The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1983 to 1989

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 ]

 

138 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)