switch to the Rescue”) where a pirate who’s been stuck in a bottle for centuries takes one of Miss Switch’s students (Amelia) back to his time, and the teacher-cum-witch and another student (Rupert) go back to rescue her.

 Kinda mysterious, ain’t it, Amelia. 


   “Clap Hands and Sing”
by Orson Scott Card
First publication: The Best of Omni Science Fiction 3, Feb 1982

Ancient Charlie sees a momentary vision of young Rachel, barely into her teens, and the moment with her that was never to be.

I’ve read other Card stories where he portrays the dark side of a character in realistic and frightening form that I could deal with, but for me, the seeming comfort that the character gets at the end is more disturbing than anything else Card has written.

 He almost stops himself. Few things are left in his private catalog of sin, but surely this is one. He looks into himself and tries to find the will to resist his own desire solely because its fulfillment will hurt another person. He is out of practice—so far out of practice that he keeps losing track of the reason for resisting. 


The story was reprinted in this 1982 collection.

   “The Thousand Cuts”
by Ian Watson
First publication: The Best of Omni Science Fiction 3, Feb 1982

Alison, Don, and Hugh have philosophical discussions on what it means when the entire world skips two or three days at a time and then picks up at some random moment in the future. In the blackout period, amazing progress is made in arms control and hostage negotiations. Time travel? Maybe not, but certainly a fun read with some echos of Sturgeon’s “Yesterday Was Monday.”

 God has decided to cut reality and re-edit it. 






   The Oxford Time-Traveling Historians
by Connie Willis
First story: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 15 Feb 1982

In the first short story of the series, an Oxford graduate student travels back to the World War II bombing of St. Paul’s for his history practicum. This launched a series of novels, the first of which has Kivrin Engle being sent to 14th century England, but when she arrives, she can’t remember where and when her pickup will be. The second book incorporated more comedy, and the last two returned to World War II.
  1. “Fire Watch” (15 Feb 1982) Asimov’s
  2. The Doomsday Book (1992) Kivrin Engle to 1320 Oxford
  3. To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998)    Ned Henry to 1888 Oxford
  4. Blackout (2010) Michael, Polly and Merope to WW II England
  5. All Clear (2010) continuation of Blackout

 “But I’m not ready,” I’d said. “Look, it too me four years to get ready to travel with St Paul. St Paul. Not St Paul’s. You can’t expect me to get ready for London in the Blitz in two days.” 


   “Park Your Car on Baychester Road Tonight”
by Bill Bickel
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 15 Mar 2015

In the process of parking his car on a Wednesday night—always a difficult proposition—a man is approached by a time traveler who offers him two gold bars if he’s park in a No Parking zone.

 My friend Selka and I have devised a game in which we carefully alter the stream of time, to cause some subtle change in our own time period. This particular round, for example, concerns itself with the location of our city’s capitol building. 


   “Amy, at the Bottom of the Stairs”
by John M. Ford
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1982

Warnke, a time traveler who has visited the moment of a past death more than once, comes to the house of Lady Amy Dudley née Robsart) on the eve that she is fated to fall down the stairs in an accident that her husband, Robert Dudley (an accused but reprieved conspirator in the taking of the English throne by Jane Grey) will be suspected of arranging so that he would be free to marry Elizabeth I.

 I’m not a seer. I’m a . . . traveler. From one time to another. Do you understand? I know when you’ll die, and where, and how, because it’s all written down in a history book. 


   The Aquila Trilogy
by S.P. Somtow (aka Somtow P. Sucharitkul)
First time travel: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1982

In an alternate second century where Romans rule a swathe of North America as far as the Dakotas, Titus Papinianus meets the Lakota chief Aquila who first teaches him a new way to fight the hoards from Asia and then leads him on adventures (including the time-traveling Central Dimension Patrol Authority) from modern-day Mexico to China.
  1. 1. “Aquila the God’ (Jan 1982) Asimov’s
  2. 1. “Aquila’ (Jan 1982) Asimov’s
  3. 2. “Aquila the God’ (Apr 1982) Asimov’s
  4. 3. “Aquila Meets Bigfoot’ (Jan 1983) Amazing
  5. 4. “Aquila: The Final Conflict’ (May 1983) Amazing
  6. 5. The Aquilad (Dec 1983) combines 1-4
  7. 6. Aquila and the Iron Horse (May 1988) Volume II
  8. 7. Aquila and the Sphinx (Dec 1988) Volume III

 I understood very little of what he was saying, but he went on to say that he was from the far future and that they had come in search of certain criminals who had to be brought to trial, who were guilty of attempting to tamper with the past . . . . 




   No Enemy But Time
by Michael Bishop
First publication: Apr 1982

After a falling out with his parents over their commercialization of his Pleistocene dreams, John Monegal changes his name to Joshua and finds a way to actually travel to the Pleistocene where he lives with the Homo zarakalensis, fathers a daughter, and eventually brings her back to the twentieth century and beyond.

 Until the moment of my departure, you see, my life had been a slide show of dreams divided one from another by many small darknesses of wakeful dread and anticipation. 


   “Valhalla”
by Gregory Benford
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Apr 1982

A nameless traveler from the future appears in Hitler’s bunker moments before the Führer’s suicide. Hitler interprets the man as a Valkyrie, come to escort him to a higher place, but the man (who is made up to look exactly like Hitler) has plans that don’t exactly include a Nordic heaven in Hitler’s future.

 Immortality, Führer! That is what I offer. I have come to you from the future! 




   The Flying House
directed by Masakazu Higuchi and Mineo Fuji
First episode: 5 Apr 1982

While playing in the woods, Justin Casey and his pals Angie and Corkey stumble upon a house owned by Professor Humphrey Bumble and his robot Solar Ion, whereupon the professor reveals that the house is a time machine and the entire gang visits various Biblical happenings from the New Testament.

 ♫ We were having fun, playing hide-and-seek, then a summer storm appeared. Corkey got afraid, when it started to rain, then we came upon a house—should we go insiiiiide? ♫  


   “All the Time in the World”
by Daniel Keyes Moran
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, May 1982

Seven centuries after the Big Crunch atomic war, one of the clan of Huntresses learns to travel back in time after talking with aliens and perhaps sensing the man who would be negative entropy.

 Here we have a time traveller, and her name is Jalian. Yes, Jalian d’Arsennette, except that there have been some changes. 


   “Azimuth 1,2,3...”
by Damon Knight
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jun 1982

Shortly after genius Azimuth Backfiler (yes, that’s his real name) finds a way to travel back in time, Azimuth 2 appears and hands him next week’s newspaper causing some sort of feedback that create Azimuth 3, Azimuth 4, . . .

 Therefore, he was not surprised to see himself emerge from the chamber, wearing this very suit, a moment after he had formed the decision. 


The story also appeared in this 1989 collection of time-travel fiction taken from Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.   “The Comedian”
by Tim Sullivan (as by Timothy Robert Sullivan)
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jun 1982

A projected vision from the future takes on the forms of various 20th century comedians from Charley Chaplin to Don Rickles, and he’s also making wildlife manager Chris Reilly kidnap children.

 The comedian looked just like a living, breathing, three-dimensional human being, the reincarnation of Lenny Bruce, come to see the unhappy world end. 




   Voyagers!
created by James D. Parriott
First episode: 3 Oct 1982

Bright, young orphan Jeffrey and ladies’ man Phineas Bogg leap from one moment in history to another, righting those moments that have gone wrong in this Quantam Leap progenitor.

 This isn’t 1942. Where’s Columbus, kid? 


   “Good Golly, Miss Molly”
by Steven Bryan Bieler
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Nov 1982

When Dr. Demented Physicist Particle Breakdown bets his entire life savings on a horse race and the campus’s best handicapper picks Miss Molly instead, the good Dr. Breakdown has no choice but to further handicap Miss Molly.

 Locating his car, Dr. Breakdown extracted from the trunk a Phillips-head screwdriver, a toothbrush, his spare tire, five felt pens, and a plumber’s helper. With these materials he constructed a duplicate of the time machine in the university physics lab. 




   The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang
narrated by Wolfman Jack
First publication: 8 Nov 1982

Before Marty McFly went to the 50s, this 50s gang traveled through time using a time machine brought to them by a future chick name o’ Cupcake, all in 24 episodes where they desperately try to get back to 1957 Milwaukee.

 Oh, now the gang got zapped into that time machine, and they’re, like, travelin’ through time. My, my, they do not dig where that machine is goin’, but they sure hope to get back to 1957 Milwaukee! 


   “Coming Back”
by Damien Broderick
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec 1982

Physics-lab flunkie Eddie Rostow knows that the glory that his professor is claiming over localized time-reversal should rightly be Eddie’s own; and then, there’s Jennifer who let him have his way with her one night and now ignores him. So what, forsooth, will he do when the time contraption throws him into a 34-minute time loop?

 I’m not trapped. I thought I was a prisoner, but I’m the first man in history to be genuinely liberated. Set free from consequence. Do it. If you don’t like the results, scrub it on the next cycle and try again. 




   Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann
by Michael Nesmith (William Dear, director)
First release: 11 Dec 1982

Now that I know that one of the Monkees wrote this time-travel yarn (motorcycle racer goes back to the old west), the universe begins to make sense.

 You shot it. What a bunch of dumb sons of bitches. You shot it—a machine, you butt-heads! 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  Port Eternity by C.J. Cherryh, 1982 [parallel universe ]
  aka Involutions

  Voyage from Yesteryear by James P. Hogan, Apr 1982 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “Lazarus Rising” by Gregory Benford, Asimov’s, Jul 1982 [long sleep ]

  “The Boy Who Waterskied to Forever” by James Tiptree, Jr., F&SF, Oct 1982 [no definite time travel ]

  “Dr. Time” by Sharon N. Farber, et. al., Asimov’s, Oct 1982 [despite title, no time travel ]

1983 Baronet/Playmore edition

four later editions

   Illustrated Classics Edition:
The Time Machine
aka Great Illustrated Classics: The Time Machine
adapted by Shirley Bogart (story) and Brendan Lynch (art)
First publication: 1983

If you are a misguided completist, you may find yourself drawn to reading the new Chapter 13 in Bogart’s adaptation in which the traveller finds himself in an authoritarian 22nd century populated by 1950s cape-wearing, B-movie characters. Do so if you must, but try to resist the urge to read any of the rest of Bogart’s adaptation for pre-teens, and whatever else you do, don’t let the book fall into the hands of your eight-to-twelve-year-old.

The first edition was released in 1983, possibly in multiple formats, although I’ve never spotted what I believe was the first edition published by Waldman Publishing in 1983; multiple editions, including a Chinese translation, have appeared since.

 A figure in a silver cape and tights, with gloves to match, was saying, “That’s enough Apathy-Gas, Kolar. There’s only one passenger.’ 

—from the new Chapter 13: The Golden Age of Science


   A Rebel in Time
by Harry Harrison
First publication: Feb 1983

Lt. Troy Harmon, a black army sergeant, follows Colonel McCulloch back to 1859 to prevent the colonel from giving modern-day technology to the South.

 “Then you are also telling me that down there among all that stuff—that you have built a time machine?”
“Well, I think . . .” She smiled brightly. “Why, yes, I suppose that we have.” 


   “Sweet Song of Death”
by Stephen Kimmel
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 1983

Dave, an old man on the verge of dying, partakes in a time travel experiment, hoping to save his long-ago wife and young daughter from a car accident even though nobody has ever managed to change past events before.

 If our hypothesis is correct and the Corvini-Langstrum effect is a form of time travel . . . then you may be able to change the circumstances and prevent her death. 


   “As Time Goes By”
by Tanith Lee
First publication: Chrysalis 10, Apr 1983

The narrator tells of a time travel paradox where a girl of fifteen meets Day Curtis who has come from a disaster that’s still another sixteen years in the future—and she returns to the scene years later to warn him.

 Let me prompt you. You’re dead, Curtis. Or you will be. 


   “Short Timer”
by John Morressy
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1983

After the Traveller’s miniature time machine makes its way back to Lilliput and the Emperor scares himself witless by a short trip forward in time, Pilibosh (a court carpenter) accidentally takes it out for a longer spin, finding H.G. Wells and Irish leprechauns along the way.

 The story does not begin with Pilibosh. In a bewildering cosmological sense it does not begin at all, nor does it end. But that is a matter best left to the philosophers. 




   Millennium
by John Varley
First publication: Jun 1983

When the snatchers leave two stun guns in the 20th century, we see the story from the viewpoints of Louise Baltimore (Mandy’s boss) and Bill Smith (head of an NTSB investigation, no relation to Woodrow “Bill” Smith so far as I know).

 The crew had to stun just about everybody. The only bright spot was the number we’d managed to shuffle through during the thinning phase. The rest would have to go through on our backs. 


   “Needle in a Timestack”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Playboy, Jun 1983

Nick Mikklesen and his wife Janine know that Janine’s ex-husband is out to break up their marriage by altering the past.

 In the old days, when time was just a linear flow from then to now, did anyone get bored with all that stability? For better or for worse it was different now. You go to bed a Dartmouth man and wake up Columbia, never the wiser. You board a plane that blows up over Cyprus, but then your insurance agent goes back and gets you to miss the flight. 


   “Sunlight”
by Paul E. Holt
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jun 1983

A reporter with the Time Warp Review is doing a story on a former mobster who doesn’t want to leave his condemned building. But what does he want? Fortunately, the reporter and his warpfotographer have a way to see what’s in the mobster’s future—or maybe it’s more than that.

 I did a lotta things in my life that I ought notta. 




   Twilight Zone: The Movie
by John Landis, et. al. (Landis, et. al, directors)
First release: 28 Jun 1983

The first of the Twilight Zone revivals collected rewrites of three of the original show’s stories with one new story, “Time Out” by John Landis, in which disgruntled bigot Bill Connor finds himself as a Jew in World War II German occupied Europe, a black man facing the clan in early 20th century America, and a man in a Vietnamese jungle during the Second Indochina War.

 Ray, help! Larry! It’s me! 




   “Homefaring”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Phantasia Press, Jul 1983; and in Amazing, Nov 1983

A grand experiment takes McCulloch into the mind and body of an intelligent creature—an intelligent giant lobster—of the far future.

 “It is not painful to have a McCulloch within one,” his host was explaining. “It came upon me at molting time, and that gave me a moment of difficulty, molting being what it is. But it was only a moment. After that my only concern was for the McCulloch’s comfort.” 


   “Stolen Moments”
by Brad Strickland
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sep 1983

A peculiar man repeatedly delays a small-town lawyer from taking what seems to be a most important phone call.

 It falls our task to correct untoward trends in history, eliminating unhappy catastrophe. 




   He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
created by Roger Sweet
First time travel: 12 Sep 1983

He-Man and his mighty battle cat possess fabulous super-powers in order to defend Castle Greyskull against the sometimes time-traveling Skeletor (and also to sell Mattel action figures).

 Time is delicate, He-Man; do your job swiftly. 


   “From Time to Time”
by Bruce Stanley Burdick
First publication: Analog, Oct 1983

With the universe nearing its end, Jinma Lor travels to an outpost to converse with antimatter beings whose sense of time is reversed from his own.

 It is possible that the direction in which the associated souls are traveling is always the orientation for which matter becomes more disorganized. 


   “Full Chicken Richness”
by Avram Davidson
First publication: Last Wave, Oct 1983

Every now and then, I’ll be reading a story, not really sure whether it’s meant to be sf or not, but realizing that it has a pleasant sfnal tone—and then, voila!, there’s time travel. Davidson’s story is a piece that lives on the edge between real and surreal, ostensibly telling the story of Fred Hopkins, an artist who puts old buildings on canvas and takes a late morning breakfast at La Bunne Burger.

 He read on: Ingredients: Water, Other Poultry and Poultry Parts, Dehydrated Vegetables, Chickens and Chicken Parts, seasoning . . . the list dribbled off into the usual list of chemicals. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #7
Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
by Anne McCaffrey
First publication: Oct 1983

Moreta, the new weyrleader at Fort Weyr, leads the effort to save Pern from a deadly infection.

As you know, dragons can travel between times as well as places. In this story, K’lon stumble upon the chronoability of his dragon, using it to spend more time with his love A’murry; later, Moreta hatches a plan to bring more of the needed needlethorn from the future.

 But my dear boy, you’ve been taking a dreadful risking timing it. You could meet yourself coming and going— 


General Robert E. Lee from the Oct 1983 Analog   “Quarks at Appomattox”
by Charles L. Harness
First publication: Analog, Oct 1983

Colonel von Mainz travels back from the 21st century to 1865 Appomattox with weapons that can make the South win the war and thereby keep America divided, allowing Germany to win the wars of the 20th century.

This is one of the stories that I read in my dad’s Analogs at the end of my tricycle trip to Seattle.

 I left the American sector of Berlin this morning, April 8, in the year two thousand five and sixty, almost exactly two hundred years in your future. I am indeed a colonel, but not in the Prussian army. I am a colonel in the Neues Schutz-Staffeln—the NSS—an underground paramilitary organization devoted to reuniting West and East Germany. 




   The Anubis Gates
by Tim Powers
First publication: Dec 1983

A modern-day millionaire finds time-gates left by ancient Egyptian gods, which results in a lifetime of adventure for Professor Brendan Doyle as he attempts to stop various Egyptian god worshipers from changing the past. Oh yes: he’d also like to avoid his own fated death if possible.

 You know our gods are gone. They reside now in the Tuaut, the underworld, the gates of which have been held shut for eighteen centuries by some pressure I do not understand but which I am sure is linked with Christianity. Anubis is the god of that world and the gates, but has no longer any form in which to appear here. 


   “Time Bride”
by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec 1983

Shortly after turning eight, Marcy Meisner loses her childhood to an everpresent voice from the future who (so he assures Marcy’s parents) wants to marry Marcy when she grows up and has only Marcy’s best interests at heart.

 Please let me explain, Mr. Meisner. I don’t want to marry Marcy now. I want to marry her in the future, ten years from now, when she’s eighteen. That is, I believe, an acceptable age. 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Beyond the Dead Reef” by James Tiptree, Jr., F&SF, Jan 1983 [no definite time travel ]

  “Concerto in B Demolished” by Al Sirois, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jan 1983 [clones ]

  “After-Images” by Malcolm Edwards, Interzone, Spring 1983 [differing time rates ]

  The Crucible of Time by John Brunner, Sep 1983 [despite title, no time travel ]
  aka The Fire Is Lit, aka “Fusing and Refusing” (excerpts)



   Caballo de Troya Series
English title: The Trojan Horse Series (translated from spanish)
by Juan José Benítez
First book: 1984

L.S. Thomas kindly sent me a copy of her English translation of the first of nine books about time travelers who visit the life of Christ. Another translation was written by Margaret Sayers Peden.

 The computer display read 23 hours, 3 minutes and 22 seconds on Thursday March 30 of the year 30. We had “traveled back” a total of 17,019,289 hours. 




   Norby Books
by Janet and Isaac Asimov
First time travel: 1984

In the second book of this children’s series (Norby’s Other Secret, 1984), the precocious robot reveals his time-travel powers to his pal Jeff; their mishaps in time continue in at least three later books (Norby and the Queen’s Necklace, Norby Finds a Villian, and Norby and Yobo’s Great Adventure).



   “The Toynbee Convector”
by Ray Bradbury
First publication: Playboy, Jan 1984

You’ll enjoy this story (which was also an episode of Ray Bradbury Theater), but I’ll give away no more beyond the quote below. By the way, if you get the original publication, you’ll also acquire the last nude photo of Marilyn Monroe, although (to my knowledge) she never traveled through time.

 What can I do to save us from ourselves? How to save my friends, my city, my state, my country, the entire world from this obsession with doom? Well, it was in my library late one night that my hand, searching along shelves, touched at last on an old and beloved book by H.G. Wells. His time device called, ghostlike, down the years. I heard! I understood. I truly listened. Then I blueprinted. I built. I traveled . . . 


   “Post Haste”
by Sharon Farber, James P. Killus, Susanna Jacobson and Dave Stout
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 1984

Science fiction writer Buzz Bailey has had several recent ideas for stories, including one about finding parking spaces through time travel, but the problem is that the top market, Prognosto Science Fiction, keeps vehemently rejecting the stories before they’re even written.

 “What the? . . .” He tipped up the envelope. Ashes spilled onto the floor. 


   “Ghost Lecturer”
by Ian Watson
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Mar 1984

A conceited man brings Lucretius to the present in order to explain to the classical scientist exactly where he was wrong, but it turns out that Lucretius’s classical atomism was brought along with him.

 What’;s happening? I’ll tell you what’s happening. Those “films” you see flying off surfaces and hitting your eyes—that’s how our friend here thought visions worked. And now we’re seeing it happen, as though it’s true. 




   The Bunjee Venture
aka The Amazing Bunjee Venture
adapted by Malcolm Marmorstein
First aired: 24 Mar 1984

Karen and Andy’s dad builds a time machine (the last crucial part being their mom’s hair dryer), and the kids travel back to the prehistoric past to find new parents for orphaned Bunjee critter babies.

I like the ABC Weekend and Afternoon Specials. This is the second one that I saw with time travel. It’s based on a book by Stan McMurtry that I haven't yet seen, and there was a follow-on episode, “The Return of the Bunjee” in 1985.

 I’ve created the ultimate scientific masterpiece. I’ve done the impossible. I’ve invented a time machine! 




   “Twilight Time”
by Lewis Shiner
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1984

Travis goes back to 1961 and the dance where he met his now-departed sweetheart, but he also has memories of aliens who quietly took over the world.

 A decade of peace and quiet and short hair was winding down; a time when people knew their place and stayed in it. For ten years nobody had wanted anything but a new car and a bigger TV set. Now all that was about to change. In a little over a year the Cuban missile crisis would send thousands of people into their back yards to dig bomb shelters, and “advisors” would start pouring into Southeast Asia. In another year the president would be dead. 




   The Philadelphia Experiment
adapted by Michael Janover, William Gray, et. al. (Stewart Rafill, director)
First release: 3 Aug 1984

Seaman David Herdeg and his pal are thrown from 1943 to 1984 during a naval experiment gone awry, and in that future, David is the only one who can save a missing town (provided he can dodge enough bullets and perhaps win the heart of the lovely Allison Hayes).

 Navy owes me 40 years back pay. 


   The Mackenzie Stories
by John Gribbin
First story: Analog, Sep 1984

Mackenzie, a researcher and problem solver who must continually justify his existence to his benefactor, is puzzled about why the things he sends back in time never reappear, but then in the first story (“Perpendicular Worlds,” Sep 1984 Analog) he starts thinking about Hawking black holes and Everett parallel worlds, and his work continues in a second story (“Random Variable,” Feb 1986 Analog) (although I prefer Gribbon’s science books).

 There must be as many different ways in which the world could have got into the state it is now as there are different ways in which it can develop into the future. 


   “Christian”
by Ian McDonald
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct 1984

In his favorite secret spot, a little boy meets Christian who tells the boy how he wanted to be a toymaker but instead had to be a ship pilot because of his special talents to see a bit into the future and the past. Now, Christian waits for the machine that he loved to return for him, and while he waits he builds kites, including one that moves a bit into the future and the past.

 Well, you see, most kites fly in the three dimensions that we’re familiar with in our world, but some kites flyu in four or even five dimensions and go a little bit outward and a little bit inward into time. 




   The Terminator
by James Cameron and William Wisher, Jr. (Cameron, director)
First release: 26 Oct 1984

Artificially intelligent machines from 2029 send a killer cyborg back to 1984 to kill the mother of John Connor because, in 2029, John will lead the resistance against the machines’ rule.

 Come with me if you want to live. 

—Kyle to Sarah at the Tech-Noir Club


   “Slan Libh”
by Michael F. Flynn
First publication: Analog, Nov 1984

When Kevin O Malley’s home-built time machine becomes operable, he uses it to research his Irish ancestors during the potato blight of 1845.

 The past is changeable but self-correcting. Easy to change small things; harder to change big ones. 


   “The Life of Boswell”
by Jerry Oltion
First publication: Analog, Dec 1984

Michael Wagoner doesn't really want to be an English major and write poetry for the rest of his life, but what choice does he have—until the first day of his final semester when he meets a centerfold.

 All innocence, she turned to the middle, opened the gatefold, held it out sideways, then vertically. I dropped the beer when she shouted, “Grandma!” 




   Saturday Night Live
created by Lorne Michaels
First time travel: 1 Dec 1984

We all know that early in her career, Teri Garr hung out with a time-traveling Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. But who knew that she’d be time traveling again in a 1985 SNL time travel skit? I tried hard to pick my favorite from the bunch that I know of, but that’s an impossible task given that each one is bizaare is a completely orthogonal direction from the others.

Please let me know if you know of other episodes!
  1. A Time Traveler Interrupts Book Beat (1 Dec 1984): Time traveler Ed Begley, Jr., bursts in on an SNL skit because of a pressing need to see a particular young lady. “I’ve been looking for a young lady, Julie Louis-Dreyfus. Have you seen her?”
  2. Time Machine Trivia Game (21 Dec 1985): Teri Garr and Randy Quaid play Trivial Pursuit with Nora Dunn and Jon Lovitz while the family teenager, Anthony Michael Hall, changes the answers with his time machine science project. “Ted Kennedy, Chappaquiddick, eight hundered secreetaries, really sorry.”
  3. Presidential Debate (8 Nov 1988): Tom Hanks hosts Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey in the 1988 presidential election debate. “I’m glad you asked me that, Sam, because tonight I can reveal something that’s just been declassified. The key to SDI, to the whole concept, is a Time Machine.”
  4. The Tooncinator (16 Nov 1991): Linda Hamilton herself tries to escape the robot cat Tooncinator while Terminator Phil Hartman tries to save SNL. “Not you again! I crushed you, then I melted you! What do I have to do, Cuisinart you?”
  5. Dave Is Always Five Subjects Ago (11 Jan 1992): While dining with Beth Cahill and Mike Myers, Rob Morrow can never seem to think of a quick comeback or relevant remark until the moment has passed. “They probably show ’em The French Connection.”
  6. Deep Thoughts: Time Travel Etiquette (16 Jan 1993): “It’s probably best to avoid eye contact.”
  7. The Falconer: Time Travel (20 May 2006): Before he was Frank Underwood, Kevin Spacey traveler through time to meet his earlier self and try to save Donald. The saving plan went awry, but we got to see many more Falconers (though only one Donald and only one Abraham Lincoln). “To the time machine!”
  8. George Washington Returns (12 Feb 2011): Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader may accept Russell Brand as our first president, but will they have the final word? “You will each have sixty seconds to make your case to him. At that point, President Washington will give his expert opinion: We will accept it.”
  9. Statler and Waldorf (19 Nov 2011): While Jason Segel sings with the Muppets, Statler and Waldorf comment from the peanut gallery. “I hope Florence brought a time machine so we can go back to before we heard that song!”
  10. Best Friends (10 Dec 2011): An odd assortment of best friends, including Abraham Lincoln and Marilyn Monroe, celebrate the holiday season. ♫Let’s turn it on and meet Abraham Lincoln.♫

 Bobby, are you altering human destiny after your father told you not to? 


   “Hindsight”
by Harry Turtledove (as by Eric G. Iverson)
First publication: Analog, mid-Dec 1984

When 1950’s science fiction writer Mark Gordian has a flurry of great stories (“Watergate,” “Houston, We've Got a Problem,” “Neutron Star,” and the ultimate time-travel yarn, “All You Zombies”), Pete Lundquist has nothing but admiration, until Gordian comes out with a story that Pete himself has been outlining.

 “Oh, my God! Tet Offensive!” McGregor stared from one of them to the other. “You’re not telling me that one’s based on fact?” 



Romance Time Travel of 1984
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Yesterday 1: Journey to Yesterday by June Lund Shiplett

  Yesterday 2: Return to Yesterday by June Lund Shiplett




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Writing Time” by Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 1984 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” by Stephen King, Redbook, May 1984 [4D spacial topology ]

  “Realtime” by Gladys Prebehalla and Daniel Keys Moran, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Aug 1984 [despite title, no time travel ]

  Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai by W.D. Richter and Neil Canton, 15 Aug 1984 [oscillation overthruster ≠ flux capacitor ]

  Voltron by World Events Productions, 10 Sep 1984 [no definite time travel ]

   “Through Road No Wither”
by Greg Bear
First publication: Far Frontirs, Jan 1985

At a writers’ conference in Manhattan, KS, I was fortunate enough to sit beside the very kind and knowledgeable Greg Bear at the conference dinner, and I’ve enjoyed every piece of his fiction that I’ve read—but I simply didn’t understand this story any better than I understood its title. The story is set in an alternate version of 1984 where Hitler was victorious, and two lost SS officers come across a hag who (I think) sends them back in time.

 Your cities in flame, your women and children shriveling to black dolls in the heat of their burning homes. The death camps found and you stand accused of hideous crimes. 




   “Sailing to Byzantium”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Feb 1985

Charles Phillips is a 20th-century New Yorker in a 50th-century world of immortal leisurites who recreate cities from the past. The one item that you should find out for yourself, I’ll put into a cypher: rgwew ua bi runw relcwk~

 He knew very little about himself, but he knew that he was not one of them. That he knew. He knew that his name was Charles Phillips and that before he had come to live among these people he had lived in the year 1984, when there had been such things as computers and television sets and baseball and jet planes, and the world was full of cities, not merely five but thousands of them, New York and London and Johannesburg and Parks and Liverpool and Bangkok and San Francisco and Buenos Ares and a multitude of others, all at the same time. 


   “The Lost Garden of Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter, Lucy Atwell and the Rest of the Lads of the 32nd Parachute Regiment”
by Garry Kilworth
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Mar 1985

Offa Smith travels to the Garden of Eden to prevent Eve from eating the apple and thereby guarantee immortality for himself (and all mankind, though that’s beyond the point).

 Let’s put it this way—if you do persuade the lady to take a bite, you lose your legs. 


   “Klein’s Machine”
by Andrew Weiner
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1985

After Philip Herbert Klein returns from a psycosis-inducing trip in his time machine, he has philosophical conversations with his psychiatrist.

 The hamster is back. Also my wristwatch, which I strapped on its back. 




   A Matter of Time
by Glen Cook
First publication: Apr 1985

Detective Norman cash begins to wonder whether the mysterious dead body found in his small town has it’s origin in another time. Meanwhile, on the other “time axes,” Cash’s MIA son has been brainwashed by the communists, and sabotage in the far future has blown a small gang into the 19th century.

 Norman Cash, line-walker, began to sense the line’s existence at the point labeled March 4, 1975 




   Trancers Movies
first movie by Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo (Charles Band, director)
First movie: 22 May 1985

In the first of the six (really!) Trancer movies (plus a “lost” short), heroic trancer-hunter Jack Deth follows evil trancer-maker Martin Whistler from 2247 to 1985 via a drug-induced time-travel that can take you back to the body of an ancestor. What I don’t fully understand is how they blackmailed Helen Hunt to appear in the first three as Deth’s 1985 love interest.
  1. Trancers (22 May 1985) Jack v. Whistler
  2. Trancers II (22 Aug 1991) Jack v. Whistler’s brother
  3. Trancers III (14 Oct 1992) Jack back to the future
  4. Trancers 4: Jack of Swords (2 Feb 1994) Jack v. Calaban
  5. Trancers 5: Sudden Deth (9 Nov 1994) Jack v. Calaban (II)
  6. Trancers 6 (23 Jul 2002) Jack (using stock footage) & Jo

 Greetings to the council. As you may have gathered, I have survived the pathetic trap set by Trooper Deth on Mecon 7. For twelve long years, you have hunted my disciples like dogs. Now, my day of vengence is at hand. I’v synthesized a time drug, and in a moment shall retreat down the dark corridors of history. Know that it is I who is solely responsible for your demise. One by one, your ancestors shall be murdered, and you, their progeny, shall cease to exist. Then shall I return, join my legion, and claim the seat of power for my own. Adieu . . . adieu . . . 




   Back to the Future
by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale (Zemeckis, director)
First release: 3 Jul 1985

Typical teenager Marty McFly meets Doc Brown for the first test of his DeLorean time machine, but when Libyan terrorists strike, things go awry, Marty and the DeLorean end up in 1955 where his parents are teens, and Doc must now send Marty back to the future.

 Next Saturday night, we’re sending you . . . back to the future! 




   1985 Pepsi Commercial
First aired: Summer 1985

 Relax, Smith. What could 12 oz. of Pepsi possibly change? 




   My Science Project
by Jonathan R. Betuel (Betuel, director)
First release: 9 Aug 1985

Not even the support of a young Fisher Stevens (Gary’s friend Chuck from Early Edition) could rescue this story of a high school motorhead who steals a power-sucking, space-time transforming orb from a miltary base for his science project.

 Now that sounds like we’re dealing with a time-space warp. 




   Contact
by Carl Sagan
First publication: Sep 1985

Sagan’s philosophical opus centers around Dr. Ellie Arrowway, the discovery of a radio message from Vega, and the subsequent building of a machine in accordance with directions in the message. A key twist in the plot requires Ellie to briefly posit time travel as the only explanation that fits her scientific viewpoint.

 You know, it’s not called a space-time continuum for nothing. If they can make tunnels through space, I suppose they can make some kind of tunnels through time. 




   “Mozart in Mirrorshades”
by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner
First publication: Omni, Sep 1985

Time travelers are pilfering 18th century resources and generally polute their century with pieces of modern culture.

And a little bone to pick, not with this story, but with Harry Turtledove, editor of The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century, which includes this story. I suppose he’s just marketing the book with a title that he supposes will sell, but I would like a clear distinction drawn between alternate history (What if the South won the war?), time travel (such as this story), and true history (such as the true story of how Asimov met Campbell).

 At first Sutherland hadn’t wanted Rice at the meeting with Jefferson. But Rice knew a little temporal physcis, and Jefferson had been pestering the American personnel with questions about time holes and parallel worlds. 




   Transformers Cartoons
created by Takara Tomy
First time travel: 24 Oct 1985

Two groups of robots who crashed to Earth in the distant past have returned to life and are making Earth—past and present—their battleground. These are the time-travel cartoon episodes that I spotted in the four original seasons (1984-1987) and in the Beast Wars episodes (1996-1999) in which time travel was commonplace. I haven’t seen the later series [Robots in Disguise (2000-2002), the Unicron Trilogy (2001-2006), the more recent animated series (2007-2010), and the webisodes (2010)].
  1. Dinobot Island, Part 2 (26 Sep 1985)
  2. A Decepticon . . . King Arthur’s Court (24 Oct 1985) }
  3. Forever Is a Long Time Coming (8 Oct 1986)
  4. Beast Wars, Part 1 (16 Sep 1996)
  5. Code of Hero (9 Mar 1998)
  6. The Agenda, Part 3 (13 Mar 1998)
  7. Optimal Situation (25 Oct 1998)
  8. Cutting Edge (15 Nov 1998)
  9. Other Victories (5 Mar 1999)
  10. Nemesis, Part 2 (7 Mar 1999)

 They were called Autobots and Decepticons. But the brutal Decepticons were driven by a single goal: total domination. They set out to destroy the peace-loving Autobots, and a war between the forces of good and evil raged across Cybertron. 




   “Under Siege”
by George R.R. Martin
First publication: Omni, Oct 1985

After a nuclear war, Americans attempt to prevent the rise of Russia at the outset of the 19th century by traveling back to that time and inhabiting the bodies of key Finnish and Swedish military men during the siege of Sveaborg.

 He began to babble about Sveaborg, about the importance of what we are doing here, about the urgent need to change something, somehow, to prevent the Soviet Union from ever coming into existence, and thus forestall the war that has laid the world to waste. 




   The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
by Robert A. Heinlein
First publication: Nov 1985

Richard Ames doesn’t like the fact that a new acquaintance was killed while dining at his table. Killed, why? and by whom? and why won’t that cat stay put? The eventual answers could lead Richard to Lazarus Long, the Time Corps, and more multiperson pantheistic solipsism.

 My darling had planned a pianissimo approach: Live for a time on Tertius (a heavenly place), get me hooked on multiverse history and time travel theory, et cetera. Not crowd me about signing up, but depend on the fact that she and Gretchen and Ezra and others (Uncle Jock, e.g.) were in the Corps . . . until I asked to be allowed to be sworn in. 




   The Twilight Zone (2nd Series)
created by Rod Serling
First time travel: 6 Jan 1985

Three seasons with 7 time-travel episodes. Harlan Ellison was a consultant on the series that included an adaptation of his “One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty.” The series also adapted Sturgeon’s “Yesterday Was Monday’, altering the plot and renaming it to “A Matter of Minutes,” and George R.R. Martin did the script for the time-travel episode “The Once and Future King” based on an idea submitted by Bryce Maritano.
  1. One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty (6 Dec 1985)    Hero to his childhood
  2. A Matter of Minutes (24 Jan 1986) From 9:33 AM to 11:37 AM
  3. Profile in Silver (7 Mar 1986) Kennedy in 1963
  4. The Once and Future King (27 Sep 1986) Elvis in 1954
  5. The Junction (21 Feb 1987) To 1912
  6. Time and Teresa Golowitz (10 Jul 1987) Hero to his youth
  7. Extra Innings (1 Oct 1988) Baseball in 1910

 Let the record show that in any age—good or bad—there are men of high ideals: men of courage, men who do more than that for which they are called upon. You will not always know their names. But let their deeds stand as monuments, so that when the human race is called to judgment, we may say, ‘This too was humanity!’ 

—JFK in “Profile in Silver”




   Conrad Stargard’s Adventures
by Leo Frankowski
First book: Feb 1986

Conrad Stargard, 20th century Polish engineer, stumbles through a time portal that was accidentally left open by those meddlers in the Historical Corps, and finds himself in 13th century Poland, whereupon he does any Connecticut Yankee proud.

One night when we were playing duplicate bridge, Bryan Campbell told me that this was the favorite time-travel series of a friend of his, which goes to show that just because my rating of a story is low, doesn’t mean that you (or Bryan’s friend) won’t enjoy it.
  1. The Cross-Time Engineer (Feb 1986)
  2. The High-Tech Knight (Mar 1989)
  3. The Radiant Warrior (Jul 1989)
  4. The Flying Warlord (Oct 1989)
  5. Lord Conrad’s Lady (Sep 1990)
  6. Conrad’s Quest for Rubber (Dec 1998)
  7. Conrad’s Time Machine (Sep 2002)
  8. Lord Conrad’s Crusade (Aug 2005)

 “This country and this century are in horrible shape because of the lack of socialism!”
   “You are absolutely right, Sir Conrad! What is socialism?” 




  Dragonriders of Pern #8
Nerilka’s Story
by Anne McCaffrey
First publication: Mar 1986

The time of sickness, first told in Dragonlady of Pern, is recounted from the viewpoint of Nerilka, Lady Holder of Hold Ruatha.

 Desdra also tole me, since she knew me to be discreet and trustworthy, how the dragonriders had managed to make so many deliveries. This had contributed to their total exhaustion, a major factor in the tragedy: Dragons could go as easily between one time and another as one place to another. Moreta and Holth had overtaxed their strength this way. For only by stretching time in this bizarre fashion, or rather doubling back on themselves, could MOreta and Holth manage to deliver serum to all the holds on the Keroon plains. 




   “The Pure Product”
by John Kessel
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Mar 1986

A cynical psychopath from the future takes a road trip (sometimes with random blood, sometimes with trite tripping) across 20th-century North America.

 “I said, have you got something going,” she repeated, still with the accent—the accent of my own time. 




   Highway of Eternity
by Clifford D. Simak
First publication: June 1986

Jay Corcoran and Tom Boone are trying to track down a missing client when the building they are in is demolished and the two of them jump into a time machine that takes them to one of the pockets of rebels from the far future who are resisting the decorporealization of man.

 Horace, the hardheaded, practical lout, the organizer, the schemer. Emma, the moaner, the keeper of our consciences. Timothy, the student. Enid, the thinker. And I, the loafer, the bad example, the one who makes the others feel virtuous. 




   Flight of the Navigator
by Mark H. Baker, Michael Burton and Matt MacManus (Randal Kleiser, director)
First release: 30 Jul 1986

Twelve-year-old David Freeman stumbles down a ravine and wakes up eight years later without having aged, but that’s not the time travelin’ in this movie, which occurs only after he becomes the pilot of a small space ship that’s been collecting specimens from around the galaxy.

Janet said that I had to mention I fell asleep during this one.

 This is totally rad. You’re like my big little brother. 


   “Landscape with Giant Bison”
by Avram Davidson
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sep 1986

Never is it easy to discern what’s in the mind of the indiscernable Avram Davidson, but I suspect that he was on a train journey with a plethora of tourists—perhaps the California Zephyr, which enters the majestic Rockies at a point just outside of Eldorado State Park—and he thought to himself, “Just what would it take to pull my fellow travelers away from that there card game?”

 A wooly rhino appeared out of nowhere on the right side of the track, its red hide caked with mud and dust, and paced the car for two miles; then it slackened and turned away, was lost to sight. 




   Lazer Tag Academy
produced by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears
First episode: 13 Sep 1986

Young Jamie Jaren, the Lazer Tag champion of 3010, travels back to 1980 to protect her distant teenaged ancestors from the evil Draxon Drear who was unwittingly released into that earlier era.

 As Drear races through time in his quest to conquer the future, he is pursued by Jamie Jaren. Jamie must team with her ancestors Tom, Beth and Nicky Jaren. Join us now in their adventure through time to preserve the past, save the future, and keep the peace established by . . . the Lazer Tag Academy! 




   Peggy Sue Got Married
by Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner (Francis Coppola, director)
First release: 10 Oct 1986

Middle-aged Peggy Sue has two grown children and an adulterous husband whom she married at 18, so will she do things the same when she finds herself back in 1960 in her senior year of high school?

 Well, Mr Snelgrove, I happen to know that in the future I will not have the slightest use for algebra, and I speak from experience. 




   Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
by Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy, Have Bennett, et. al. (Nimoy, director)
First release: 26 Nov 1986

As the brave crew of the Enterprise are returning to Earth to stand trial for the events of the previous movie, Spock determines that Earth’s demise is imminent unless they can return to 1986 and retrieve a humpback whale (which they then proceed to do).

I saw this in the theater with Deb Baker and Jon Shultis during a winter trip to Pittsburgh for a small computer science education conference.

 McCoy: You realize that by giving him the formula you’re alterning the future.
Scotty: Why? How do we know he didn’t invent the thing? 




   Muppet Babies
created by Jim Henson
First time travel: 27 Dec 1986

As babies, all the muppets are occasionally looked after by Nannie. They first time traveled by taking Gonzo’s supersonic snowmobile trike back to rescue Nanny’s ruined yearbook in “Back to the Nursery.”
  1. Back to the Nursery (27 Dec 1986) trike to the past
  2. Romancing the Weirdo (11 Nov 1989) a time machine in Gonzo’s novel
  3. The Next Generation (15 Sep 1990) Rowlf visits his future grandson

 But how can we replace a picture taken a zillion years ago? 

—“Back to the Nursery”



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Tangents” by Greg Bear, Omni, Jan 1986 [4D spacial topology ]

  House by Ethan Wiley, 28 Feb 1986 [ghost story ]

  Dragonriders of Pern #8.1: “The Girl Who Heard Dragons” by Anne McCaffrey, May 1986 [no time travel ]

   “Le gouffre des années”
English title: “The Gulf of the Years” (translated from French)
by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud
First publication: Le héroes blessé au bras, 1987

I read the English translation from Châteaureynaud’s collection, A Life on Paper (2010). The story tells of a man who returns to occupied France during World War II on the morning that his mother was killed by an errant bomb. I enjoyed the writing, but was unsatisfied with the ending.

 You’re Jean-Jacques Manoir, aren’t you? Right? You don’t know me, but I know all about you. 




   Project Pendulum
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: 1987

Ricky and Sean Gabrielson, 23-year-old identical twins, are the first men to travel through time, taking ever larger swings that send one backward and one forward.

This was the first book that I read in the rare books room of the University of Colorado library from the Brian E. Lebowitz Collection of 20th Century Jewish American Literature.

 Hi there. You’re not going to believe this, but I’m you of the year 2016, taking part in the first time-travel experiment ever. 




   Timefall
by James Kahn
First publication: Feb 1987

This is the third book in Kahn’s New World trilogy, but the hero Joshua doesn’t know about the post-apocalyptic fantasy adventures of World Enough, and Time (Book I) and Time’s Dark Laughter (Book II). Could this be a prequel? Well, sort of. Time is cyclic and a previous version of Joshua has left him a message that leads Joshua of our world, wife of our world, and millionaire of our world to a lost city in the Amazon where the people think Joshua is their god arisen. Oh, and there are tunnels to different times and a circuitous but definite, supramundane possibility that the entire cyclical universe is going to end (or maybe never even exist in the first place).

The 2014 release of the book includes new material.

 We hurried him into the den, plugged in the skull, gave him a demonstration on the wall, showed him the composite map we’d constructed: the rivers, the road, the city. 




   Fraggle Rock
created by Jim Henson
First time travel: 23 Feb 1987

The symbolic and colorful world of Jim Henson’s fraggle muppets included at least one moment of time travel when Mokey, Boober and Wembly are mysteriously transported back to a time of fraggles who cannot laugh.

 Wouldn’t it be fun to travel in time? O’ course, you wouldn’t really go anywhere. No, Sprocket, because the past and the future are happening now, here in the present. It’s all a question of perception. I thought dogs knew things like that. 


   “Dinosaur on a Bicycle”
by Tim Sullivan
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Mar 1987

Harry Quince-Pierpont Fotheringgay, the assistant to the learned Sir Brathewaite pedals a time bicycle from a civilized Victorian era to the distant path where, among others, he meets his own tyranosaur ancestor and two talking simians.

 As far as Harry was concerned, they were getting altogether too near his gigantic ancestor now. 


The story also appeared in this 1990 collection.   “The Silver Box”
by Louise Lawrence
First publication: A Quiver of Ghosts, Mar 1987

While searching for a ghost in the past, Mark and Zak stumble upon young Carole, shut up in her bedroom with glandular fever in 1987.

 What else do we live for but the little mundane things of life? If we sit around waiting for the few, rare wonderful moments that make it all worthwhile we may as well not live at all. 




   Timestalkers
adapted by Brian Clemens (Schultz, director)
First aired: 10 Mar 1987 (made-for-tv)

After the death of his wife and child, Dr. Scott McKenzie stumbles upon a tintype photograph from the old west with three corpses, a shooter and a modern Magnum 357, leading him to develop a theory of time travel that is soon confirmed when a beautiful woman of the future appears to take him back to the old west in order to chase the shooter, save President Cleveland, and pursue other obvious plot developments.

 Georgia: Very impressive, professor. It’s a small wonder you were considered one of the world’s foremost authorities.
The Professor: [incredulously] Were? 




   Amazing Stories
created by Steven Spielberg
First time travel: 20 Mar 1987

Steven Spielberg brought Amazing Stories to tv in two seasons of an anthology format. At least one time-travel story—Jack Finney’s venerable “Such Interesting Neighbors”—appeared in the second season (20 Mar 1987).

Janet and I bought our first color tv for these episodes, a Sony of course.

 Oh, Randy, neighbors are always strange; those are the rules. 


   “Perpetuity Blues”
by Neal Barrett, Jr.
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, May 1987

Orphaned at a young age and sent to live with her abusive aunt and uncle, Maggie befriends the town’s odd duck, Oral, whose magic loop of wire protects the young girl. Oh—and I forgot to mention: Oral believes he’s from outer space and his ship bounces him through time.

 Got the ship clear out of the atmosphere and hit this time warp or something. Nearly got eat by Vikings. Worse than the Mormons. Fixed up the ship and flipped it out again. Ended up in Medival Europe. Medicis and monks, all kinds of shit. Joined someone’s army in Naples. Got caught and picked olives for a duke. Lok at my face. They got diseases you never heard of there. 




   Sphere
by Michael Crichton
First publication: 12 May 1999

Because he wrote a government report on how to handle alien contact, psychologist Norman Johnson is called to the scene when the Navy discovers a 300-year-old crashed space ship on the Pacific floor. But it turns out to be an American space ship, just not from today’s America.

 And yet now we have proof that time travel is possible—and that our own species will do it in the future! 


   “Rider”
aka “Fugue”
by Andrew Weiner
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jul 1987

Arnold Lerner is deep into a fugue—a state that allows him to revisit past memories and rewrite them in your own mind. But he’s so deeply in fugue that he won’t ever come out. Then again, some people doubt both those sentences: Ruth Brandon, director of the Hartley Mind Research Center, says that it’s a long shot, but she might be able to go in after Lerner and pull him out; and some say that the rewriting of history is not just in your own mind.

Among other places, the story takes Ruth Brandon to the 1970 total solar eclipse in Miahuatlán; and quite by coincidence, I first read the story when I happened to take the July 1987 issue of Asimov’s with me on our road trip to Scottsbluff to see the Great American Coast-to-Coast eclipse of 2017. The stars (and the Moon) move in mysterious ways.

 Even if you do come back. They say you really do travel in time and that you really can change things if you try hard enough. 




   To Sail Beyond the Sunset
by Robert A. Heinlein
First publication: Jul 1987

In the 19th century, Maureen Johnson grows up near Kansas City, eventually marrying and raising her own brood, including Lazarus Long (the original) and Lazarus Long (from the future).

 I found myself offering my hand and greeting a young man who matched in every way (even to his body odor, which I caught quite clearly—clean male, in fresh rut)—a man who was my father as my earliest memory recalled him. 


   “At the Cross-Time Jaunter’s Ball”
by Alexander Jablokov
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Aug 1987

Jacob Landstatter is an art critic, and his chosen objects d’art are the alternate realities that the Lords of Time commission from artists who go back in time to make specific changes that result in worlds of one sort or another. So who could want to kill someone with such an occupation as innocuous as Jacob’s?

 Normal intestinal flora. Mutated and hybridized with amyotrophic lateral schlerosis. Infects via the GI tract and destroys the central nervous systems of higher primates. Neat. Grew it in the guts of an Australopithecine on the African veldt, two, three million years ago. Not easy, Jacob, not easy. When I woke up on that pallet at Centrum, I had bedsores, and a headache that lasted a month. Killed them all. Every last one of the buggers. Nothing left on this planet with more brains than an orangutan. 




   Masters of the Universe
by David Odell (Gary Goddard, director)
First release: 7 Aug 1987

With the help of ominous John-Williams-soundalike music and a Cosmic Key that opens portals to other places, the evil Skeletor has finally conquered Castle Greyskull, giving him the power needed to become the Master of the Universe himself. Fortunately, He-Man and his warriors have a copy of the key and can save the universe! Unless they misplace it and two current-day Earth teens stumble upon it.

I watched the movie through to the end(!), but spotted only one explicit small item to indicate that the key might transport through time as well as space: When Skeletor’s minionette locates the copy of the key, she says that they can find it within a “parsec-eon,” which kind of sounds like a space-time measurement. In addition, those who know the He-Man franchise tell me that he is a far-future descendant of Earth humans on the planet of Eternia, which means that the trip back to current-day Earth was through time. So it is a time-travel movie(!) but that fact has no bearing on the movie’s plot.

 I call it . . . The Cosmic Key! It is the most unique key in the universe. The tones it generates can open a doorway to anywhere. 




   Calvin and Hobbes
by Bill Watterson
First time travel: 31 Aug 1987

 Relax! We’ll be back as soon as we go. 


   ““Lui-même en Anachron””
by Cordwainer Smith
First publication: Les puissances de’espace, Sep 1987

Tasco Magnon, time traveler, decides to take his new bride on his next trip through time—a quest to find the mythical Knot in Time, where the two of them get trapped and only one can return.

After Smith’s death in 1966, the story was completed by his wife and sold to Harlan Ellison’s anthology The Last Dangerous Vision. In 1987, a translated version of the story was published in a French collection of Smith’s stories, so that the first published version was in French (although I have listed the English title above, since that’s how it was written). The English version was finally publisheded in Smith’s 1993 complete short science fiction collection by NESFA. By then, Ellison’s rights to the story had expired, although that didn’t stop him from suing NESFA.

 ‘Honeymoon in time,’ indeed. Why? Is it that your woman is jealous of your time trips? 


   Replay
by Ken Grimwood
First publication: Sep 1987

After 43-year-old radio newsman Jeff Winston dies, he finds himself back in his 18-year-old body in 1963—an occurrence that keeps happening each time he dies again in 1988; eventually, in one of his lives, he finds Pamela, another replayer, and they work at figuring out the meaning of it all (without success).

 So he hadn’t died. Somehow, the realization didn’t thrill him, just as his earlier assumption of death had failed to strike him with dread. 




   The Jukebox Stories
by Dean Wesley Smith
First story: Night Cry, Fall 1987

A jukebox in the Garden Lounge does more than make you remember the time of the song. It actually takes you to that time.

I’ve yet to find a good guide to these stories and where they can be obtained. The first story, “The Jukebox Man’ appeared in 1987 in a sister magazine to The Twilight Zone Magazine. Here’s a list of the other stories that I know of, although the only one I’ve read so far is “Jukebox Gifts’:
  1. The Jukebox Man (Fall 1987) Night Cry
  2. A Bubble for a Minute (Jan 1994) By Any Other Fame
  3. Jukebox Gifts (Jan 1994) F&SF
  4. Black Betsy (Oct 1994) Alternate Outlaws
  5. The Ghost of the Garden Lounge (Nov 2005) Time After Time
  6. He Could Have Coped with Dragons (Nov 2009) chapbook
  7. A Golden Dream (Jul 2010) chapbook
  8. The Songs of Memory (Jul 2012) chapbook
  9. Our Slaying Song Tonight (Oct 2012) chapbook
  10. The Wages of the Moment (Jan 2013) chapbook
  11. She Arrived without a Song (May 2013) chapbook

 I had carefully typed onto labels the names of over sixty Christmas songs, then taped them next to the red buttons. Somewhere in this jukebox, I hoped there would be a special song for each man. A song that would trigger a memory and a ride into the past. My Christmas present to each of them. 

—“Jukebox Gifts”


  The Time Guardian by John Baxter and Brian Hannant (Hannant, director), 3 Dec 1987
When terminatoresque cyborgs attack a future Australian city (headed by Quantum Leap’s favorite scoundrel, Dean Stockwell, and defended by everyone’s favorite princess, Carrie Fisher), the scientists taken them all back in time—a fine plan until the evil cyborgs follow.


No Time Travel. Move along.
  The Year Before Yesterday by Brian Aldiss, 1987 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “Enter a Soldier, Later: Enter Another” by Robert Silverberg, Asimov’s, Jun 1989 [simulacrum ]

  “Left or Right?” by Martin Gardner, Mathenauts, Jun 1987 [4D spacial topology ]

  “Traplanda” by Charles Sheffield, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jun 1987 [despite appearances, no time travel ]

  Dragonriders of Pern #8.1.A1: Dragonharper by Jody Lynn Nye, Jul 1987 [no time travel ]
  aka A Crossroads Adventure in the World of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern: Dragonharper



   The Devil’s Arithmetic
by Jane Yolen
First publication: 1988

In fifth grade, Hannah read this intense novel of a young modern Jewish girl thrown back to the concentration camps of World War II Germany.

 Hannah was stunned. It was as if she’d suddenly been transported to a movie set. 






   One Life to Live
created by Agnes Nixon
First time travel: 1988

In a 1988 plot line (“Buchanan City”), Clint ends up back in 1888 where he falls in love and is betrothed to Viki’s look-alike ancestor Ginny!

Apart from Dark Shadows (which, as we all know, was more than a soap opera), this is the first time travel that I’ve spotted in a soap.

 Ginny: I was staring up at the night sky trying to find that extra planet that you claimed was there when I was giving the children their astronomy lesson today.
Clint: Why can’t you just take my word for it?
Ginny: Because brilliant scientists have studied the heavens and deduced that there are only a certain number of planets in our solar system—eight, just eight. And then you come along and throw the whole system out of question! 




   Lightning
by Dean Koontz
First publication: 1988

Right from her birth, Laura Shane has had a quick wit, a fateful loss of those close to her, and a time-traveling guardian angel who is himself chased by his evil compatriots.

 One of the things he had learned from the experiments in the institute was that reshaping fate was not always easy. Destiny struggled to reassert the pattern that was meant to be. Perhaps being molested and psychologically destroyed was such an immutable part of Laura’s fate that Stefan could not prevent it from happening sooner or later. 




   “The Turning Point”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: The Drabble Project, 1 Apr 1988

In exactly 100 words, Madison goes back in time to meet himself at the turning point of his young life.

Thanks to Marc Richardson for sending this one to me.

 He was a clerk. 


   “Fire, Fire”
by Allison Prince
First publication: A Haunting Refrain, May 1988

When young Emma falls behind her parents on a country outing, she finds herself at a Neolithic funeral pyre.

 Emma, we can’t keep waiting for you all the time. We"re nearly at the top—see you up there, all right? It’s not far. 


   “Many Mansions”
by Alexander Jablokov
First publication: May 1988

Working for an alien time cop, Mattias jumps through fixed wormholes in time, heading to medieval France, North America in the last ice age, ancient Egypt, 17th-century Persia, and probably a few other places that he and I are having trouble remembering. We both need a vacation.

 It took most of Isaac Newton’s Principia to snap him out of it. 




   Star Trek: The Next Generation
created by Gene Roddenberry
First time travel: 2 May 1988

I watched the premier with Harry and Cathy just four weeks before Hannah was born. In the seven seasons, there were 12 time-travel episodes.
  1. We’ll Always Have Paris (2 May 1988) repeated seconds
  2. Time Squared (3 Apr 1989) back six hours
  3. Yesterday’s Enterprise (19 Feb 1990) Enterprise C from 2344 to 2366
  4. Captain’s Holiday (2 Apr 1990) Vorgans from 27th century
  5. A Matter of Time (18 Nov 1991) historian from 26th century
  6. Cause and Effect (23 Mar 1992) time loop
  7. Time’s Arrow I/II (15 Jun / 21 Sep 1992) to 1890s San Francisco
  8. Tapestry (15 Feb 1993) Picard’s earlier life
  9. Firstborn (25 Apr 1994) Worf’s son from 40 years ahead
  10. All Good Things I/II (23 May 1994) jumping between three times

 Make it so. 




   Gumby Adventures
created by Art Clokey
First time travel: 25 Jun 1988

In the 1988 episode “Lost in Chinatown,” Gumby’s claymation sister Minga travels through a magic tapestry to ancient China, and Gumby must rescue her!

 Wow: a picture on silk! It looks real old. I wonder what life in China was like in those days. While waiting for Grandma, I’ll go and find out. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #8.1.A2
Dragonfire
aka A Crossroads Adventure in the World of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern: Dragonfire
by Jody Lynn Nye
First publication: Jul 1988

Nye wrote two choose-your-own-adventure books in the world of Pern. I didn’t spot any time travel in the first (Dragonharper), but one of the branches of this second book involves the heroine, Mirrim, and her green dragon, Path, timing it back in three possible ways.

 Path crooned deep in her throat . . . 


   “The Grandfather Problem”
by Andrew Weiner
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Aug 1988

Purely as a scientific experiment, physicist Harold Levett decides to go back in time to kill his grandfather.

 “It’s nothing personal,” I say. “It’s strictly a scientific question . . .” 


   Insurance Fraud
by Mark Heath
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Aug 1988

 Full coverage in event of death due to suicidal, time-traveling grandsons . . . 




   “Ripples in the Dirac Sea”
by Geoffrey A. Landis
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct 1988

A physics guy invents a time machine that can go only backward and must always return the traveler to the exact same present from which he left.

 

  1. Travel is possible only into the past.
  2. The object transported will return to exactly the time and place of departure.
  3. It is not possible to bring objects from the past to the present.
  4. Actions in the past cannot change the present.
 

   “On the Watchtower at Plataea”
by Garry Kilworth
First publication: Other Edens II, Nov 1988

Miriam and her fellow time travelers, John and Stan, set up camp in an abandoned watchtower to observe and record the siege of the walled city-state Plataea in the Peloponnesian War.

 It was a shock to find that the expedition could go no further back than 429 BC; though for some of us, it was not an unwelcome one. Miriam was perhaps the only one amongst us who was annoyed that we couldn't get to Pericles. He had died earlier, in the part of the year we couldn’t reach. So near—but we had hit a barrier, as solid as a rockface on the path of linear time, in the year that the Peloponnesian War was gaining momentum. 




   The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey
by Geoff Chapple, Kely Lyons and Vincent Ward (Ward, director)
First release: 15 Dec 1988

To ward off the Black Death, young Griffin, local hero Connor, and others from their village plan to dig a whole through the Earth where they'll give an offering to the powers that be, but instead, they end up digging a tunnel to a marvelous twentieth-century city.

 Think how much power you’d need for all that! 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  Waxwork by Anthony Hickox, 17 Jun 1988 [secondary worlds ]

  “The Fort Moxie Branch” by Jack McDevitt, Full Spectrum, Sep 1988 [no definite time travel ]

  Dragonriders of Pern #9: Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey, Oct 1988 [no time travel ]



   “The Instability”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: The London Observer, 1 Jan 1989

Professor Firebrenner explains to Atkins how they can go forward in time to study a red dwarf and then return back to Earth.

 Of course, but how far can the Sun and Earth move in the few hours it will take us to observe the star? 


   “Real Time”
by Lawrence Watt-Evans
First publication: Asimovs’s Science Fiction, Jan 1989

An unnamed time-travel guard is trapped in the 20th century and must keep ever vigilant against those who might tamper with the time line because you never know whether the time guard will be able to handle it all.

 They might send someone else, but they might not. The tampering might have already changed things too much. 


The story also appeared in this 1994 collection.   “The Ring of Memory”
by Alexander Jablokov
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jan 1989

Time travel agent Hugh Solomon chases through time after Andy Tarkin who blames Hugh for the death of their common crush in 1902 Chicago.

The story has a nice bootstrapping paradox.

 Have you sold a ring recently, in the shape of a serpent with its own tail in its mouth? 




   Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon (Stephen Herek, director)
First release: 17 Feb 1989

The Two Great Ones, Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted “Theodore” Logan, are the subjects of time-traveler Rufus’s mission, but instead they end up using his machine to write a history report to save their band Wyld Stallyns.

 Most excellent! 




   Quantum Leap
created by Donald Bellisario
First episode: 26 Mar 1989

Physicist and all-around good guy Sam Beckett rushes his time machine into production—funding is about to be cut!—and as a consequence, he shifts from one life to another, always with a moral mission and his holographic cohort Al.

 Oh boy! 




   “The Price of Oranges”
by Nancy Kress
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1989

Harry’s closet takes him back to 1937 where his social security income buys cheaper oranges, treats for his friend Manny, and possibly a companionable man for his jaded granddaughter Jackie.

 Harry bought a pair of socks, thick gray wool, for 89 cents. When the man took his dollar, Harry held his breath: each first time made a little pip in his stomach. But on one ever looked at the dates of old bills. He bought two oranges for five cents each, and then, thinking of Manny, bought a third. At a candystore he bought G-8 and His Battle Aces for fifteen cents. At The Collector’s Cozy in the other time they would gladly give him thirty dollars for it. Finally, he bought a cherry Coke for a nickel and headed towards the park. 




   “Great Work of Time”
by John Crowley
First publication: Novelty: Four Stories, May 1989

When a secret society called the Otherhood acquires Caspar Last’s time machine in 1983, they set out to change history so that the British Empire never declines (although it may be infused with various Lovecraftian species such as the Draconics), an endeavor for which in 1956 they recruit Denys Winterset, one of the Colonial Service’s many assistant district commissioners of police.

 Of course the possible worlds we make don’t compare to the real one we inhabit—not nearly so well furnished, or tricked out with details. And yet still somehow better. More satisfying. Perhaps the novelist is only a special case of a universal desire to reshape, to ‘take this sorry scheme of things entire,’ smash it into bits, and ‘remold it nearer to the heart’s desire’—as old Kyayyám says. The egoist is continually doing it with his own life. To dream of doing it with history is no more useful a game, I suppose, but as a game, it shows more sport. 






   Field of Dreams
by Phil Aldin Robinson
First release: 5 May 1989

Corn farmer Ray Kinsella is called to build a ballpark in his cornfield (with part of his calling resulting from a trip to 1972); once the field is built, various ballplayers from the past come.

 If you build it, they will come. 




   “A Sleep and a Forgetting”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Playboy, Jul 1989

Mike is pulled out of his quiet tenured life as a professor in the Department of Sinological Studies at the University of Washington because his lifelong friend Joe Hedley seems to be receiving transmissions in Mongolian. When Mike arrives, he not only understands the transmission, but can talk back as well.

Time travel and alternate histories often overlap, usually when some incident of time travel to the past creates the alternate timeline. This story is an intriguing alternative where a supposedly alternate past history is discovered through the two-way transmission through time, but the origin of the alternate timeline remains a mystery.

 Weirder and weirder, I thought. A Christian Mongol? Living in Byzantium? Talking to me on the space telephone out of the twelfth century? 


   Mixed Doubles
by Daniel da Cruz
First publication: Aug 1989

Justin Pope, a music major (like Paul Eisebrey!), stumbles upon a time machine that he uses to kidnap Franz Schubert from his deathbed; Pope cures Franz and uses him as a source of compositions to create a magnificent career of his own (with the help of Angelica), until Franz turns the tables (with the help of Philipa).

Paul Eisenbrey introduced me to this author in college, but I found Mixed Doubles on my own some years later.

 From time to time double checking with the manual, he began to punch in the commands that, he had calculated from ceaseless experimentation, would project him three thousand years into the past, plus of minus fifteen years. It was a vast improvement on his first efforts, which had been accurate only to within two centuries. The reentry program was more precise by orders of magnitude: it would bring him back to the moment of departure, plus zero to seventeen hours. 




   Ray Bradbury Theater
created by Ray Bradbury
First time travel: 11 Aug 1989

Ray Bradbury Theater ran for two seasons on HBO starting 21 May 1985. It then shifted to the USA Network for four seasons which had three time-travel adaptations.
  1. A Sound of Thunder (11 Aug 1989) dinosaur hunt
  2. Touch of Petulance (12 Oct 1990) newspaper from the future
  3. The Toynbee Convector (26 Oct 1990)    100 years into the future

 Dinosaurs large and small fill my junkyard workroom.
This one given to me by a friend 30 years ago. These given as toys to my daughters, and when they didn’t play with them I simply took them back. So with dinosaurs coming into my life, I often wondered what would happen if I could go back into theirs. Dinosaurs, time machines, put them together and you have a
tale one billion years old. 

—Bradbury’s introduction to “A Sound of Thunder”




   Millennium
by John Varley (Michael Anderson, director)
First release: 25 Aug 1989

Cheryl Ladd plays Louise Baltimore opposite Kris Kristopherson’s Bill Smith.

 For one thing, paradoxes can occur. Say you build a time machine, go backwards in time and murder your father when he was ten years old. That means you were never born. And if you were never born, how did you build the time machine? Paradox! It's the possibility of wiping out your own existence that makes most people rule out time-travel. Still, why not? If you were careful, you could do it. 




   The Smurfs
created by Peyo (aka Pierre Culliford)
First time travel: 9 Sep 1989

While trying to return a dinosaur to its proper time at the start of Season 9, a time whirlwind whips the annoying little mushroom blueters into time—a condition that’s carried on through the rest of the season.

 Well, Papa Smurf, there is one way to get this critter back home, but it’s awfully dangerous. 




   Ring Raiders
by Phil Harnage
First episode: 16 Sep 1989

Matchbox produced and aired five cartoon episodes in 1989 to promote their Ring Raider line of toys including the time-traveling planes of the evil Skull Squadron and the right-stuff Ring Raider pilots.

 Lieutenant, I’ve got three strange bogeys about a mile north-northwest. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. They don’t even have props. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #10
Renegades of Pern
by Anne McCaffrey
First publication: Nov 1989

A retelling of various episodes of Dragonriders / Dragonquest / The White Dragon from the perspective of Thella, who is the main renegade of the title.

Also in November of 1989, Jody Lynn Nye (with help from McCaffrey) released The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern. No dragonreader should leave home without it.

 It was then obvious that the absconding dragons had gone between time to secure their theft. 




   Back to the Future II
by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale (Zemeckis, director)
First release: 22 Nov 1989

Doc Brown takes Marty and Jennifer from 1985 to 2015 to save their children from a bad fate, but the consequences pile up when Biff also gets in on the time-travel action.

 The time-traveling is just too dangerous. Better that I devote myself to study the other great mystery of the universe—women! 



Romance Time Travel of 1989
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux

  Hornblower-Stone 1: Time Was by Nora Roberts

  Hornblower-Stone 2: Times Change by Nora Roberts




No Time Travel. Move along.
  Dix mille ans dans un bloc de glace by Louis Boussenard [long sleep ]
  English title: 10,000 Years in a Block of Ice

  “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” by Pat Murphy, Time Gate, Dec 1989 [simulacrums ]

  “The Ressurrection Machine” by Robert Sheckley, Time Gate, Dec 1989 [simulacrums ]

  “The Rose and the Scalpel” by Gregory Benford, Time Gate, Dec 1989 [simulacrums ]

  “Statesmen” by Poul Anderson, Time Gate, Dec 1989 [simulacrums ]

  Mr. Belvedere (“A Happy Guy’s Christmas”) by Walter Snee, 16 Dec 1989 [a christmas carol ]

 

201 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)