The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 2000 to 2013

   “Time Out of Joint”
by Pauline Ashwell
First publication: Analog, Jan 2000

A time traveler who makes a living as an antiquities dealer tells a tale of a Greek urn that appeared in two different places at the same time.

 If the Time Traveller sold his wares directly from the maker, modern tests would show that they are only a few years old. They are stored in an underground cavern somewhere in the Pliocene to rack up the appropriate number of centuries, so that tests for thermoluminescence and cosmic ray tracks give the right answer. 


This story appeared in Analog’s Probability Zero series of flash fiction.   “Whose Millennium?”
by Michael A. Burstein
First publication: Analog, Jan 2000

A time-traveling Jew shows up in a police station on the final date of the Hebrew calendar.

 It’s September 29, 2239. 




   Archie Cartoons
originally directed by Hal Sutherland
First time travel: 14 Feb 2000

There were Archie cartoons when I was a kid: The first ones I remember had the Riverdale teens as a pop band (“Sugar, Sugar!”) around the same time as the Monkees, but I don’t recall any time travel then, even if it was directed by Hal Sutherland, soon-to-be director of the animated Star Trek. However, I did spot a later three-part time travel story in Archie’s Weird Mysteries that ran in 2000 (“Archie’s Date with Fate,” “Alternate Riverdales,” and “Teen Out of Time”).

 Free will and predestination aside, I vow to completely redesign my time travel invention to make it safer. 

—Dilton in “Archie’s Date with Fate”




   2000x: Tales of the Next Millennia
produced by Yuri Rasovsky
First time travel: 4 Apr 2000

Yuri Rasovsky brought radio plays back to the future, or at least to the 21st century. The first play, broadcast on 4 Apr 2000, was based on Heinlein’s time travel story, “By His Bootstraps,” with the role of Bob Wilson distinctively voiced by Richard Dreyfuss. I'm not certain, but host Harlan Ellison might be the voice of the narrator in that episode.

At least two later time-travel stories were also produced.
  1. By His Bootstraps (4 Apr 2000) by Robert A. Heinlein
  2. A Sleep and a Forgetting (30 May 2000) by Robert Silverberg
  3. The Hunting Season (27 Jun 2000) by Frank M. Robinson

 2000X is produced by the Hollywood Theater of the Ear in association with National Public Radio. 




   Frequency
by Toby Emmerich (Gregory Hoblit, director)
First release: 28 Apr 2000

In 1999, John Sullivan, living in his boyhood home, finds an old ham radio that his dad had built, he naturally wants to see whether it still works. As it turns out, not only does it work, but it puts him in communication with 1969 where he talks to his dad, Frank, on the very day before Frank’s death in a fire. Frank now avoids the fire, which gives his 1999 son the memories of both a fatherless life and a life where Frank survived but John’s mother did not.

 I want you to hide that wallet: someplace where nobody’s gonna find it for thirty years. 


   “How I Won the Lottery, Broke the Time Barrier (or is that Broke the Time Barrier, Won the Lottery), and Still Wound Up Broke”
by Ian Randal Strock
First publication: Analog, Jun 2000

A lowly lab assistant receives a message from his future self with the winning lottery numbers.

 Tomorrow’s Lotto drawing is for forty-five million dollars. The winning numbers will be 17, 19, 30, 32, 42, and 51. 


   “Built upon the Sands of Time”
by Michael F. Flynn
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug 2000

Physics professor Owen fitzHugh tells a story in a pub about how a small quantum fluctuation in the past can cause big consequences down the line—and how he may have sent a chronon into the past to do just that.

 I’m not sure. A device to excite time quanta, I think. Into the past, of course. 


from jimloy.com

   “The Invention of Time Travel”
by Jim Loy
First publication: jimloy.com, 1 Jul 2000

After reading Professor Hanson’s acceptance speech to the Swedish Academy, another man tells the real story of the professor’s invention.

 Wanted: Time traveller to please give me a ride in a time machine. Please meet me at 342 E. Snow Way, New York, NY, at noon, July 1, 2000. 




   The Kid
by Audrey Wells (Jon Turteltaub, director)
First release: 7 Jul 2000

I never quite figured out how Russ Duritz meets his own eight-year-old self, Rusty, but the young kid certainly manages to straighten out the older kid.

 So, I’m forty, I’m not married, I don’t fly jets, and I don’t have a dog? I grow up to be a loser. 


   “Quid pro Quo”
by Ray Bradbury
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct 2000

An author, frustrated by the wasted talent of Simon Cross, builds a time machine to bring the wasted Cross back to meet the promising young Cross.

 You do not build a time machine unless you know where you are going. 




   犬夜叉
English title: InuYasha (translated from Japanese)
First episode: 16 Oct 2000

Teen Kagome Higurashi is transported from modern Tokyo to the Japanese Age of Warring States (around 1500 A.D.) where she inhabits the body of her earlier self and fights the demon InuYasha.

The manga comic was adapted into 193 anime episodes in two series (InuYasha and InuYasha: The Final Act, both of which were dubbed in English. I do wish that the translation of the quote shown below had been more true to Dorothy’s line from The Wizard of Oz.

 We really aren’t in Tokyo any more, are we? 


   “Crow’s Feat”
by John G. Hemry
First publication: Analog, Nov 2000

Mid-list science fiction writer Paul Gallatin runs into scientist Ivan Ivanovich at a party, and the scientist offers to send Paul back to Shakespeare’s time.

 Tell me, how many copies do you think a book would sell if it proved your belief that Shakespeare was a fraud? 


   “Is There Anybody There?”
by Kim Newman
First publication: The New English Library Book of Internet Stories, Nov 2000

More horror than anything else, but amusing nevertheless as an internet stalker in 2001 communicates via a ouija board with a psychic in 1923.

 Always, he would leave memories to cherish; months later, he would check up on his net-pals—his score so far was five institutionalisations and two suicides—just to see that the experience was still vivid. He was determined to crawl into IRENE D’s skull and stay there, replicating like a virus, wiping her hard drive. 




   “The Pottawatomie Giant”
by Andy Duncan
First publication: Sci Fiction, 1 Nov 2000

In the early 1900s, boxer Jess Willard wins the world championship but then snubs Houdini; after he dies, he gets a second chance.

 He opened them to find himself in a far more uncomfortable chair, in a balcony at the Los Angeles Orpheum, in the middle of Harry Houdini’s opening-night performance, November 30, 1915. 


movie poster for Timetravel_0   The John Titor Urban Myth
by Anonymous
First internet post: 2 Nov 2000

I suppose no time-travel list of the third millennium is complete without the urban myth of time-traveler John Titor who began posting messages on the internet in November of 2000, claiming to have come from the year 2036 with dire warnings. Apart from numerous amusing internet pages on the traveler, there are also a handful of published items.
  1. John Titor: A Time Traveler’s Tale (Dec 2003) Book
  2. Time Traveler Zero Zero (2004) Play
  3. Timetravel_0 (Aug 2009) Docudrama
  4. Steins;Gate (Oct 2009) Video game, manga, etc.

 I was just about to give up hope on anyone knowing who Tipler or Kerr was on this worldline. The basics for time travel start at CERN in about a year and end in 2034 with the first “time machine” built by GE. 

—Titor’s first internet post




   South Park
created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone
First time travel: 8 Nov 2000

The first indication of time travel in South Park was in 4th grade when (among other things) Cartman’s Dawson’s Creek Trapper Keeper Futura S2000 has designs on killing Kenny and taking over the world, but fortunately a robot from the future has come back to protect and serve.
  1. 4th Grade (8 Nov 2000) attempt to return to 3rd grade
  2. Trapper Keeper (15 Nov 2000)    T2 spoof
  3. My Future Self ’n’ Me (4 Dec 2002) Stan’s future self
  4. Goobacks (28 Apr 2004) emigrants from the future
  5. Go God Go XII (8 Nov 2006) Cartman to future religious war

 I have come to destroy that trapper keeper because it was the Dawson’s Creek Trapper Keeper that belongs to an Eric Cartman in South Park which three years from now manifests itself into an omnipotent super being and destroys all of hu-manity. 




   Dude, Where’s My Car?
by Philip Stark (Danny Leiner, director)
First release: 15 Dec 2000

After a day of whacky adventures, Dude and Sweet find the cosmic continuum transfunctioner, save the world, make up with the twins, and are transported back to a time before the hijinks ensued.

 Wait a second, let’s recap. Last night, we lost my car, we accepted stolen money from a transsexual stripper, and now some space nerds want us to find something we can’t pronounce. I hate to say it, Chester, but maybe we need to cut back on the shibbying. 




   Courage, the Cowardly Dog
created by John R. Dilworth
First time travel: 29 Dec 2000

In one episode (“1000 Years in the Future”) of the misadventures of Courage and his family, an errant meteor knocks them into the future, it’s up to Courage to explore things in the new Banana Republic and get them back to their own time (or maybe chance will have to do that).

 I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more, or the present time, or some combination of the two. 



Romance Time Travel of 2000
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Time after Time 1: Everything in Its Time by Dee Davis

  Once a Pirate by Susan Grant

  The Traveller by Lynn Kurland

  Highlander 3: The Highlander's Touch by Karen Marie Moning

  Embers of Time by Eugenia Riley




No Time Travel. Move along.
  The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, Mar 2000 [viewing the past ]

  Out of Time by Rob Gilmer and Ernest Thompson (Thompson, director), 17 May 2000 [long sleep ]

  Seventeen Again by Stewart St. John, 12 Nov 2000 [fountain of youth ]



  Dragonriders of Pern #15
The Skies of Pern
by Anne McCaffrey
First publication: Feb 2001

Don’t think for a moment that a Threadless world is going to mean the end of dragon drama or traveling between times. After a comet hits the Eastern Ring Sea, F’lessan and other dragonriders make a plan to go back in time to evacuate the devastated coastal holds before the impact.

 “Does that mean we’re to time it?” Mirrim asked T’gellan in a hushed tone as soon as they were past Tunge, who had not recovered from the multiple shocks.
“What else?” F’lessan asked, right behind her, hauling Tai along beside him.
“How else could we do what is to be done?” T’gellan added as he dragged his weyrmate into a near run. “Yes, Ramoth just confirmed it to Monarth.”
“But what do we do first?” Mirrim demanded in a scared voice.
“Monarth’s bespeaking Talina’s Arwith. I’ve told her to take four wings at once to Monaco Bay, to warn Partmaster Zewe and to start moving people to safety.” 




   Power Rangers Time Force
by Judd Lynn and Jackie Marchland
First episode: 3 Feb 2001

In the ninth season of the power rangers, evil mutant Ransik flees from the 30th century back to our time. Rangers pursue. I don’t know whether other years had time travel.

 If I can’t rule the present, then I’ll just rule the paaaaaast! 


The two stories were expanded into this 2009 novel.   The Titus Oates Stories
by Brenda W. Clough
First story: Analog, Apr 2001

Titus Oates, a member of Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, is taken from the time stream and revived in a bewildering 21st century, whereupon he does what any self-respecting explorer would do—heads to the stars!

The two Oates stories (“May Be Some Time” in the April 2001 Analog and “Tiptoe on a Fence Post” in the Jul/Aug 2002 Analog) were combined and expanded for the 2009 novel, Revise the World.

 Not only are you a person rescued from a tragic death, but your removal is supremely unlikely to trigger any change in the time-stream, since your body was lost: presumed frozen solid, entombed in a glacier for eons . . . 




   “What Weena Knew”
by James Van Pelt
First publication: Analog, Apr 2001

James Van Pelt kindly had coffee with me and signed a baseball for me at a Denver science fiction convention—oh, and he wrote (among other things) this fine story of Weena from the moment that H.G. Wells’s time traveller rescued her from the river.

I met the prolific and kind James Van Pelt at a convention in Denver, where we talked about one of his students who later came to Boulder to study computer science. I had misinterpreted a biography of Van Pelt in Analog as if it were an obituary, so I was happy to see the outstanding writer alive and willing to sign a baseball that I presented to him.

 Then a vice clamped her upper arm. A surge. A tremendous force, and she was clear of the stream. Air! There was air to breathe, but all she could do was cough. She was being carried. Her cheek rested on skin. Hough arms wrapped her close until they were on the bank. Gently, her rescuer put her down. Rock warmed her back; her hands lay flat in the heat, her head dropped onto the warmth. Against the sky stood a figure stragely shaped. Weena’s vision swirled—she could barely focus—but before she passed out, she saw in wonder, he was a giant. 




   Just Visiting
by Jean-Marie Poiré, Christian Clavier and John Hughes (Poiré, director)
First release: 6 Apr 2001

I just wasn’t in the mood for a comedy when I tried to watch this movie where witchcraft transports a 13th-century knight and his servant to the year 2000.

 You could tell from the petulant arch on his furrowed brow that he was not in route to a good deed. 




   Farscape
created by Rockne S. O’Bannon
First time travel: 13 Apr 2001

I enjoyed the interplay of the characters in the first season: Earth astronaut John Crichton who’s sucked through a wormhole in the style of Star Trek Voyager to end up on a living spaceship (Moya) with the Pilot plus four fugitives: Peacekeeper soldier Aeryn, Warrior D’Argo, deposed emperor Rygel XVI, and the priestess Zhaan—all being persued by the obsessed Bialar Crais. That first season had visions of the future but, alas, no time travel. In later seasons my interest waned, even though there was real time travel in one episode, “Different Destinations” (13 Apr 2001).

 Chiana has already told me a few words. Yes. No. Bite me. That’s all I need to know. 

—D’Argo in “Kansas”




   The Poultry Paradox
by Carlos Pedroza (Pedroza, director)
First released: 15 Apr 2001

So which did come first?

 Broadcasting live from the beginning of time, despite everything; we’ll prove that the chicken came before the egg. 




   T2 Novels
by S.M. Stirling
First book: May 2001

There are interminable Terminator spin-offs, and this series is the first. I enjoyed the first book, T2: Infiltrator, set after the second movie with Sarah and 16-year-old son on the run in Paraguay.
  1. T2: Infiltrator (2001)  
  2. T2: Rising Storm (2003)  
  3. T2: The Future War (2004)  

 Come with me if you want to live. 

—John Connor to Kyle Reese in T2: The Future War




   Futurama
created by Matt Groening
First time travel: 6 May 2001

Philip J. Fry never caught my interest the way the Simpsons did, but after suviving a millennium in cryogenic suspension, Philip and his 31st century cohorts do have some wacky time travel, including “The Late Philip J. Fry” wherein the professor’s one-way time machine takes them further and further into futures with a strange resemblance to various sf movie futures.
  1. Time Keeps on Slippin’ (6 May 2001) Chronitons skip time forward
  2. Roswell That Ends Well (9 Dec 2001) back to Area 51 in 1947
  3. The Why of Fry (6 Apr 2003) back to time he was frozen
  4. The Late Philip J. Fry (29 Jul 2010) time machine that only goes forward
  5. Meanwhile (4 Sep 2013) ten second rewind button
  6. All the Presidents’ Heads (28 Jul 2011)    American revolution

 We are travelers from the past, my good one. Since your time, human evolution has diverged. There are we—advanced in intellect and morality—and the dumblocks—stupid, vicious brutes who live underground. 

—from “The Late Philip J. Fry”


   “A Matter of Time”
by Robert Reginald
First publication: Katydid & Other Critters, Jun 2001

When Jake Smith’s neighbor—Stratton Bundford Audray, Ph.D.—invents a time machine, Jake volunteers to be the first human traveler in order to solve a vexing problem about his own ancestry.

 I’ve been tracing my family tree, and ’ve reached this dead end, because Smith is such a common name, and I’d really like to volunteer to make the first manned expedition into the past. 


The story also appeared in this 2010 collection.   “Saving Jane Austen”
by Robert Reginald
First publication: Katydid & Other Critters, Jun 2001

Time travelers Jake Lawson, Patricia Wardon, and their small entourage travel to 1801 England to observe young Jane Austen, who to Jake seems incredibly unimpressive while Patty observes that she is full of sentimental claptrap. Things, however, are not always what they seem.

 This is the fourth timestep I’ve made, and I can never quite get used to arriving downtime with nary a stitch in place. I know the engineers have explained the scientific reasons why this must be so, something about biostatic energy not being transferable to inert objects, but if that’s the case, why don’t we also lose our teeth, our nails, and hair at the same time? 




   Time Squad
created by Dave Wasson
First episode: 8 Jun 2001

In a utopian future, the past starts to unravel and it’s up to Otto, a ten-year-old 21st century orphan, and the rest of the Time Squad to patch things back together.

 That’s the History Instability Alarm! It’s time for another mission! 


   “Grandpa?”
by Edward M. Lerner
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug 2001

Professor Thaddeus Fitch gives a practical demonstration of the grandfather paradox to his physics classes.

 Imagine that I had the technology with which to visit my grandfather in his youth. Once there, what is to stop me from killing him before he’d had the opportunity to reproduce? But if I did succeed, who was it who had travelled backward . . . 




   劇場版ポケットモンスター セレビィ 時を越えた遭遇（であい
English title: Pokémon 4Ever: Celebi—Voice of the Forest (translated from Japanese)
by Hideki Sonoda (Kunihiko Yuyama, director)
First release: 7 Jul 2001

A tiny Pokéemon Celebi and his boy are chased into the future by a Pokémon hunter.

 They say there’s a sound you can hear when the spirit that protects the forest is time traveling. 




   Burton’s Planet of the Apes
by Pierre Boulle, William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner, et. al. (Tim Burton, director)
First release: 27 Jul 2001

I found two redeeming features in this melodramatic complete remake: Helena Bonham Carter and a time-travel twist at the end that was beyond my understanding.

 In this temple as in the hearts of the apes for whom he saved the planet the memory of General Thade is enshrined forever  


Publicity poster for Writers of the Future   “T.E.A. and Koumiss”
by Steven C. Raine
First publication: Writers of the Future Volume 17, Aug 2001

Time-travel agent Germaine returns to the time of Ghengis Khan along with telepath bimbo Elena, intent on stopping Vlad from installing a millenia-long Russian utopia.

 Vladimir zipped back in time to change the past. With his background, our psych reckons with 90 percent probability that his goal will be to make medieval Russia supreme through guiding the Great Prince here. 


   “Time Out of Mind”
by Everett S. Jacobs
First publication: Writers of the Future Volume 17, Aug 2001

Thomas Randall, young and single, lives in a world that is besotted by bubbles that shift acres from one time to another.

 The rotting carcass of an apatosaurus blocked the intersection of Highway 9 and Needham Road. 




   Samurai Jack
created by Genndy Tartakovsky
First episode: 10 Aug 2001

When the evil Aku returns to threaten the empire, a young prince trains for years to eventually fight and defeat him, but before Aku can be fully vanquished, he sends the prince into the future where he battles through threat after threat (with stories told in pictures more than words) in his quest to return to his own time.

 I thought once like you, but the sword is only a tool. What power has it compared to that of the hand that wields it? 




   Invader Zim
created by Jhonen Vasquez
First time travel: 24 Aug 2001

Tim showed me the one Zim time-travel episode (“Big, Bad Rubber Piggy”) on Christmas Day in 2010. The would-be alien invader Zim plans to send a terminator robot back to kill is nemesis Dib, but the time-travel portal will accept only rubber piggies, which Zim manages to make do with.

 You could prevent Walton Chunky from ever inventing Breakfast Chunks by using temporal object replacement technology! 

—“Big, Bad Rubbery Piggy”


Before publishing a sequel to The Time Machine, Bricker also had a War of the Worlds sequel in this 2010 anthology.

   “Love and Glass”
by Michael Scott Bricker
First publication: Bones of the World, Sep 2001

Stranded at the end of the world, Wells’s time traveller has only one companion, a Morlock descendant whom the traveller dubs George, until others appear, including the predator called The Queen of Hearts.

 The Time Traveller asked him whether he was the last of his kind, George touched his shoulder, and within that look passed understanding. 




   Happy Accidents
by Brad Anderson (Anderson, director)
First release: 12 Sep 2001

Ruby Weaver tells her therapist that her latest beau, Sam Deed, is sweet, kind and quirky—and the fantasy that he’s come back from the year 2470 because of that photo he saw of her (and possibly to make an important change) is nothing more than a game that they play.

 Break the causal chain. 






   Star Trek: Enterprise
created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga
First episode: 26 Sep 2001

You must watch the whole of Enterprise to grok the full arc of the Temporal Cold War with 13 episodes that were more temporal than others:
  1. Cold Front (28 Nov 2001) Crewman Daniels from 31st century
  2. Shockwave I/II (22 May / 18 Sep 2002) forward to 31st century
  3. Future Tense (19 Feb 2003) little time loops and cold war
  4. Twilight (5 Nov 2003) future T’Pol tries to correct past
  5. Carpenter Street (26 Nov 2003) Detroit in 2004
  6. Azati Prime (3 Mar 2004) more of Daniels and Cold War
  7. E² (5 May 2004) meet your own descendants
  8. Zero Hour (26 May 2004) World War II
  9. Storm Front I/II (8/15 Oct 2004) World War II
  10. In a Mirror, Darkly I/II (22/29 Apr 2005)    23rd-century Defiant

 Old T’Pol: There’s a human expression: Follow your heart.
Young T’Pol: What if my heart doesn’t know what it wants?
Old T’Pol: It will, in time, it will. 




   “Other People”
by Neil Gaiman
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2001

The demon of this story carries out an exquisite torture of his victim. At the end, we do discover the victim’s fate, though I wondered what became of the demon. Time travel? I haven’t heard Gaiman talk of this story, but I like to think of it in that way because of the opening and closing quotes.

 “Time is fluid here,” he told the new arrival. 


   “Oven, Witch and Wardrobe”
by Tom Sweeney
First publication: Analog, Oct 2001

Siobhan hopes to advance in the time-travelers' hierarchy by successfully transferring plague-doomed children from 1410 Europe to Colonial America.

 It had seemed such an easy thing to do. Beguile hungry children with food, ship their dirty young butts off to colonial America and return to the twenty-third century to become the first researcher ever to use time travel for humanitarian purposes. 




   Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge
by Jon Cooksey, Ali Marie Matheson and Paul Burnbaum (Mary Lambert, director)
First release: 12 Oct 2001 (made-for-tv)

Teenage witch Marnie Piper has a mom who doesn’t want her to carry on in the witch tradition, a grandma (Debbie Reynolds) who wants to take her on as an apprentice, and Kal—a cute guy hanging around who turns out to be the son of the family nemesis. When Marnie gets trapped by Kal in the other-dimension Halloweentown, Marnie and her troll friend Luke use time travel to escape; later they use a black-holeish “timeline” to get back to the present and save the day.

 You know that looks just like a Stephen Hawking description of a non-stellar black hole. 




   Buffy the Vampire Slayer
created by Joss Whedon
First time travel: 23 Oct 2001

Time travel was not a staple for the young bloodsucker nemesis, but Buffy did slay time on a few occassions.
  1. Life Serial (23 Oct 2001)    in a time loop fighting a mummy hand
  2. Get It Done (18 Feb 2003)    back to meet original slayer makers

 Via, concursus, tempus, spatium, audi me ut imperio. Screw it! Mighty forces, I suck at Latin, okay? But that’s not the issue. I’m the one in charge, and I’m telling you open that portal, now! 

—Willow in “Get It Done”




   Die Abrafaxe—Unter schwarzer Flagge
English title: The Pirates of Tortuga: Under the Black Flag (translated from German)
aka The Abrafaxe: Under the Black Flag
by Everett, Grützke, Platt, and Rietschel (Hahn and Power, directors)
First release: 25 Oct 2001

Abrax (English: Alex), Brabax (Max) and Califax—the young characters from the long-running German comic book, Mosaik—came to the animated screen in this time-travel adventure where they meet the 18th century pirates Anne Bonnie (good and beautiful) and Blackbeard (bad and bearded).

 The future’s a cruel mistress. She never declares her hand until it’s too late. 


The anthology had 12 original time travel stories, including “A Touch Through Time.” Let’s see whether I can manage 12 interesting images to illustrate the stories.   “A Touch Through Time”
by Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

Dr. Connor Robins uses his time machine to grab extinct animals who are about to die anyway (since things break down if he tries to alter the past), and he also a young actress who died in a 1920s fire.

Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch, an avid geologist and writer, died of breast cancer shortly after this story was published.

 You could steal all the cells you wanted to use in cloning, or some sperm and ova. Anything, provided that the interaction changed nothing about their time-stream. We could even pull some of the bodies forward. 


The story also appeared online for the
Free Fiction Monday
of 5 Aug 2013.		   “Blood Trail”
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

Detective Wheldon, the top man in NYPD Homicide is approached by two FBI agents who offer to let him go back in time two weeks to observe the 4th killing by a serial killer.

This is the first story in Future Imperfect, a 2001 anthology of 12 original time-travel stories, co-edited by the prolific anthology Martin H. Greenberg (1941-2011) who was also a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.

 When it became clear that time travel was even a remote possibility, the government bought a lot of scientists. Those who didn’t play got discredited. 


The story also appeared in this 2005 collection.   “Convolution”
by James P. Hogan
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

Professor Alymer Arbuthnot Abercrombie is on the verge of completing eight years of work to build a time machine when all of his vital notes are stolen.

 How can he tell you what you’ll do, like some kind of robot executing a program? You’re a human being with free will, for heaven’s sake. What happens if you plumb decide you’re not going to do it? 


The story also appeared in this 2005 collection.   “Doing Time”
by Robin Wayne Bailey
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

Samuel Enderby, Director and Chief Researcher of the Enderby Institute for Temporal Studies (and the inventor of the time machine) accidently finds himself stranded in 10,000,000 AD where the only other occupants are criminals who have been launched uptime using his technology.

 A marvelous tool for research has been abused and twisted to a vicious purpose. 


   “In the Company of Heroes”
by Diane Duane
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

A Swiss clockmaker offers billionaire Rob Willingden the chance to go back to his boyhood to stop the theft of his prized collection of Captain Thunder comics.

In 1987, Marvel’s own Roy Thomas was one of the founders of Hero Comics which sported a title called Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt, but the 1960s timing for the comic book of this story makes it more likely to be modeled after The Mighty Thor who premiered in Journey Into Mystery 83 (Aug 1962).

 This is a repair I think you must make. It is irresponsible to leave something broken when it can be fixed— 


Tipler's Physics of Immortality   “Iterations”
by William H. Keith, Jr.
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

An accident near a black hole has seemingly doomed Kevyn Shalamarn along with her copilot and her AI, until they are pulled into a future that could be taken from Frank Tipler’s The Physics of Immortality.

 The goal of this device is nothing less than complete knowledge, knowledge of everything that ever has been, that ever will be, that ever could be. 


The Anasazi Man in a Maze design   “Jeff’s Best Joke”
by Jane Lindskold
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

When a crazy old man calling himself Coyote shows up at an archaeological dig in New Mexico claiming that the Anasazi disappeared into time, Jeff knows that the only way to convince the world of Coyote’s truth is to play a colossal joke on his co-director Jimmy.

 Time even passes differently at the top of a high building than at its base. 


   “Mint Condition”
by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

Sissy is an experienced agent for CollectorCorps, but she always gets stuck with a male chauvinist rookie for her partner in trips to retrieve highly collectable items from the past.

As you can tell from the comic book image, I’d say that the comic book Sissy was after in this trip was based on Giant-Size X-Men 1.

 Autographed copies of Minus Men 121? Practically nonexistent in 2059, at least until we got home with some. 


The story also appeared in this 2003 collection.   “Palimpsest Day”
by Gary A. Braunbeck
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

In his forties, Danny’s parents are long gone as is the hope he had of marrying the girl he longed for in high school; instead, he runs a used bookstore in his childhood hometown, takes care of his Downs Syndrome sister, and has a surprising chance to change everything in the past.

 Live your life as if you were already living for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now. 

—Danny’s mother (possibly quoting Victor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning).


   “Theory of Relativity”
by Jody Lynn Nye
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

Dr. Rachel Fenstone takes her time machine from her universe to a parallel universe (both of which contain the Marx Brothers) where she meets an analog of herself so that together they can figure out where their histories diverged and visit that moment in their mutual pasts.

 In June’s reality her grandfather was an inventor, too, but his parents settled in New York, where the boys grew up in the tenements not far from where the Marx Brothers were born. 


The story also appeared in Stephen Jones’s 2010 anthology, Visitants.   “Things I Didn’t Know My Father Knew”
by Peter Crowther
First publication: Past Imperfect, Nov 2001

After his wife leaves for the day, writer Bennett Differing’s house is engulfed in a thick white fog, out of which comes his father who died 27 years before.

The second publication in Visitants (2010) is more in-line with the story than a time-travel anthology.

 Maybe the dead did use mist as a means of getting around—so many movies had already figured that one out . . . and maybe they did travel in time. 


   “What Time Is It?”
by Rita Lamb
First publication: The Young Oxford Book of Timewarp Stories, Nov 2001

A 15-year-old boy sits with his elderly grandmother who had trouble remembering what time she is in, and at least once, the trouble slips over to the boy, too.

 And drowsily I put my hand down to where I felt the warm, heavy head shifting restlessly on my kneww, and I stoked the silky crown, and I looked into the puzzled brown eyes of a young dog. 


David Wyatt’s interior art for the story from Timewarp Stories   “Timestorm”
by Steve Bowkett
First publication: The Young Oxford Book of Timewarp Stories, Nov 2001

Danny and his partner in soldiering are at ground zero when a storm of refugees from a devastated future begins to arrive.

 Nobody really knew much about that devastation—The Catastrophe, as it had been called. It had happened—would happen, from Danny’s perspective—almost a million years in the future, or so the Time Techs believed. 




   Black Knight
by Darryl Quarles, Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow (Gil Junger, director)
First release: 21 Nov 2001

When janitor Jamal Walker falls into the moat at Medieval World, he wakes up and carries out a weak impersonation of a Connecticut Yankee.

 Your Majesty, starting at small forward from Englewood High, two-time all-county conference player of the year, the messenger from Normandie—Jamal “Skyyyyyy” Walker! 




   The Bonaventure-Carmody Series
by Chris Roberson
First book: Dec 2001

After boarding-school student Roxanne Bonaventure stumbles across a bloody old woman who gives her a bracelet, she begins to find herself in different times and alternate universes with different Beatles’ songs and alternate Beatles.

This first novel, Any Time at All: The Lives and Time of Roxanne Bonaventure, was expanded into Here, There & Everywhere and followed by three more books.
  1. Set the Seas on Fire (Dec 2001)
  2. Any Time at All (Sep 2002)
  3. Here, There & Everywhere  (Apr 2005) expands Any Time at All
  4. Paragaea: A Planetary Romance (May 2006)
  5. Set the Seas on Fire  (Aug 2007) Expansion
  6. End of the Century (Feb 2009)

 Roxanne smiled awkwardly, and looked over Julien’s shoulder at the open stall. It looked unremarkable now, drab green-painted metal walls and a white porcelain toilet. Hardly the thing you’d expect from some sort of door in time. At least proper English children in books got to travel through wardrobes and garden holes, not through unhygenic high school bathrooms. 




   Another Day
by Helen Frost and Don MacLeod (Jeffrey Reiner, director)
First release: 4 Dec 2001

After pregnant Kate’s boyfriend dies in a factory fire, she decides to forgo medical school and raise the baby along with her best friend David until four years later when a tramatic incident, some melodramtic music and godawful narration throw her back to before the fire.

 That’s impossible. It’s one of a kind, and I made it with Meghan in crafts class last week. 


   “Time Sharing”
by Leland Neville
First publication: Fantastic, Winter 2001

Detective Lindsey Fillmore arrives at Taylor Houston’s house to investigate a dead body and possibly connect it to Houston’s video-making time-traveling escapades.



   Kate and Leopold
by Steven Rogers and James Mangold (Mangold, director)
First release: 25 Dec 2001

Leopold, a 19th century blueblood, awakens in 21st century New York where he meets and confounds adwoman Kate.

 Time, it has been proposed, is the fourth dimension. And yet, for mortal man, time has no dimension at all. We are like horses with blinders, seeing only what lies before us, forever guessing the future and fabricating the past. 



Romance Time Travel of 2001
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Time Travelers 4: For All Time by Caroline B. Cooney

  Time after Time 2: Cottage in the Mist by Dee Davis

  Time Travel 4: Twilight in the Babylon by Suzanne Frank

  Outlander 5: The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

  Knight Errant 1: Knight Errant by R. Garcia y Robertson

  Lady of the Locket by Melanie George

  Scottish Highlands 1: After the Storm by Tia Isabella

  Highlander 4: Kiss of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning

  Here and Now by Constance O'Day-Flannery

  Time after Time by Constance O'Day-Flannery




No Time Travel. Move along.
  The Monkey King (miniseries) by David Henry Hwang [civilization regresses ]
  aka The Lost Empire

  Sherlock Holmes and the Terror Out of Time by Ralph E. Vaughan [despite title, no time travel ]

  “A New Beginning” by Tony Ballantyne, Interzone, Jan 2001 [alien memory ]

  The Poof Point by Stu Krieger (Neal Israel, director), 14 Sep 2001 [backward aging ]

  “The Gift of a Dream” by Dean Wesley Smith, Past Imperfect, Nov 2001 [fountain of youth ]

  The One by Glen Morgan and James Wong, 2 Nov 2001 [alternate timelines ]

  Vanilla Sky by Cameron Crowe, 14 Dec 2001 [long sleep ]

   “Tachycardia”
by Paul Park
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jan 2002

A retired widower travels back to his son’s death during an operation in which his heart is momentarily stopped.

 “Geoffrey,” I tried to say. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring through the bars of his cage, his arms as thin as the sticks of bamboo, as they had been toward the end. 




   The Fairly Odd Parents
created by Butch Hartman
First time travel: 26 Jan 2002

Young Timmy Turner has two fairly odd fairy parents who can grant wishes, but are always creating problems for Timmy to fix, including at least twice when he had to wish himself back in time: to the old west (“Old, Old West”) and to a pirate ship (“Odd Pirates”).

 Safety’s for yellow bellies. 

—Timmy’s dad in “Odd, Odd West”




   Donnie Darko
by Richard Kelly (Kelly, director)
First release: 30 Jan 2002

For me, this cultish movie about a schizophrenic teenager presented a shallow understanding of both schizophrenia and time travel.

 I have reached the end of your book and there are so many things that I need to ask you. Sometimes I’m afraid of what you might tell me. Sometimes I’m afraid that you’ll tell me that this is not a work of fiction. I can only hope that the answers will come to me in my sleep. I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to. 




   “Veritas”
by Robert Reed
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 2002

Jonathon Colfax, Emperor of the Roman Empire, tells the story of his travel back from the 21st century and the intrigues of his rise to power.

Robert Reed is my favorite prolific short story author from around the turn of the millennium.

 What we should do is gather up a group of people, and train them, and then travel back in time and conquer the Roman Empire. 


   “Ransom”
by Albert E. Cowdrey
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mar 2002

Maks Hamilton, time-travel agent who lives centuries after the troubled times, must travel back to just before the disasters to kidnap a boy.

Albert E. Cowdrey is another of my favorite turn-of-the-millennium short story writers.

 I’ve got a sense of justice. It amused me to kidnap the son of the man who kidnapped me. 




   DC’s The Time Machine
adapted by John Logan and Mike Collins
First publication: Mar 2002

Nicely done, giveaway comic with a 10-page teaser for the movie on slick paper.

 Will Mara be rescued? Will Alexander recover the time machine? Will he ever prevent Emma’s death and return to 1903? For the answers, see “The Time Machine”—opening March 8—only in theaters! 




   Tomorrow Man
aka Time Shifters
by Doug Campbell (Campbell, director)
First release: 5 Mar 2002

Bryon, a murderer in the present day, steals a time-travel device from a cop in a secret government program so that he can go back to rescue his ten-year-old self from an abusive father. The kidnap plan succeeds, but the father gloms onto the pursuing cop as she returns to the future, and together they chase after Byron (old) and Byron (young) with lots of gunfights.

 He’s kidnapped himself, his younger self. If’s difficult to understand, but crap like this happens. 




   Simon Wells’s The Time Machine
adapted by John Logan (Simon Wells, director)
First release: 8 Mar 2002

This version (definitely not your grandfather’s time machine) has imaginative settings, but for me, the refactored plot was all dramatic music and no substance.

 You built your time machine because of Emma’s death. If she had lived, it would never have existed. So how could you use your machine to go back in time and save her? You are the inescapable result of your tragedy, just as I am the inescapable result of you. You have your answer. Now go. 




   Dust
by Milcho Manchevski (Manchevski, director)
First release: 5 Apr 2002

A reliable source (well, TV Guide) told me this would be a thought-provoking time-travel Western. I can affirm that the first of those double-barreled adjectives is inaccurate; it’s harder to tell about the second, even after surviving the incomprehensible story of two brothers in the old west (and Macedonia), a mean-spirited woman in the present, and a black dude who may have had his thumbs broken by crooked present-day police (or possibly he broke them at the Alamo).

 Edge: What’s you gonna do with this stupid story anyway?
Angela: You’ll see at the end.
Michael: Only if you survive that long. 




   The Chronology Protection Case (Movie)
adapted by Jay Kensinger (Kensinger, director)
First released: 20 Apr 2002

Stilted acting and hokey science, but still an enjoyable, low-budget adaptation with a believable version of D’Amato.

 Everything is related to each other on some level, and people have discovered that the deeper you go, the more you find that totally different things are made of the same thing. 


   “Hot Tip”
by Billy Bruce Winkles
First publication: Analog, May 2002

Obscure physicist John Suttle receives a phone call from the future with information about his eventual fate.

 As I said, I’m calling you from the twenty-fifth century. I am also a physicist. In fact, I’m the leader of a research group that’s studying space-time contortion phenomena. Recently, we discovered a way to make phone calls into the past. 




   Felicity
created by J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves
First time travel: 1 May 2002

High school senior Felicity Porter follows Ben to college in New York and mopes around him for four years before he cheats on her, so (in the final five episodes of the series) her friend Meghan casts a spell to send her back in time where she can be with Noel who’s always had a crush on her although now he’s not quite so certain, after all there is that Hannah girl.

 Next time be a more responsible time traveler. 

—Meghan to Felicity




   “When Bertie Met Mary”
by John Morressy
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jun 2002

A time traveler seeks Dr. Frankenstein.

 The time traveler—for so I must call him—emerged from his laboratory with a small wooden box cradled in his hands. 




   Odyssey 5
created by Manny Coto
First time travel: 21 Jun 2002

Five shuttle astronauts in orbit watch the mysterious destruction of the Earth, after which an alien offers to send their consciousnesses back in time five years to solve the mystery and save the earth. For me, it was the melodramatic music, weak scientific concepts and weaker dialog that fated this show to one season, although they did take on some interesting questions about how the crew’s actionsmay alter time.

 I . . . have it in my power . . . to project you back. 




   Austin Powers in Goldmember
by Mike Myers and Michael McCullers (Jay Roach, director)
First released: 26 Jul 2002

When the Austin Power’s father is kidnapped and taken to 1975 by the evil Goldmember, the famous spy must follow in the Pimpmobile.

 Powers: Where’s Goldmember?!
Dr. Evil: Not where, Mr. Powers—when! 


1st edition

2nd edition

3rd edition

   Graphic Classics: H.G. Wells
by Nicola Cuti, Antonella Caputo, Seth Frail and Craig Wilson
First publication: Graphic Classics 3 (1st Edition), Aug 2002

Eureka publishers have released a series of Graphic Classics trade paperbacks, each issue of which collects together comic book versions of stories, usually from a single classic author such as Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, Jack London, and more. And, yes, the series includes an H.G. Wells issue (#3) which has undergone three editions, each of which has presented new black and white Time Machine material.

My favorite is the Wilson version (3rd edition), which has a steampunkish Eerie Comics feel and an extended stand-alone version with ten additional pages. My
  1. 1st edition (Aug 2002) A Time Machine Portfolio by Nicola Cuti
  2. 2nd edition (Apr 2005) The Time Machine by Antonella Caputo and Seth Frail
  3. Stand-alone (Jun 2013) The Time Machine by Caputo and Craig Wilson
  4. 3rd edition (Feb 2014) The Time Machine by Caputo and Craig Wilson

 I cannot help but wonder. Will he return? It may be he was swept back into the past. Or did he go forward into one of the nearer ages, when men are still men, but with the wearisome problems of our own age solved? I may never know. 

—from Caputo’s adaptation




   “Time and Again”
by Betsy Gallup
First publication: Revolution SF, 8 Aug 2002

Some years after Cassie has given up her career to be a full-time mom, it occurs to her that she might use the beta version of her mother’s invention, the Redux 3000, to make life a little different.

 Her mom had spent a lifetime researching time travel and The Redux bracelet was the result. Cassie was one of several test subjects asked to test the new technology. 




   Megas XLR
created by Jody Schaeffer and George Krstic
First publication: 23 Aug 2002

In the pilot show (called “Lowbrow” and aired on a Cartoon Network Weekend Summerfest), two video-game gearheads (Coop and Jamie) find a time-traveling robot in a junkyard and trick him out with a new engine, some new body work, a 671 jimmy huffer, and an eight-ball gear shift before realizing that they (along with the redhead, Kiva, from the future) must now protect present-day Earth from the evil aliens who enslaved the planet in the future and are now tracking the Megas back through time.

After the pilot, the Cartoon Network picked up the show for 26 new episodes.

 Listen! We need Megas to avert an alien invasion in the far future. He wasn’t meant to be a toy for a prehistoric yahoo and his pet monkey thing! 




   ¡Mucha Lucha!
created by Eddie Mort and Lili Chin
First time travel: 31 Aug 2002

Just one time-travel episode (“Woulda Coulda Hasbeena”) in this forgetable series when the three kids’ teacher heads back to the land-of-disco to right-a-wrong in his past, and the kids follow.

 Traveling back in time to change the outcome of a wresting match is so against the code of Mas Wrestling that it will rip our world apart at the seams! 


   “Posterity”
by Christopher Evans
First publication: Interzone, Sep 2002

A cynical innkeeper for time travelers whines.



   The Twilight Zone (3rd Series)
created by Rod Serling
First time travel: 2 Oct 2002

One season with 4 time-travel episodes.
  1. Cradle of Darkness (2 Oct 2002)    to kill baby Hitler
  2. Found and Lost (27 Nov 2002) relive your past
  3. Rewind (5 Feb 2003) short time ago
  4. Memphis (26 Feb 2003) MLK in 1968

 I reminded them that Adolph Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people. 




   Do Over
created by Kenny Schwartz and Rick Wiener
First episode: 19 Sep 2002

Thirty-something Joel Larsen, disappointed in his life, finds himself back in 9th grade with a chance to do things over again.

 That, young time traveler, is your first kiss. 




   The Chronology Protection Case (Radio)
adapted by Mark Shanahan, Paul Levinson and Jay Kensinger
First aired: Fall 2002

An enjoyable script based on the short story of the same name.

 But if you come across something you know to be true, one thing is certain: you can never go back to not knowing. 


   “At Dorado”
by Geoffrey A. Landis
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2002

Cheena’s husband comes back to the port around the wormhole—dead, though the death is in the future, and she doesn’t bother to tell him.

 The wormholes were the port’s very reason for existing, the center of Cheena’s universe. 




   “The Time Telephone”
by Adam Roberts
First publication: Infinity Plus, Oct 2002

A pregnant woman calls her future daughter at age sixteen (at a cost of nearly 18,000 euros) to find out whether the daughter was glad she was born—and she’s not the only one calling into the past.

 This is a call from the past, my darling. 




   Time Changer
by Rich Christiano (Christiano, director)
First release: 25 Oct 2002

Nineteenth-century biblical scholar Russell Carlisle is sent forward 100 years to see what the world will become of people’s morals if they are allowed to accept or reject Christianity willie-nillie.

 Stop the movie! You must stop this movie! The man on the screen just blasphemed the name of the lord! 




  Time Traders #7
Atlantis Endgame
by Andre Norton and Sherwood Smith
First publication: SFBC Time Traders III, Nov 2002

When one of Eveleen Riordan’s earrings is found on the island that once was Atlantis, she and her hubby Ross Murdock (plus Gordon Ashe, a few Russians, and a new agent or two) must investigate—and of course, clash with the Baldies.

 I put the variables together, wondering if you might be part of the equation, and last winter when I uncovered that earring in a place that had been sealed under volcanic ash since 1628 B.C. and saw that modern jeweler’s mark, I decided that maybe it was time to try again to dig you up. 




   Frasier
created by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee
First time travel: 19 Nov 2002

Under the influence of sedatives, Niles wonders whether a hospital has memories, a question that's answered as he is wheeled into the operating room. I suppose the scenes could just be flashbacks or even hospital memories, but the final scene in “Rooms with a View” (Season 10, Episode 8) might well be time travel.

 All these big dramatic moments, and the hospital just gobbles them up. Do you think a hospital has memories? 


   “Walk to the Full Moon”
by Sean McMullen
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec 2002

Undergraduate linguist Carlos helps his uncle try to understand a pre-neanderthal girl who has appeared in present-day Spain.

 On a monitor screen was a girl in a walled garden. Crouching in a corner, she had a fearful, hunted look about her. I could see that she wore a blanket, that her skin was olive-brown, and that her features were bold and heavy. Oddly enough, it took a while for me to notice the most remarkable about her: she had no forehead! 




   Das Jesus Video
English title: Ancient Relic (translated from German)
aka The Hunt for the Hidden Relic
adapted by Martin Ritzenhoff and Sebastian Niemann (Niemann, director)
First aired: 5 Dec 2002 (made-for-tv)

Stephen Vogt, an archaeology student, uncovers a 2000-year-old skeleton and the man’s notes purporting to have taken a video of Jesus Christ on a camera that doesn’t yet exist. The result is a 3-hour blood-filled, melodramatic chase that, for me, detracted from the more interesting religious questions that the premise might have addressed.

The two-part German tv movie was based on the book Jesus Video by Andreas Eschbach with some significant changes to the ending. It was released in the US with a quality English dubbing in 2006.

 Gentlemen, sleep well tonight. And don’t forget that we are scientists and not science fiction writers. 




   “Time Loop”
by Sam Hughes
First publication: qntm.org, 14 Dec 2002

I first encountered Sam Hughes while desperately trying to figure out the ending to the remake of Planet of the Apes; in addition to excellent speculation on that count, he had this short-short story about a time loop (later made into a fun youtube video by Andrew Hookway).

 I am your future self, and I just traveled back in time to meet you. 



Romance Time Travel of 2002
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  MacKendimen 3: Once Forbidden by Terry Brisbin

  George & the Virgin by Lisa Cach

  Time after Time 3: Wild Highland Rose by Dee Davis

  Highlander 5: The Dark Highlander by Karen Marie Moning




No Time Travel. Move along.
  Eternal Gangstas by D.A. Jackson [reincarnation ]

  “Time Bleeds” by Andrew Humphrey, Open the Box and Other Stories, Feb 2002 [despite title, no time travel ]

  Minority Report by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen, 21 Jun 2002 [precognition ]

  “Some Other Time” by Ray Vukcevich, Sci Fiction, 17 Jul 2002 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “The Whisper of Discs” by John Meaney, Interzone, Oct 2002 [despite appearances, no time travel ]

  “The Trinity Paradox” by R.A. Jetter, Thirteen Stories, Dec 2002 [differing time rates ]



   “O. Henry’s Incredible Time-Travel Adventure”
by Lucas Gattuso
First publication: Gattuso’s English 127 Portfolio, circa 2003

Someone is killing those damnable authors who use only their initials, and only H.G. Wells and his time machine can save O. Henry and the rest.

 e.e. cummings at your service 




   The Time Traveler’s Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
First publication: 2003

Due to a genetic disorder, Henry DeTamble reacts to stress by jumping to important and unimportant moments of his life, including many visits to his once and future wife.

To me, the story owes a lot to one of F.M. Busby's stories (“If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy”)—a debt that Niffenegger might be acknowledging in the quote below.

 Could I? Do I have kids, Henry? In 2006 do I have a husband and a house in Winnetka and 2.5 kids? 


   “Train of Events”
by James L. Cambias
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jan 2003

Jeremy Calder has been told by time travelers that he will cause the release of a deadly virus. No one is allowed to stop him—for he hasn’t done anything yet—and he seems to accept his fate without believing that he can change future history.

 Since the history books all agreed that he was going to kill six hundred people on June 25, 2038, Jeremy Calder was careful to get up early that day. 


   “Legions in Time”
by Michael Swanwick
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 2003

Ellie Voigt’s job is to sit and watch a door, until one day she gets angry enough at Mr. Tarblecko that she steps through the door into a time war.

 One man with a sunstroker can be overwhelmed by savages equipped with nothing more than neutron bombs—if there are enough of them, and they don’t mind dying! 


John Allemand’s
interior illustration		   “The Day the Track Stood Still”
by John C. Bodin and Ron Collins
First publication: Analog, May 2003

Did I spot a smidgen of time travel in this delightful story of a race where Babs the car is certainly in love with the driver and vice versa, all in the tense context of knowing that if the race is lost, then the car will be forfeited?

 I tried not to think about what was at stake. The pressure was bad enough without telling her this was for all the marbles: if we lost this Indy 500, she was gone. Sayonara muchacha. Hasta la bye-bye, and good night, Babs. That’s the way it is when you race the B’arada. They put up a piece of tech, you put up a piece of tech. Winner takes all, Indy 500 style. 


   “Get Me to the Job on Time”
by Ian Randal Strock
First publication: Analog, May 2003

A man tells the story of his coworker who had a rather mundane use for his discovery of time travel.

 Wally didn’t need to see the pyramids getting built, or sail with Columbus, or even watch JFK’s assassination. What Wally wanted to do, more than anything, was get to work on time. 




   The Low Budget Time Machine
aka Space Babes Meet Monsters
by Buddy Barnett, Kathe Duba-Barnett, Brad Linaweaver, et. al. (Duba-Barnett, director)
First release: May 2003

The main question in my mind as I watched this was how destitute did Patrick MacNee become at the end of his life to be found in this movie telling us about his theory of time travel. I never did figure out what all that had to do with the subsequent story of a professor who owes big money to the mob. The professor’s solution is to send three patsies into the future to bring something back that will end all his monetary troubles. As it turns out, the future has ethereal, never-been-kissed babes from outer space with excellent bowling balls (no, not a euphemism), at least one two-headed mutant, and a monster named Gary. Eventually, they all make it back to the present (except for Two-Head) where they form a rock band that Howard Stern would approve of.

 First I should explain in layman’s terms the way time travel works. If you create an instrument that generates five billion electomagnetic transit vibrations per second—faster than the speed of light—one can hypothetically travel through time and space. 


   “3rd Corinthians”
by Michael F. Flynn
First publication: Analog, Jun 2003

This is the second Michael F. Flynn time-travel story that I’ve read set in O Daugherty’s Irish pub. This time, amidst philosophical discussion, Father McGinnity tells of a third letter from Paul to the Corinthians that simply couldn’t be genuine.

 Oh, the Bible is true, only it may not always be factual. 




   Static Shock Cartoon
created by Dwayne McDuffie and Michael Davis
First time travel: 7 Jun 2003

Based on the DC comic book, fourteen-year-old superhero Virgil Hawkins, aka Static, has power over electromagnetism, but it’s his friend Nina, aka Time-Zone, who takes him and another hero through time in their first trek through time, trying to save Virgil’s mother.
  1. Flashback (7 Jun 2003) Nina’s first travel
  2. Future Shock (17 Jan 2004)    forty years forward

 She can rewind herself through time like a tape through a VCR! 




   T3: Rise of the Machines
by John Brancato, Michael Ferris and Tedi Sarafian (Jonathan Mostow, director)
First release: 02 Jul 2003

If they can’t get John Connor, then the machines from 2029 will send a T-X terminator for his lietenants in 2004, but they don’t count on John sending back another Model 101 to work with John and his future wife Kate.

 Get in! Do you wanna live?! Come on! 

—John Connor to Kate Brewster while fleeing the T-X




   Timeblazers
created by Wilson Coneybeare
First episode: 5 Jul 2003

When Shakira or Alex ask questions about life of yore, Sam and Jen take them back to see for themselves.

 And now they take me back in time to find out what life in the past was really like. 




   ぽぽたん
English title: Popotan (translated from Japanese)
by Jukki Hanada
First episode: 17 Jul 2003

Three young sisters—Ai, Mai and Mii—and their maid find themselves continually jumping from place to place and time to time.

 Why do we have to keep moving, over and over again? It’s so unfair! 


   “The Only-Known
Jump Across Time”
by Eugene Mirabelli
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sep 2003

In the 1920s, Lydia Chase and her father’s tailor fall in love and jump across time.

 The only known jump across time produced by an apparatus, a so-called time machine, took place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in May of 1928. 




   Code Lyoko
English title: Code Lyoko (translated from French)
created by Tania Palumbo and Thomas Romain
First episdoe: 3 Sep 2003

As you watch the first few episodes of this French nearly-anime cartoon (dubbed in English), there’s a challenge in working out exactly what’s what in the group of young friends at a boarding school where the resident genius (Jeremy Belpois) interacts with a girl (Aelita) who's trapped in a virtual world which is terrorized by the evil Xana. I suspect I may have missed a few episodes at the start (I started with “Teddygozila”), but it seems that at the end of each successful adventure in the virtual world, the supercomputer take the adventurers back in time to a point of their choosing. It’s kind of cool that things aren’ fully explained, so I hope I don’t later run into the origin episode!

 Ready for a trip into the past, Yumi? 




   Timecop: The Berlin Decision
aka Timecop 2
adapted by Gary Scott Thompson (Steve Boyum, director)
First release: 30 Sep 2003 (direct to video)

Time Enforcement Commission agent (and martial arts expert) Ryan Chang chases through time after rogue agent Brandon Miller who’s off killing ancestors of other agents so there’ll be nobody to stop him from what he sees as a moral obligation to right the wrongs of past timelines (but no obligation to fill the holes in the current plotline).

Despite my reservations, my friend Tandy, a martial arts afficionada, enjoyed the movie a lot (only partly because she’s in love with Jason Scott Lee), and it is true that even my favorite time-travel movies have some of the same plot holes as this one, all of which yeilds an extra star in my subjective rating!

 Drop the gun or your timeline is over. 




   Tru Calling
created by Jon Harmon Feldman
First episode: 30 Oct 2003

From time to time, a dead guy asks morgue worker Tru Davies for help, which causes her day to rewind and gives her a chance to save the dead person with the help of her shy boss Davis and her neer-do-well brother Harry.

Hannah gave me the dvd of the first season for Christmas, and it took a few episodes for the show to grow on me. I was hooked about halfway through the season, with the introduction of Jack Harper and the suggestions of an overarching plot.

 Have a little faith in your sister. 




   “It’s All True”
by John Kessel
First publication: Sci Fiction, 5 Nov 2003

In 2048, washed-up film maker Det Gruber is a time-traveling talent scout hired to recruit young, bitter Orson Welles from 1942.

 Welles clenched his fists. When he spoke it was in a lower tone. “Life is dark.” 




   Timeline
adapted by Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi (RIchard Donner, director)
First release: 26 Nov 2003

The book was interminably slow, and so was the movie—and I’m only talking about the battle scenes in 1357 France. The actual time-travel mechanism is cool, though.

 It means the camera was taking pictures in the wilderness near Castlegard, France, in the year 1357. 




   Kim Possible
by Bill Motz and Bob Roth (Steve Loter, director)
First time travel: 28 Nov 2003

Buffy has nothing on high school cheerleader Kim Possible, who fought time-traveling badies and their time monkey in a special one-hour episode (“A Sitch in Time”).

 “So, what’s the sitch?” 


   “The Chop Line”
by Stephen Baxter
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec 2003

In the future wars between man and Xeelee, Ensign Daxx meets the time-traveling future Captain Dakk who must try the younger Dakk for the future crime of disobeying orders in a combat situation.

 I don’t know many captains, but she immediately recognized me. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #16
Dragon’s Kin
by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey
First publication: Dec 2003

Oh, the sad life of the underappreciated watch-whers, the minor-league cousins of the mighty dragons of Pern. Still, they have their story, too, and like dragons, they can travel between places. The story also includes minor time travel, although the lowly watch-whers have to leave that to the big lizards in this tale.

 “Watch-whers don’t go between,” Nuella declared.
“Yes, they do, I saw Dask do it,” Kindan corrected. 



Romance Time Travel of 2003
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Highlander 1: Charming the Highlander by Janet Chapman

  Highlander 2: Loving the Highlander by Janet Chapman

  Highlander 3: Wedding the Highlander by Janet Chapman

  Time after Time 4: The Promise by Dee Davis

  Knight Errant 2: Lady Robyn by R. Garcia y Robertson




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Emma” by Kyle Kirkland, Analog, Apr 2003 [simulacrum or similar ]

  Cube²: Hypercube by Sean Hood (Andrzej Sekula, director), 15 Apr 2003 [surreal ]

  Paycheck adapted by Dean Georgaris, 25 Dec 2003 [visions of possible futures ]



   “Tune Out of Time”
by Philip E. High
First publication: Step to the Stars, 2004

Philip E. High was a prolific author, although not well known in the states. This story, first published when he was 89, tells the tale of the miraculous Mottram’s organ, which unexpectedly sends Alan Stapleton to the past (or is it the future?) on an obscure fragment of matter called Earth—and he may find himself in several other locations before he finds his way home.

 I deduce that this device was locked on the past—who’s past, yours or ours? Time is relative, our future could be in your past or vice versa. 




   The Ulysses Moore Books
language: Italian
by Pierdomenico Baccalario
First book: 2004

I read the English translation of first of thirteen books in which three kids explore a house—once occupied by Ulysses Moore and his wife—and the surrounding cliffs and town of Kilmore Cove. Despite the title of that first book, La porta del tiempo, the door doesn’t manage to take the characters through time until the final chapter, ’Inizia l’avventura.”. That particular door can take intrepid travelers whenever they wish, but the other books in the series have doors that lead to only one particular time and place.

 “We’re not in Kilmore Cove anymore,” he said aloud. 


The story also appeared in this 2008 collection.   “Decisions”
by Michael Burstein
First publication: Analog, Jan/Feb 2004

Astronaut gets put in a time loop by aliens.

 Aaron snorted. “I remember that conversation from over six months ago.”
    Gabe shook his head. “It happened this morning.” 


   “The Dragon Wore Trousers”
by Bob Buckley
First publication: Analog, Jan/Feb 2004

A dinosaur scientist time travels to the middle ages.

 The bizarre beast that rounded the bend in the road made Maker’s mouth drop in surprise. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, a top-heavy, lopsided creature having four legs, a narrow head atop a long neck, and a huge shiny lump on its back. 




   Primer
by Shane Carruth (Carruth, director)
First released: 16 Jan 2004

Some guys invent a time machine and use it to go back in time to prevent the artsy author of this film from ever writing a coherent plot.

 I haven’t eaten since later this afternoon. 




   The Butterfly Effect
by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber (Gruber and Bress, directors)
First release: 23 Jan 2004

Scary, dark, disturbing, sick and violent—but captivating—psychological thriller about how things keep going further and further astray when Evan tries to fix things by changing key moments involving the sociopaths and child molesters of his troubled childhood.

 Hey man, I’d think twice about what you’re doing. You could wake up a lot more fucked up than you are now. 


   “Scout’s Honor”
by Terry Bisson
First publication: Sci Fiction, 28 Jan 2004

An autistic paleontologist receives a series of messages from a time traveler who is studying a band of Neanderthals in prehistoric Europe, although his one friend, Ron, thinks that the messages are an amateur sf story.

 Heading down for the NT site. More later. 




   “Century to Starboard”
by Liz Williams
First publication: Strange Horizons, 2 Feb 2004

Sometime around the publication of this story, Tim and I saw a ship called The World docked on the Willamette in Portland. The ship is privately owned by the occupants of its 165 residences, and as a group they vote on their itinerary every year. It’s a nice fantasy to think about leading such a life, so long as the ship doesn’t run into the kind of storms that Liz Williams’s similar ship hits in this story.

Each of those storms take the entire ship, including Italian citizen Vittoria Pellini, further and further into the future.

 I finally got my head together and told Julio what I thought—that maybe, just maybe, we’ve gone through some kind of slip in time, like the Bermuda Triangle, only in the Pacific. I know other people sometimes say—just to be spiteful—that I’m maybe a little bit of a bimbo, and Julio tends to laugh at me sometimes. Affectionately, of course. But this time I really thought he’d laugh, and he didn’t. 


   “Draft Dodgers Rag”
by Jeff Hecht
First publication: Analog, Mar 2004

Time travelers come back to 1969 Berkeley to help Tom, a Vietnam draft dodger.

 They want to be heroes. They think war brings glory and makes them men. I think they’re crazy. Our society up then thinks they’re crazier than your society thinks you are. 




   Smallville
created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
First time travel: 3 Mar 2004

Ten seasons with at least 9 time-travel episodes:
  1. Crisis (3 Mar 2004) phone call from the next day
  2. Reckoning (26 Jan 2006) back in time to save Lana
  3. Sleeper (24 Apr 2008) Kara and Brainiac back to infant Kal-El
  4. Apocalypse (1 May 2008) Clark back to stop Kara and Brainiac
  5. Legion (15 Jan 2009) The Legion (plus Persuader) from 31st century
  6. Infamous (12 Mar 2009) Clark back to stop Lois from writing a story
  7. Doomsday (14 May 2009) Lois to the future
  8. Savior (25 Sep 2009) Lois returns, persued by Alia
  9. Homecoming (15 Oct 2010)    Clark to his own past and future

 Chloe: When you were a baby. Clark, if you really are in trouble on Krypton, you’d better find a way to get there, and soon, or . . .
Clark: I’ll never have existed. 

—from “Sleeper”




   Tripping the Rift
created by Chris Moeller and Chuck Austen
First time travel: 4 Mar 2004

What if Star Trek/Wars were an adult cartoon with time travel on demand, including travel back to the start of the universe in the broadcast pilot, “God is Our Pilot”?
  1. God Is Our Pilot (4 Mar 2004) to beginning of universe
  2. Roswell (14 Sep 2005) 1940s New Mexico
  3. Chode Eraser (6 Sep 2007) Terminator parody

 Chode: Hey, you know what the best part of being able to go back to the beginning of time means?
Whip: Yeah. Not having to remember what you did yesterday.
Chode: Yeah, that. And we’re gonna know once and for all how the universe was created. 


   “The Aztec Supremacist”
by Sheralyn Schofield Belyeu
First publication: Analog, Apr 2004

Dr. Harvey takes a posse back to 1492 to pursue an Aztec descendant who plans to stop Columbus’s voyage.

 Gentlemen, this person tells me that in many years, the Almighty will allow men to journey through time. He says that he has come from the far future with a message for me. 




   The Winning Season
adapted by Steve Bloom (John Kent Harrison, director)
First aired: 4 Apr 2004 (made-for-tv)

Eleven-year-old Joe Soshack finds a priceless 1909 baseball card (never mind that it belongs to that little old-lady down the street) that takes him back to the 1909 World Championship Series where he becomes a not-very-loyal sidekick to the Pittsburgh Pirate’s Honus Wagner in a face-off against the Detroit Tigers and the vicious Ty Cobb.

 You know I’ve had people come from all over the world to see me play baseball, but I’ve never had someone come from the future. 




   “This Tragic Glass”
by Elizabeth Bear
First publication: Sci Fiction, 7 Apr 2004

In a world where time travel can retrieve past historical figures, Dr. Satyavati Brahmaptura (now a colleague of poet John Keats) receives permission from the History Department to nab Christopher Marlowe in order to prove that he was really a she.

 The genderbot still thinks Kit Marlowe was a girl. I reentered everything. 




   13 Going On 30
by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa (Gary Winick, director)
First release: 23 Apr 2004

Everything that could go wrong is going wrong for 13-year-old Jenna Rink. If only she could be already grown up in the future!

 There are six of them, Jenna, that’s the whole point. There can’t be a seventh Sixth Chick. It’s just mathematically impossible. Besides you’re way cooler than they are, they’re totally unoriginal. 




   “A Taste of Time”
by Abby Goldsmith
First publication: Deep Magic, May 2004

A bottle of wine mysteriously appears inside Jane’s apartment on her 29th birthday with the cryptic message Tabula Rasa—Warning: There Is No Return. So since she is suicidal and drunk and other things associated with country music songs, Jane swallows a mouthful, figuring that the worst it could be is a dignified poison.

 Jane gagged on the sour taste in her mouth. She was so dizzy, she’d fallen . . . but she was sitting in an office chair, with no memory whatsoever of leaving her dark and quiet apartment.
Florescent lights beat down on her, and the familiar voices of a call center surrounded her. None of this was possible. She was back at her old workplace. It was a workday, late afternoon, judging by the angle of light. Ultimata Insurance had laid her off months ago, yet here she was. 




   Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
created by Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter
First time travel: 16 May 2004

After failing as part of a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Harvey Birdman is revived as an attorney whose clients are typically other hard-done-by Hanna-Barbera characters, including at least one episode where the Jetsons travel from the far future (that’d be 2002) to the present (2004), but my favorite is when Harvey has to defend Quick Draw “Eastwood” McGraw’s 2nd Ammendment rights.

 Ah, that’s okay, great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad. 

—George Jetson to Harvey




   “The Lost Pilgrim”
by Gene Wolfe
First publication: The First Heroes: New Tales of the Bronze Age, Jun 2004

Gene Wolfe has such subtle plots and such perfection of word choice that he lulls you into a story without your ever realizing that you are in a story—even his titles are perfection. In this case, the story of an apparant time traveler who finds himself on a journey with Greek gods and mortals, but cannot remember who he is or why he was sent to this far past.

 I have been hoping to speak privately with Amphiareaws about Time’s enmity. I know that I will not be born for many years. I know also that I have traveled the wrong way through those many years to join our crew. Was that in violation of Time’s ordinances? If so, it would explain his displeasure; but if not, I must look elsewhere. 


   “Time Ablaze”
by Michael Burstein
First publication: Analog, Jun 2004

Lucas Schmidt, time-traveler, goes back to 1904 to witness New York City’s most deadly tragedy: a ship full of German Americans on fire.

 A small piece of paper fell out of the book and onto the table. Adele picked it up and examined it. It bore one line: “http://www.general-slocum.com.” She had no idea what it meant; “http” was clearly not a word, although she presumed she knew what the “general-slocum” part referred to. 




   Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
adapted by Steve Kloves (Alfonso Cuarón, director)
First release: 6 Apr 2004

As much as I fall completely into the Harry Potter books, I find all the movies drawn-out and boring, even this one which:
  • comes from my favorite of the books,
  • has a monster class taught by Hagrid,
  • has my favorite adult character, Sirius,
  • has time travel,
  • and (as always) has the perfectly cast Rupert Grint

 Hang on! That’s not possible. Ancient Runes is at the same time as Divination. You’d have to be in two classes at once. 




   Phil of the Future
created by Tim Maile and Douglas Tuber
First episode: 18 Jun 2004

Phil Duffy and his family, on vacation from the 22nd century in a rented time machine, are keeping it together just as best as they can now that they’ve ended up trapped right here in our time zone.

 ♫Meet a boy named Phil and his family
On vacation from the 22nd century
They got a rented time machine and they’re on their way
To a time way, way, way back in the day♫ 


   “To Emily on the Ecliptic”
by Thomas R. Dulski
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug 2004

As part of a therapy to overcome writer’s block, poet Maleus Taub uses an alien artifact Healing Chair to visit Emily Brontë and Emily Dickinson.

 We don’t know how it works. Or even what its energy source is. When the field is on we’ve detected minor fluctuations in certain astronomical objects. 




   5ive Days to Midnight
by Robert Zappia, David Aaron Cohen, et. al. (Michael Watkins, director)
First aired: 7-10 Jun 2004

In this SciFi Channel miniseries, J.T. Neumeyer (physics professor, widower, and single dad) receives a briefcase from decades in the future containing a police file with the details of his murder five days hence. Once he accepts it as real, he has some success at changing fate by saving a woman from an accident—and then fate starts pushing back by killing her in a different accident, putting J.T. is on a track to meet his own fate.

 The future is not immutable—you can print that! 




   The 4400
created by René Echevarria and Scott Peters
First episode: 11 Jul 2004

Over the years, people of all ages and walks of life have been abducted. Now, 4400 of them have returned to a glen outside of Seattle, all at the same time and without any aging or memory of where—or when—they’ve been. We get to see how they fit back in or don’t, how they react to hostilities, how they use their powers such as young Maia Skouris who sees the future, 17-year-old bio-phenom Shawn Farrell who now has an eye for Nikki (not so young any more), and Richard who no longer has his life threatened for loving a white woman whom he’s managed to impregnate without sex.

 History tells us this is where the path to oblivion began. 


   “Delhi”
by Vandana Singh
First publication: So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, Sep 2004

Aseem, a sometimes suicidal man in Delhi, sees and interacts with past and future versions of the city while he searches for the woman whom a computer says is his purpose in life.

 A computer is like a beehive. Many bits and parts, none is by itself intelligent. Combine together and you have something that can think. 


   “The Hat Thing”
by Matthew Hughes
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sep 2004

A nameless man tells another how to spot time travelers.

 Sure. Researchers. Tourists. Criminals altering their present by manipulating the past. Religious pilgrims. Collectors. Who knows what motivates people a million years from now? 




   Retrograde
by Christopher Kulikowski, Tom Reeve and Gianluca Curti (Kulikowski, director)
First release: 2 Nov 2004

Two centuries after a meteor lands in Antarctica, the deadly bacterial plague that it brought has spread around the world and threatens to wipe out all life. The solution: Go back in time and stop the meteor from ever being dug up, but John Foster, the leader of the expedition, will have to cope with his traveling companion’s vices as well as ice and bacteria.

I suppose the military uniforms of 2204 all look like Axis Powers uniforms because the movie was originally made in Italy. It was first released in Russia in 2004 and made it to the states by 2009. Of course, none of that explains why the timeship looks like a 1978 Battlestar Galactica castoff.

 Under your command, you will pilot the Porsifol back 200 years and track the cutter’s movement to the meteor field. Alter the timeline. Eradicate the scourge. 




   “Time’s Swell”
by Victoria Somogyi and Kathleen Chamberlain
First publication: Strange Horizons, 15 Nov 2004

When a woman awakes with no memory, she finds herself being taken care of by another woman who says that they have come from the future and cannot get back, so they prostitute themselves in various forms to make money and hesitantly take each other as lovers.

 And then there are the days when she tells me that we’ve traveled through time, that we have come from the future and are trapped here. She tells me that she was a temporal scientist, that I was her project. That I am modified and enhanced for survival, for time travel, for perfection. Those are the bad days. 


   “Small Moments in Time”
by John G. Hemry
First publication: Analog, Dec 2004

A time traveler seeking lost seeds in the past finds a man who may have started the worst influenza of the 20th century.

 The odd truth of working as a temporal interventionist is that some there-and-thens are better than others. 




   Time and Again
by Jason J. Tomaric (Tomaric, director)
First release: 31 Dec 2004

No, not Jack Finney and not Clifford D. Simak either. This one is all Jason J. Tomaric.

Fourteen years ago (or maybe sixteen, the director’s not quite sure), teenaged Bobby Jones was convicted of a murder that he remembers nothing about. Fortunately, he escapes, and during the escape he finds himself transported back to his hometown on the day of the murder.

By the way, I interpret the story as more than just a dream because of the incident where young Bobby is injured and old Bobby immediately develops a scar (although I suppose that could be part of a dream, too).

 Look, Awanda, if you could go back in time and change anything—I mean anything at all—would you? 



Romance Time Travel of 2004
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Highlander 4: Tempting the Highlander by Janet Chapman

  Knight Errant 3: White Rose by R. Garcia y Robertson

  Viking II 4: Wet & Wild by Sandra Hill

  Until Forever by Johanna Lindsey

  Highlander 6: The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning




No Time Travel. Move along.
  A Wrinkle in Time by Susan Shilliday, 10 May 2004 [despite title, no time travel ]



   Das Cusanus-Spiel
English title: The Cusanus Game (translated from German)
by Wolfgang Jaschke
First publication: 2005

In an alternate Europe where isolationism is enforced by towering walls and the world is crumbling around them, a secret project aims to save the present by harvesting the past.

 Only on the basis of his theoretical work and predictions did Folkert Jensma and Koos van Laere the following year at the Christian Huygens Institute in the Hague prove the existence of so-called time solitons, which Thilawuntha had predicted. These disturbances traverse the flow of time in both directions, that is, they bring about with their passage momentary damming and acceleration in the temporal dimension. They thereby deform the structure of space-time, but are eo ipso not directly detectable by an observer situated within this strugture—that is, within our universe. Their existence can, however, be indirectly demonstrated, because their passage is accompanied by gravitational waves of various strength. 




   “The Destruction of Sennacherib”
by Bryn Sparks
First publication: Robots and Time, 2005

Lady Ada Lovelace, who has traveled through time via a Wells-type machine in a steampunk world, tells her story to an enamored compatriot who is 50 years older than when they last shared a conversation.

 It seemed the original analytical engine, the mechanical computer designed and built by my friend and mentor, the great Charles Babbage in the 1830s, had a lethal configuration that could lock up an entire engine if it were ever presented with the right sequence of calculations. The article went on to describe how all the miniaturized analytical engines at the heart of the empire’s technology were just small versions of the original analytical engine. No one had ever changed the fundamental arrangement of cogs and gears and drive trains and clutches. They had just been made smaller and linked together in greater numbers, so here at the turn of the century, I could be driven in a cab by a man whose very thoughts were determined by the workings of beings of microscopic versions of Babbage’s original design, all operating in parallel. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #17
Dragonsblood
by Todd McCaffrey
First publication: Jan 2005

Two sick fire-lizards—the progenitors of Pern’s dragons—fall from the sky where the geneticist Wind Blossom and her protégé set out to cure them and in the process determine that they are from the future.

 “Don’t do it!” the first M’hall shouted to the other.
Somber M’hall startled at the sound of his own voice coming to him. “You’re from the future?” 


   “A Few Good Men”
by Richard A. Lovett
First publication: Analog, Jan/Feb 2005

Time travelers from a future without many men come back to our time to import what they need most, but they accidentally snatch Tiffany Richardson as well.

 There were eight good prospects back there, and I’d have had them all if this bitch hadn’t shown up. 


   The Time Hackers
by Gary Paulsen
First publication: Jan 2005

Twelve-year-old Dorso Clayman lives in a future where viewing the past is commonplace, but he and his friend Frank are being unpredictably pulled into the past!

Janet found this for me at the library in 2010.

 They might see a vision of a dinosaur one time and on the second try get an image of a man who might be Julius Caesar getting ready for a bath, or Anne Boleyn getting her head chopped off. 




   Slipstream
by Louis Morneau and Philip Badger (David van Eyssen, director)
First release: 4 Feb 2005

Sean Astin plans to use his 10-minute time machine to repeatedly withdraw the same money from a bank teller that he’s chatting up, but a violent gang of other bank robbers throws a wrench into his plan.

 Did you ever wish you could keep doing the same thing over and over again? 




   The Jacket
by Tom Bleecker, Marc Rocco and Massy Tadjedin (John Maybury, director)
First release: 4 Mar 2005

Committed to the Alpine Grove asylum for a murder he didn’t commit, brain-damaged war veteran Jack Starks is subjected to sensory deprivation in a straightjacket, which sends him 15 years into the future for several hours at a time where he meets the adult version of Jackie, a small girl whom he briefly met and was kind to shortly before being incarcerated. He learns from Jackie that back in the asylum he has only a few days to live, and together, he and Jackie try to figure out a way to escape that fate.

The story is loosely based on Jack London’s The Star Rover, although London’s protagonist travels through the stars and into past lives. Using future information to change the present was never part of London’s story.

 No, no you didn’t. Jack Starks did, and Jack Starks is dead. He’s dead. His body was found New Year’s Day, 1993, Alpine Grove. He’s dead. 


   “Letters of Transit”
by Brian Plante
First publication: Analog, Apr 2005

A scientist on the first near-lightspeed ship to Centauri A exchanges letters with his underaged girlfriend back on Earth through a wormhole for which time passes at the same rate on both ends. When the ship returns to Earth with its end of the wormhole, the hole will act as a time machine for messages, but the clichéd paradox police won’t let scientist send girlfriend any information about the future.

 You wouldn’t want to cause any of those nasty paradoxes, would you? 


   “Message in a Bottle”
by Nalo Hopkinson
First publication: Futureways, 1 Apr 2005

An artist named Greg, who never wanted to have children, becomes close to Kamla, an adopted daughter of a friend; the situation works out fine, even when Greg does have an unexpected child with his girlfriend, and even when Kamla turns out to be one of the thousands of children with extremely slow-growing bodies and minds from the future.

 I'm from the Future, Says Bobble-Headed Boy. 




   “The Apotheosis of Martin Padway”
by S.M. Stirling
First publication: The Enchanter Completed: A Tribute for L. Sprague de Camp

Some 50 years after Martin Padway was thrown back to Byzantine times, a group of holy men and scientists travel back to the supposed date when the Great Man ascended to godhood.

 “It’s definitely a past with Martinus of Padua in it. There are no other lines within several hundred chronospace-years that show a scientific-industrial revolution this early. Quantum factors make it difficult”—fucking meaningless—“to say if it’s precisely the line that led to us.” 




  Reggie Rivers #10
“Gun, Not for Dinosaur”
by Chris Bunch
First publication: The Enchantor Completed, 1993

Chris Bunch’s gave a nod to the Reggie Rivers stories, and the result was published as part of the L. Sprague de Camp tribute anthology. The narrator, who isn’t named, tells the story of how Peter Kilgrew nearly wiped out humanity in an indirect fashion during a time safari to the Jurassic.

 The stupid git was trying to wipe out all of humanity, though he was too stupid to realize it. 




   Almost Normal
by Marc Moody (Moody, director)
First release: 26 May 2005

After a car accident, forty-something, gay, college professor Brad Jenkins who has never felt normal in Nebraska is thrown back to his high school days in an alternate universe where being gay is the norm and hetrosexuals are outcasts.

For me, the premise is original and was explored in a thoughtful (though sometimes farcical) way.

 Brad: I hate to sound like Michael J. Fox, but I’m from the future.
Terry: Who’s Michael J. Fox? 


   “Working on Borrowed Time”
by John G. Hemry
First publication: Analog, Jun 2005

Tom and his implanted AI Jeannie (from “Small Moments in Time”) are back again, this time trying to stop future Nazis from destroying Edwardian London.

 What? The British Empire started coming apart in the 1920s? 




   “The Starry Night”
by Barry Malzberg and Jack Dann
First publication: Sci Fiction, 22 Jun 2005

A visage of the universe exploding bounces back and forth between a space-faring priest, an epileptic six-year-old in our day, and Vincent Van Gogh.

 For the first time she is a little scared. She wishes that she were in her room, not in this space car with the stars glowing and exploding like the stars in Mr. Gogh’s painting. 




   Bewitched
by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron (Nora Ephron, director)
First release: 24 Jun 2005

Not only does Isabel the witch want to live just like any normal woman, she also gets talked into playing the role of witch Samantha who wants to live just like any normal woman in a remake of Bewitched—and like the original Samantha, she has some trouble constraining her powers. Yes, she’s also an occasional failure at constraining her power to rewind the hands of time.

 No breakfast after eleven. 




   “Scream Quietly”
by Sheila Crosby
First publication: Farthing, Jul 2005

In 1849 England, Sophie’s abusive husband abuses her and beatys their one-year-old son, so at the first opportunity, she and her son flees to a friend’s house where they are visited by apparent faeries.

 They said they were not faeries, but men, “even as yourselne,” from the far distant future, and they were journeying in time! They were most astonished to hear this was the year of our Lord 1849, for they had believed themselves in 1343 and were in great fear of being burned as witches. 


   “The Time Traveler’s Wife”
by Scott William Carter
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug 2005

No, we’re not talking about that wife; we’re talking about Scott William Carter’s version—Yolanda Green, an even-keeled, mostly content wife of a university professor time traveler—and the story of what she does when he goes off into the future, failing to return for dinner.

 “We’ve done it,” he said. “Three times with a mouse and five times with a monkey. The university has approved my request for a manned test run. We’re going into the future! 




   “What’s Expected Of Us”
by Ted Chiang
First publication: Nature, 7 Jul 2005

A warning comes from the future about a toy that flashes a green led exactly one second before you press a button. I wonder whether it’s powered by thiotimoline.

 The heart of the Predictor is a circuit with a negative time delay—it sends a signal back in time. 




   Time Warp Trio
adapted by Kathy Waugh, et. al.
First episode: 9 Jul 2005

Ten-year-old Joe and his two mates Fred and Sam travel back and forth in time in these 22-minute Discovery Kids cartoons based on Jon Scieszka’s story series.

 Ever wonder how three kids from Brooklyn got their hands on a time-traveling book? 


I have no image for the story, but here’s the first book in Colorado author Tobler’s series, The Rings of Anubis.

   “Gauging Moonlight”
by E. Catherine Tobler
First publication: Sci Fiction, 20 Jul 2005

The alien narrator loves Alice Oxbridge, although the word love does not capture the feeling any more accurately than space travel captures climbing into a vehicle capable of carrying you off-planet. And our narrator has the power to erase the the moments of tragedy in Alice’s life, he cannot do so without breaking his one unbreakable tenet and becoming the prime example of sentient idiocy.

 Alice’s was not the first birth I witnessed, nor even the most unusual. The first time I saw Alice’s birth, I bypassed the event, skimming ahead to the advent of the automobile. Gears fascinated me more. But on reflection, something drew me back to Alice in the garden, newborn on the rain-wet grass. The world seemed to move beneath her. 




   “Fleet of Ages”
by Jared Axelrod
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 5 Aug 2005

Axelrod is one of the founders of 365 Tomorrows, which presents a piece of flash fiction every day of the year, and this was their first time travel story, a story in which ships bring items from the future with unpredictable consequences.

 I used to think that, more than any man, I understood the consequences of what those ships were supposed to bring back. 


Kat Beyer’s
illustration for her story

   “The Strange Desserts of
Professor Natalie Doom”
by Kat Beyer
First publication: Strange Horizons, 22 Aug 2005

For Natalie, it isn’t easy growing up as the only human creation of a mad scientist (including a time machine, of course) and his gorgeous, shapely wife—especially when you have the name of Natalie Doom and a leaning toward feminism).

 Apparently I inherited Mama’s looks and Papa’s brains. Again and again in my life I’ve gotten the best of a bad bargain. 


   “Paradox & Greenblatt, Attorneys at Law”
by Kevin J. Anderson
First publication: Analog, Sep 2005

Marty Paramus and his partner specialize in legal nuances arising from the new time-travel technology.

 So you figured that if you kept Franklin’s biological mother and father from meeting, he would never have been born, your parents’ marriage would have remained happy, and your life would have remained wonderful. 


The story also appeared in this 2007 collection.   “Triceratops Summer”
by Michael Swanwick
First publication: Amazon Shorts, Sep 2005

An incident at the Institute for Advanced Physics brings a herd of Triceratops to present-day Vermont, which is certainly a worry, but according to Everett McCoughlan of the Institute, that will be the least of our worries by the end of the summer.

 Everything ends eventually. But after all is said and done, it’s waht we do in the meantime that matters, isn’t it? 




   Hyams’ Sound of Thunder
adapted by Donnelly, Oppenheimer, Poirier (Peter Hyams, director)
First release: 2 Sep 2005

The time safari is not improved by 90 minutes of melodramatic nonsense.

 A butterfly caused all this? 




   “Who Forever Belongs To”
by Jared Axelrod
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 4 Oct 2005

In his second time-travel story, 365 Tomorrows founder Jared Axelrod has a rummage sale aficionado stumble across a time machine and philosophically discuss why the owner would let it go for five dollars.

 So when I unearthed the device from under a seriously disturbing collection of polyester sweaters, I knew it was something to treasure. I just didn’t know what. 


   The Diving Universe Series
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First story: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec 2005

I haven’t followed all of the stories in Rusch’s Diving Universe, so I can’t tell you which of the stories and novels have a significant time-traveling aspect caused by the space-folding anacopa. But in “Becoming One with the Ghosts” (Asimov’s, Oct/Nov 2010), the starship Ivoire gets folded 5000 years into the future. Later, while trying to shut down an anacapa drive gone bad in “Encounter on Starbase Kappa” (Asimov’s, Oct/Nov 2013), Captain Jonathan “Coop” just might have a chance to return the ship and the crew to their own time.
  1. A. Diving into the Wreck (Dec 2005) Asimov’s
  2. B. Room of Lost Souls (Apr/May 2008) Asimov’s
  3. The Spires of Denon (Apr/May 2009) Asimov’s
  4. Diving into the Wreck (Nov 2009) includes parts of A and B
  5. Becoming One with the Ghosts (Oct/Nov 2010) Asimov’s
  6. Becalmed (Apr/May 2011) Asimov’s
  7. City of Ruins (May 2011)
  8. Stealth (Oct/Nov 2011) Asimov’s
  9. The Spires of Denon (Apr/May 2009) Asimov’s
  10. Boneyards (Jan 2012)
  11. Skirmishes (Apr 2013)
  12. Strangers at the Room of Lost Souls (May 2013) Asimov’s
  13. The Application of Hope (Aug 2013) Asimov’s
  14. Encounter on Starbase Kappa (Oct/Nov 2013) Asimov’s
  15. The Runabout (May/Jun 2017) Asimov’s

 Later, he learned that the anacapa malfunctioned, buringing him and his crew five thousand years into their future. 




   Chasing Christmas
by Todd Berger (Ron Oliver, director)
First aired: 4 Dec 2005 (mad-for-tv)

Jack Cameron, a Christmas grump, is taken back to 1965 by the ghost of Christmas Past who then decides to stay there, putting Jack and the cosmos at risk. It’s then up to Christmas Present to save the day, although in the end it’s dues ex machina rather than Present who fixes things.

 Past: Charles Dickens was a former target of ours who chose to write a book about his experiences even though we explicitly told him not to.
Jack: But it was a great book—
Past: It was crap, like everything he did! Did you ever read A Tale of Two Cities? ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst . . .’ Make up your mind, Mr. Dickens! 



Romance Time Travel of 2005
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Highlander 5: Only with a Highlander by Janet Chapman

  Outlander 6: A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

  Viking II 5: Hot & Heavy by Sandra Hill

  Blackthorn 1: Risk Everything by Sophia Johnson

  Highlander 7: Spell of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Terminós” by Dean Francis Alfar, Rabid Transit: Menagerie, 2005 [time issues, but no time travel ]

  “Stitching Time” by Stephanie Burgis, Fortean Bureau, Mar 2005 [despite title, no time travel ]

  The Man Who Met Himself by Ben Crowe and Preti Taneja, 20 May 2005 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “Understanding Space and Time” by Alastair Reynolds, Novacon 35 Program, Nov 2005 [despite title, no time travel ]

   “Written in Plaster”
by Rajnar Vajra
First publication: Analog, Jan/Feb 2006

Thirteen-year-old Danny Levan is a bullied, half-Jewish boy in 1938 Surrey when he discovers strangely colored bits of plaster that can reform into what can only be described as his own protective time-traveling golem.

 A pack of chips was constantly pursuing and reuniting with the giant, but moonlight glinted off of one largish piece that seemed in danger of being left behind, lodged in a groove between cobblestones.
   “Wait,” Danny called out softly and although the creature was obviously too far off to hear, and lacked ears besides, it immediately paused long enough for the chip to free itself and join the others. 




   Life on Mars [UK]
created by Matthew Graham, Tony Jordan and Ashley Pharoah
First episode: 9 Jan 2006

While working on murder case that has drawn in his girlfriend, Manchester Police Detective Sam Tyler is hit by a car and thrown into 1973 where DCI Hunt, WPC Cartwright, and everyone else in the district believes him to be a detective on loan.

 I had an accident, and I woke up 33 years in the past. Now that either makes me a time traveler or a lunatic or . . . I’m lying in a hospital bed in 2006 and none of this is real. 




   The Plot to Save Socrates
by Paul Levinson
First book: Feb 2006

Young doctoral student Sierra chases back to ancient Alexandria after her professor who seems to be chasing after a time traveler who is trying to get Socrates to abandon Athenian death row for the future.

Although I haven’t seen a second novel, a sequel novella called “Unburning Alexandria” featured Sierra chasing around 410 A.D. Alexandria.

 If I, today, had finished constructing a device, in this room, which allowed you to travel even a day into the past, and you used it to travel into the past to kill or otherwise distract me from completing the device, how would you have been able to travel in the first place into the past, with no device then constructed? 




   Lost
created by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof
First time travel: 8 Feb 2006

Sadly, I never bonded with Lost, the six-season story of plane crash survivors on a supernatural island, but Tim assures me that I must list it with at least four stars.

 Sayid: Radio waves at this frequency bounce off the ionosphere. They can travel thousands of miles. It could be coming from anywhere.
Hurley: Or any time . . . 




   Fetching Cody
by David Ray and Carolyn Allain (Ray, director)
First release: 24 Feb 2006

Druggie Art finds his girlfriend in an overdose coma, so he gets in a time-traveling chair to go back and set things right—like The Butterfly Effect, but with no horror-flick tension.

 Okay, okay, take me back before Cody got sick, before she got all fucked up, when there were bullies and shit. 




   Snuffbox
created by matt berry and rich fulcher
First episode: 27 Feb 2006

Rich and Matt wend their way through 28 minutes of dark, f-bombed weirdness in six episodes, each of which includes a trip in time through a door marked 1888. My own preference in British comedy is for Basil Fawlty, but sadly, he never traveled through time.

 Not that one! It’s out of order. Use the other door. 




   Always Will
by Michael Sammaciccia (Sammaciccia, director)
First release: Mar 2006

Will, a high school senior, discovers how to use a stolen time capsule to go back in time and relive moments over and over until he gets it right.

 Seriously, it lets me, like, revisit a moment in the past. 


Kachelries’s early stories appeared in this 2007 collection.

   “Dropping a Pebble in a Dry Well”
by Kathy Kachelries
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 13 Apr 2006

Demetri Thornwick is pissed by the D- he received on a term paper that computes the MDZC for changes made even when DT>200 years.

 The arguments always center on the Maximum Disruption with Zero Consequences (MDZC). You know, what’s the most I can change without screwing up the primary timeline. 




   Throg
by Matt Power and Dana Lee (Power, director)
First release: 25 Apr 2006

Medieval boy Throg becomes immortal after Urshag the Destroyer chops off his arms and Hades gives him the power of regeneration, after which he lives a long time through badly written Monty Python imitations until the touching end. Granted that immortality is not time travel, but Hades does manage a moment of time travel for Throg along the way.

 Get that fire started yet, boy? 




   xkcd
by Randall Munroe
First time travel: Comic 103, 15 May 2006

Nerdy Randall Munroe’s quirky stick figures don’t shy away from the difficut time-travel tropes.

     
  1. Comic 102 (15 May 2006) Back to the Future
  2. Comic 239 (23 Mar 2007) Blagofaire from the Future
  3. Comic 567 (10 Apr 2009) Ben Franklin Urgent Mission
  4. Comic 630 (31 Aug 2009) Megan’s Time Travel
  5. Comic 652 (21 Oct 2009) Come with Me If You Want . . .
  6. Comic 656 (30 Oct 2009) Doc Brown on Oct 30
  7. Comic 657 (2 Nov 2009) Primer Time Chart
  8. Comic 716 (19 Mar 2010) Time Machine
  9. Comic 730 (21 Apr 2010) DeLorean flux capacitor
  10. Comic 887 (3 Sep 2014) Rowling’s Time Turners
  11. Comic 935 (8 Aug 2011) Babe Ruth & the Tardis
  12. Comic 1063 (1 Jun 2012) Kill Hitler
  13. Comic 1177 (22 Feb 2013) More Terminator
  14. Comic 1191 (27 Mar 2013) The Past Oil Reserves
  15. Comic 1203 (24 Apr 2013) Useless Time Machines
  16. Comic 1256 (26 Aug 2013) Why Are There Two Spocks?

 Why are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? 




   “Suspension of Disbelief”
by B. York
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 31 May 2006

According to young Aaron’s buddy Hamel, once people get time machines, there’s no telling which descendants are going to bite the dust.

 If, forty years ago, some madman had come and swiped our parents, neither of us would be around. So forty years ago, we could stop existing. 




   The Lake House
by David Auburn (Alejandro Agresti, director)
First release: 16 Jun 2006

Letters—eventually love letters—pass back and forth between Dr. Kate Foster and architect Alex Wyler who are two years apart in time.

Based on the Korean movie, Il Mare.

 It’s kind of a long distance relationship. 




   Click
by Mark O'Keefe and Steve Koren (Frank Coraci, director)
First release: 23 Jun 2006

Michael Newman falls asleep on a store mattress, and when he awakens, he is given a universal remote control that lets him fast forward through the boring parts of his life.

 It’s an advanced piece of equipment like TiVo. 


Broeck Steadman’s interior illustration   “Environmental Friendship Fossle”
by Ian Stewart
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug 2006

A contract investigator who tracks down crimes against endangered species finds a mammoth tusk that’s only 30 years old according to radiocarbon dating.

 “Mammoth ivory,” the old man said, as if it was a proposition put up for debate. “I have hunt mammoth.” 


   “The Teller of Time”
by Carl Frederick
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug 2006

You get one guess what happens when you juxtapose these circumstances:
  1. As a boy, Kip Wolverton’s best friend is crushed in a tragic accident in a bell tower.
  2. Then, because Kip is too shy to ever approach the bell-ringer of his dreams, the girl goes and marries his other best friend, so Kip goes off to America to drown his sorrows and become an expert physicist studying time.
  3. Finally, 25 years later, Kip returns to England to do time experiments in bell towers where he finds girl grown and unhappily married.

     “Research money is difficult to come by these days,” said Neville. “There is a lot of good science lanuishing because more meretricious projects get the funds.” 




   時をかける少女
English title: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (translated from Japanese)
adaptation by Satoko Okudera (Mamoru Hosoda, director)
First release: 15 Jul 2006

In this loose anime adaptation of Yasutaka Tsutsui’s story, young Makoto Konno is thrown into a train crossing on her bike and unintentionally travels back in time to avoid being hit; that leads her to experiment with her ability—yes, with teenaged concerns, but still with charm.

 And then, when you came to, you’d gone back a few minutes in time. 




   American Dragon
created by Jeff Goode
First time travel: 12 Aug 2006

Like all American teens, Asian-American Jake Long skateboards—oh, and he’s also the wise-cracking American Dragon, guardian of all magical creatures. In one episode (“Hero of the Hourglass”), Jake travels back to when his dad was a teen in order to get his mom to reveal the truth about magic and dragons.

 Or, I can change things for the better . . . ooh, there’s a whole side of my family that my dad doesn’t doesn't know about. I have the chance to change that, the chance to reverse the last twenty years and redo everything without the lies, the secrets, the being grounded every other week. 




   Scrat in No Time for Nuts
by Cris Renaud (Renaud and Mike Thurmeier, directors)
First release: 14 Sep 2006

Each time the machine of an unfortunate time traveler zaps Scrat’s Precious into an unknown time, the famed ice-age rat faithfully follows.

 Here stood . . . 

—[You’ll have to watch yourself to find out what stood here, ’cause I’m not spoiling.]


   “Doxies”
by Brandon Alspaugh
First publication: Apex, Fall 2006

Angela’s mother takes her to a support group—Children of the Post-Contemporary, aka the Doxies—where the children reluctantly talk about what it’s like to have various futuristic features and a father from the future.

 She was a walking paradox, her mother said. And she must never make waves, never draw attention, never accomplish something or participate or pop her head out, for even a second. If she changed the future, her father might not exist, and neither would she. 




   Heroes
created by Tim Kring
First episode: 25 Sep 2006

Hiro Nakamura reads comic books, wants to be a hero, and believes that his will power is enough to move him through time and space (and, yes, it is).

I enjoyed talking about this show with my friend John Kennedy before he died of cancer on 18 Mar 2009.

 Save the cheerleader, save the world. 




   The Butterfly Effect 2
by John Frankenheimer and Michael D. Weiss (John R. Leonetti, director)
First release: 10 Oct 2006

 There’s this entire other version of my life without you. I went through this whole year of my life believing you were dead. 


   “Prevenge”
by Mike Resnick and Kevin J. Anderson
First publication: Analog Science Fiction, Nov 2006

Kyle Bain, a member of the Knights Temporal, goes on a mission to prevent a murder in the past because that’s what the Knights do—regardless of whether the murder may be just or not.

 Thou shalt UN-kill, whenever possible. 




   Day Break
created by Paul Zbyszewski
First episode: 15 Nov 2006

Detective Brett Hopper keeps waking up at the same time on the same day, but each day he learns more about who's trying to frame him.

 Maybe. We’ll see how the day goes. 




   Happy Tree Friends
by Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo, Kenn Navarro and Warren Graff
First time travel: 20 Nov 2006

Cute forest animals mutilate and maim each other with at least one time machine in “Blast from the Past” where Sniffles vainly tries to save his friends from playground death and mayhem.

 Cartoon Violence: Not recommended for small children or big babies 




   Déjà Vu
by Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio (Tony Scott, director)
First release: 24 Nov 2006

While investigating the burning death of a young woman who washed up on shore a few minutes before a bomb demolished a New Orleans ferry, ATF Agent Doug Carlin gets pulled into an FBI investigation that can view happenings four days and six hours into the past.

Oh, who’s kidding whom? We all know these scientists never stop at mere viewing. I would have given more stars to this action movie if I could have figured out how Doug could live in a world where after the girl washes up dead, she is there to bandage him and answer the phone.

 Danny: Whatever you did, you did it already. Whether you send this note or you don’t, it doesn’t matter. You cannot change the past. It’s physically impossible.
Agent Carlin: What if there’s more than physics? 




   Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
by Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Mario Puzo, et. al. (Richard Donner, director)
First release on dvd: 28 Nov 2006

Richard Donner, the original director of Superman II, was replaced partway through the production. Almost 30 years later, a dvd the movie was put together with mostly his footage and a time-travel ending that was pretty much identical to the end of Donner’s first Superman movie (and equally lame).

 Jeepers, I have seen some faraway looks in my time, but with that look, you might as well be on the North Pole or someplace. 




   Wonder Pets
created by Josh Selig
First time travel: “Save the Dinosaur”, 6 Dec 2006

When the kindergardeners leave for the day, three kindergarden pets—a hamster, a duck and a turtle, of course—save various different animals from perils, including one episode when the trio traveled into a classroom poster to save a trapped triceratops.

 Look! There’s there are dinosaurs in that poster! Let’s go there! 




   Christmas Do-Over
by Trevor Reed Cristow and Jacqueline David (Catherine Cyran, director)
First release: 16 Dec 2006 (made-for-tv)

Kevin, a grump of a divorced father, reluctantly visits his ex-wife’s house on Christmas Day causing his son to wish it were Christmas every day. As in other repeat-Christmas stories (or repeat-a-certain-February-holiday), Kevin wakes up again and again on Christmas Day until he gets it right. And of course, only he knows the day is repeating.

 Dad, it’s so fun having you here. Go ahead and stay: I wish it was Christmas every day. 




   American Dad!
created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman
First time travel: 17 Dec 2006

Typical patriotic American family fare with Dad, Mom, two kids, an alien, a man trapped in a goldfish body, and the occassional romp through time.
  1. Best Christmas Story Never Told (17 Dec 2006)    to the 70s to kill Jane Fonda
  2. May the Best Stan Win (14 Feb 2010) Cyborg Stan from the future
  3. Fart-Break Hotel (16 Jan 2011) Steve travels to find a beauty
  4. The Kidney Stays in the Picture (1 Apr 2012) back to discover Hayley’s dad

 Getting Scorsese off drugs means he never did all the cocaine that fueled him to make Taxi Driver, which means he never cast Jodie Foster, which means John Hinkley never obsessed over her, and he never tried to impress her by shooting President Reagan, which means Reagan was never empowered by surviving an assassination attempt—he must have lost to Mondale in ’84. Bingo! Forty-seven days into his presidency, Mondale handed complete control of the U.S. over to the Soviet Union. 

—from “The Best Christmas Story Never Told”



And Still More Time Travel of 2006
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “A Lighthouse Through Time” by Kathy Kachelries, 365 Tomorrows, 31 Mar 2006
—a renter disappears

  “Fate of Our Futures” by Michael “Freeman” Herbaugh, 365 Tomorrows, 3 Aug 2006
—3m year-old human skull found

  “Paranoia” by Michael “Freeman” Herbaugh, 365 Tomorrows, 12 Sep 2006
—time-travel researcher being watched

  “Time and Again” by Steven Perez, 365 Tomorrows, 23 Sep 2006
—team hunts time travelers

  “Say Again?” by Steve Smith, 365 Tomorrows, 12 Oct 2006
—Stan argues that he can time travel

  “One of a Kind” by Megan Hoffman (as by Pyai), 365 Tomorrows, 22 Oct 2006
—little brother time travels

  “Once in a Lifetime” by Matt Brubeck, 365 Tomorrows, 25 Nov 2006
—time-traveling rich kids

  “Einstein’s Last Words” by J.S. Kachelries, 365 Tomorrows, 19 Dec 2006
—traveler visits Einstein’s death




Romance Time Travel of 2006
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Creole 2: Sweeter Savage Love by Sandra Hill

  Creole 3: Desperado by Sandra Hill

  Viking II 6: Rough and Ready by Sandra Hill

  Blackthorn 2: Always Mine by Sophia Johnson

  Highlander 8: Into the Dreaming by Karen Marie Moning




No Time Travel. Move along.
  Dragonriders of Pern #18: Dragon’s Fire by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey, Aug 2006 [no time travel ]

  Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson, Sep 2006 [time dilation ]

  The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky (Aronofsky, director), 22 Nov 2006 [surreal ]

  Night at the Museum by Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, 22 Dec 2006 [despite appearances, no time travel ]



   Cinderella III: A Twist in Time
by Dan Berendsen, et. al. (Frank Nissen, director)
First release: 6 Feb 2007

Cinderella’s nasty stepmother uses the Fairy Godmother’s wand to turn back time and enlarge the slipper to fit one of the nasty stepsisters.

Computer animation has produced some nice stories, particularly as done by Pixar, but even the best computer animation can’t live up to the early Disney artists who produced the original Cinderella, and reasonably competent computer animation such as this Cinderella fare, can’t survive a weak storyline, lame dialogue, and tuneless songs.

In any case, here’s a relevant cost comparison in 2015 dollars:
  1. Cinderella (1950) $29 million
  2. Cinderella III (2007) $9 million
  3. Inside Out (2015) $175 million

 The wand is not a toy! 




   Primeval
created by Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines
First episode: 10 Feb 2007

A time anomaly is allowing beasties from the past and future into present-day England. Oh, and Professor Cutter goes through the anomaly, too, because he’s searching for his lost wifey.

 Miss, oh Miss!! There’s a dinosaur on the playground. 




   Dreamland
by James P. Lay, Kenny Saylors and Kyle Saylors (Lay, director)
First release: 27 Feb 2007

Meghan and Dylan stop at a desert diner near Area 51 where they hear UFO and time travel stories. On the road again, their radio starts picking up Patsy Cline songs, they get separated, and Meghan has various scarey encounters including a spooky 8-year-old girl and newspaper clippings about top secret time travel experiments in the 60s.

I watched to the end (where there is about five minutes of song that tries to explain it all), but I won’t claim to understand the movie. One reviewer says that the spooky girl was abducted and subjected to government time travel experiments, and that the movie is populated by characters who are only in her mind as she travels through time (possibly people from the clippings). If so, then perhaps Meghan is the little girl’s imaginings of her own older self.

 Don’t you get it? There’s no such thing as time, there’s no such thing as this place, and there’s no such thing as you. Meghan is a figment of her own imagination. 




   Premonition
by Bill Kelly (Mennan Yapo, director)
First release: 16 Mar 2007

In a troubled marriage, Linda Hansen finds herself skipping back and forth in time during a week that ends with one of her daughters scarred from running through a plate glass door and her husband dead in a car accident.

The title suggests that the things Linda sees are just premonitions, but to me they felt more like travel through time with no ability to alter events.

 I’m sorry to tell you this. Your husband was in a car accident. He died on the scene yesterday. 




   The Last Mimzy
by Rubin, Emmerich, Hart, Skilken (Bob Shaye, director)
First release: 23 Mar 2007

The people of the future are dying, so they send time-traveling dolls back to 2007 where they can communicate only with sappy Seattle children.

 They’ve been sending other Mimzies to the past to look for it, but none of them have come back. 




   Meet the Robinsons
by Jon A. Bernstein, Michelle Spritz and Nathan Greno (Steve Anderson, Director)
First release: 23 Mar 2007

Twelve-year-old orphan genius Lewis along with his 13-year-old buddy Wilbur Robinson from the future mangle every time-travel trope while fighting a clichéd villian with a clever hat.

 Remember, I’ve got a time machine. You mess up again, and I’ll just keep coming back ’til you get it right. 






   According to Jim
created by Tracy Newman and Jonathan Stark
First time travel: 4 Apr 2007

Jim uses a porta-potty as a time machine to get repeated chances at being a successful dad at his son’s t-ball game (“The At-Bat”). Janet and I watched the time-travel episode on a happy summer evening.

 All right, we’ve established that you can play for the Cubs. 




   The Forbidden Kingdom
by John Fusco (Rob Minkoff, director)
First release: 18 Apr 2007

Modern-day martial-arts-obsessed teen Jason Tripitikas falls off a building with a golden staff and finds himself in fuedal China fulfilling the legend of the seeker who will return the staff to The Monkey King.

 Jason: Is this a dream?
Lu Yan: No, where you come from is the dream, through the gate of no gate. 




   Panic Time
by John Carstarphen (Carstarphen, director)
First release: 1 May 2007 (limited)

Elisa figures time travel can provide the perfect alibi for murdering her scumbag husband. Sadly, though, if you watch this movie with another person, neither one of you will have an alibi for those lost seventy minutes, since you’ll both be asleep.

 The police said that the killer left behind no evidence at all. 




   “Swing Time”
by Carrie Vaughn
First publication: Jim Baen’s Universe, June 2007

Carrie Vaughn lives just down the road from me, and I met her once at a reading. Her voice captured me, and her stories do too, although this tale—of time traveling theives, Madeline and her nemesis Ned, who gain their ability from dancing—did not grab me as much as a non-time-travel story, “The Librarian’s Daughter.”

 With a few measures of dancing, a charge of power crept into Madeline's bones, enough energy to take her anywhere: London 1590. New York 1950. There was power in dancing. 


   “A Zoo in the Jungle”
by Carl Frederick
First publication: Analog, Jun 2007

Arthur Davidson decided to become an astronaut when his father disappeared on the moon twenty years ago. Now, Arthur and a cosmonaut are exploring the very crater where the father disappeared when they come across an alien-built planetarium that may have the power to reunite Arthur with his father.

 A planetarium on the Moon. It’s like a zoo in the jungle, or building a swimming pool under water. What’s the point? 


   Against Time
aka All Over Again
by Cleve Nettles (Nettles, director)
First release: 12 Jun 2007 (direct-to-dvd)

This movie was made in 2001 and made the film festival circuits, but it wasn’t released until it appeared on dvd in 2007 (the dvd cover says that it won an award at the International Family Film Festival, but that’s not listed on the IFFF website); there was a warning sign that I might not take to it (the writer and the producer were one and the same), even though the hero (Z.T.) is a high school shortstop and budding inventor with a pretty, doting girl (Delena) and his own future self come back to warn him about becoming an old drunk.

 From the future? A wino from the future?! 




   “Darwin’s Suitcase”
by Elisabeth Malartre
First publication: Jim Baen’s Universe, Jul 2007

In the 22nd century, Sister Solange uses a time viewer to watch the forbidden Charles Darwin who, much to Solange’s surprise, has an encounter with a less-devout 22nd century man.

 He looked ordinary enough for such an evil man.
She wondered what he was thinking. Was he plotting his terrible attack on the Church? 




   Discipline
by Paco Ahlgren
First publication: 1 Jul 2007

Ahlgren melds the multiverse, quantum mechanics, the mysticism of the East, horror worthy of Stephen King, a little “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” and the violence of addition into a skillfully woven story of young Douglas Cole: his dog dies, he loses his family and moves to Texas, his friend kills himself, and his girlfriend leaves him (though, admitedly, the dog came back to life), all before reaching a time-travel-infused turning point.

Many small things were just that little bit off for me, such as the initial introduction of the uncertainty principle. I wish Ahlgren had taken the bull by the horns and stated that the reason we cannot know both the position and movement of a particle simultaneously is because those two properties simply don’t simultaneously exist.

 Unfortunately, while I was becoming more adept at making the business decisions that repeatedly benefited my shareholders, I had also been informed by my mentors and closest friends that the proliferating global acts of terrorism—along with the economic catastrophe which had ended only a few years earlier—had been engineered by a power-hungry madman whose sole objective was to become a diety, thereby ruling the entirety of space and time. 




   Magic Wagon’s The Time Machine
aka Graphic Classics The Time Machine (Graphics Planet)
adapted by Joeming Dunn and Ben Dunn
First publication: 1 Jul 2007

The Dunns present a 26-page comic book adaptation of the classic with large, block-colored panels and a blonde Weena with an anime look.

 That was three years ago. I wait every day for the return of the time traveler. 


   “Sweep Me to My Revenge”
by Darrell Schweitzer
First publication: Talebones, Summer 2007

An aging English professor has had it once and for all with the young Professor Cranchberger, so he borrows his brother’s time machine to disprove the upstart’s ridiculous theory that Edward De Vere wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

 It’s at times like this when I have to either sell my soul to the Devil or go see my brother Francis. I chose the latter because he was closer. He worked at the same university, just across campus, in the Physics Department. I walked into his office and said without any formalities, “I want to borrow your time machine.” 




   The Accidental Time Machine
by Joe Haldeman
First publication: Aug 2007

A faulty part changes a calibration device into a time machine that takes dropout student Matt Fuller further and further into the future including a theocracy of 2252 (where Martha, a sexually spontaneous vestal virgin, joins the adventure) and an AI-tocracy some 24,000 years later.

 So he had to plan. The next time he pushed the button—if the simple linear relationship held true—the thing would be gone for over three days. Next time, over a month; then over a year. Then fifteen years, and way into the future after that. 


   Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
by Laurie Viera Rigler
First publication: Aug 2007

A modern-day L.A. woman wakes up in the body of a thirty-something spinster in 19th century England and, until the right man appears, refuses to believe it’s anything more than a dream.

 I’m still here. Shit. It’s morning. Birds singing. The scent of roses wafting through my window. Mrs. Mansfield in my doorway. 




   Unholy
by Sam Freeman and Daryl Goldberg (Goldberg, director)
First release: 4 Sep 2007

After Martha’s witnesses her daughter kill herself, she seeks answers in nazis, government cover-ups, occultism and (fortunately) time travel.

 Kraus’s experiments dealt with the evolution of warfare, what is referred to as the unholy trinity: time travel, invisibility, and mind control! Many believe, to this day, the experiments continue to exist using unwilling subjects 




   Hirsute
by A.J. Bond (Bond director)
First release: 9 Sep 2007

Some guy invents a time machine and uses it to go back in time to make a 14-minute, half-hairy, half-gory film.

 If I can make this work, I’ll just come back here right . . . right now: seven forty-two P.M., Friday, June 13, 2008. 




   Los cronocrímenes
English title: Timecrimes (translated from Spanish)
by Nacho Vigalondo (Vigalondo, director)
First release: 20 Sep 2007

Cuando Héctor (1) sigue una chica desnuda en el bosque, entre en un silo y un cientifico le envía en el pasado.

No, I won’t write any more one-sentence summaries in Spanish, but I wanted to practice. In English, I’ll tell you that this movie is full of wonderful contortions, horror and fatalism.

 Has viajado en el tiempo. 




   Journeyman
created by Kevin Falls
First episode: 24 Sep 2007

Reporter Dan Vasser’s life is thrown into disarray when he starts jumping backward in time to help others in peril.

 What’s going on? That game was eight years ago. 


   “A Bridge in Time”
by Joseph P. Martino
First publication: Analog, Oct 2007

Tom Carson merely fixes time gates from nine to five, while others worry about whether stock pickers (such as his curvacious running partner, Jennifer Campbell) might be passing information to their past selves while they take a detour over a bridge in the past during construction of a new bridge.

 Don’t ask me to explain time travel paradoxes. All I do is fix the time gates when something goes wrong. Paradoxes are argued over at a much higher pay grade than mine. 


   Countdown to Armageddon
by Edward M. Lerner
First publication: Jim Baen’s Universe, Oct 2007 - Oct 2008

 Einstein showed that gravity is only a manifestation of mass, a curvature of the space-time continuum caused by the presense of mass. No mass, no gravity. Time is similar—it passes only in relationship to . . . stuff. Each astronomical object, each planet, has a single achievable time transfer influenced by—and that can be calculated from—net local gravitation effects. That interval depends on its own mass, its sun’s, and the galaxy’. 


   “Wikihistory”
by Desmond Warzel
First publication: Abyss and Apex, Oct 2007

The time-travel bulletin board has a recurring problem.

 Haven’t you noobs read IATT Bulletin 1147 regarding the killing of Hitler?! 




   The Seeker
aka The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
adapted by John Hodge (David L. Cunningham, director)
First release: 5 Oct 2007

Birthdays in the U.K. are a big deal for young boys: Just ask Harry Potter, or (in this case), ask Will Stanton, an American whose family is visiting England. On his fourteenth birthday, Will is told of his destiny as the last of the time-traveling warriors called the Old Ones who wield their ancient powers of The Light against those who follow The Dark.

According to those who know, the movie doesn’t follow the book that it’s based on (the second book of Susan Cooper’s, The Dark Is Rising Sequence), but I got some enjoyment from the innocence and soppiness of Will, his sister Gwen, his infatuation with the town’s pretty girl, and even Will’s stereotypical brothers. But the horror and fantasy parts of the film were as formulaic as the fact that Will is the seventh son of a seventh son; and Will’s ability to step through time is incidental to the story.

 Merriman: Walk with us, Will.
Will: Where?
Merriman: Through time. 


from Petrie’s website

   “Afar”
by Simon Petrie
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 21 Oct 2007

A man with an Ethiopian alias plans a seemingly impossible time travdel escapade in humanity’s far past.

 Anyone wanted to change the past, badly, far enough back, things shift so that person didn’t exist, or time travel hadn’t been invented. 


   “These are the Times”
by John G. Hemry
First publication: Analog, Nov 2011

Temporal Interventionish Tom and his implanted assistant Jeannie are at the start of the American Revolution, a decidedly TI-crowded time, when they run into Tom’s love interest Pam, another TI from Tom’s future who is trying to figure out who fired the first shot.

 The steath-suited TI leveled a weapon, then droped as a stun charge hit. Moments later the other TI weo’d fired the stun charge fell, then two more TIs appeared and took out whoever had nailed the second TI. But then the stealth-suited TI reappeared, having recovered somewhen in the future and jumped back to try to finish the job. 




   Southland Tales
by Richard Kelly (Kelly, director)
First release: 14 Nov 2007

After terrorists destroy Abilene and El Paso with nuclear bombs, the patriot act dominates the U.S. and the world is engulfed in World War III. Unfortunately, the U.S. seems to be more engulfed in the next presidential election and finding an alternative to oil, which somehow (don’t ask me how) combine to create a rift in space-time that doesn’t really play much of a role in the self-important plot, but does serve to send two monkeys (or maybe two of the movie’s characters) back in time 69 minutes.

You’d think by now that I would have learned not to rent movies where the director and writer are one and the same, but I keep holding out hope.

 And what did we do when we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched monkeys into it. 




   Futurama: Bender’s Big Score
by Matt Groening, et. al. (Dwayne Carey-Hill, director)
First release: 27 Nov 2007

The oddest thing about the Futurama movie is that in the end all the back and forth in time by Bender and Fry very nearly holds together without paradox, even the origin of the time travel code.

 What’s the secret of time travel doing on Fry’s ass? 


   “Anything Would Be Worth It”
by Lesley L. Smith
First publication: Analog, Dec 2007

Physics grad student Abigail thinks that because waves go back through time in one interpretation of quantum physics, she might be able to go back in time, too.

 I just went back in time to save Sophia’s girls, so I should be able to save my girls! I concentrated with all my might on waves that went back in time, and then I felt a Herculean wrench. 


   “Kelmscott Manor: In the Attics”
by C.A. Gardner
First publication: Challenging Destiny, Dec 2007

The noble Englishman William Morris travels through time hoping to finally set the world right for socialism via the time machine of his friend Bertie.

 I suppose you remember that young writer, H.G. Wells—Bertie, we called him—who used to come to Hammersmith for the meetings of the old Socialist League. He seemed quite taken with News from Nowhere, my vision of the future. 


Jerry Oltion’s
trackball telescope

   “Salvation”
by Jerry Oltion
First publication: Analog, Dec 2007

Physicist William Winters asks the church for money to build a time machine to take him and the Reverend Billy back to the time of Jesus.

 “I’m talking time travel,” William went on. “You could go back in time and meet Jesus. Assuming he existed.” 


   Stuck in the Past
by Owen Smith (Greg Robbins, director)
First release: 15 Dec 2007

I did discover one fact while watching this film: Adding time travel and musical aspects to the story of an aging, lonely actress who gets to be 17 again cannot rescue an otherwise miserably written movie.

 Kinda like I did live my life, but now I gotta live it all over again. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #19
Dragon Harper
by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey
First publication: 26 Dec 2007

Another epidemic hits Pern right smack in the middle of Kindan’s coming of age at Harper Hall. Meanwhile, J’lantir’s riders claim he told them something that he very well knows he did not—a definite harbinger of time travel in the dragon series.

 “Where were you all this time?” J’lantir growled. K’nad dropped his head, shaking it slowly. ’lantir pursed his lips sourly and peered along the rest of the line of men that comprised his missing wing. “Where were all of you?”
He scanned the line, looking for someone who might answer.
“We were on an important mission,’ J’trel said finally. The others looked at him and nodded in relief.
“Very important,” K’nad added with a confirming nod.
“So important that I didn’t know about it?” J’lantir asked in scathing tones.
K’nad gave him a confused look and was about to answer when J’trel nudged him, shaking his head.
“He said he wouldn’t believe us, remember?” J’trel whispered to K’nad in a voice not so quiet that J’lantir didn’t hear him. 



And Still More Time Travel of 2007
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “The Metaphorical Car for the New Generation” by Idan Cohen, 365 Tomorrows, 28 Jan 2007
—I want that car!

  “Temponaut” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 14 Feb 2007
—drunken scientists travels forward

  “Relative” by T.J. Moore, 365 Tomorrows, 22 Feb 2007
—travel to abandoned world

  “A Perfect Alibi” by J.S. Kachelries, 365 Tomorrows, 11 Mar 2007
—rivals at a temporal physics conference

  “Time Enough for a Wedding by Grady Hendrix” by Grady Hendrix, 365 Tomorrows, 26 Sep 2007
—time traveler misses own wedding

  “Before the Previous Crunch” by Patricia Stewart, 365 Tomorrows, 5 Nov 2007
—to before the big bang

  “Moore’s Law” by Gavin L. Perri, 365 Tomorrows, 30 Dec 2007
—an old man tells how it used to be




Romance Time Travel of 2007
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Challenge 1: Highlander's Challenge by Jo Barrett

  Viking II 7: Down and Dirty by Sandra Hill

  Blackthorn 3: Midnight's Bride by Sophia Johnson

  Masters of Time 1: Dark Seduction by Brenda Joyce

  Masters of Time 2: Dark Rival by Brenda Joyce

  When I Fall in Love by Lynn Kurland

  Daughters of the Glen 1: Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband by Melissa Mayhue

  Daughters of the Glen 2: Highland Guardian by Melissa Mayhue




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Missives from Possible Futures #1” by John Scalzi, Subterranean Press, Winter 2007 [alternate history ]

  Idiocracy by Mike Judge and Etan Cohen, 25 Jan 2007 [long sleep ]

  “Domine” by Rjurik Davidson, Aurealis, Mar 2007 [time dilation ]

  The Adventures of Teddy P. Brains by Gerard Brown and Lea Henry, 24 Apr 2007 (direct-to-video) [prequel ]

  Next by Gary Goldman et al. (Lee Lamahori, director) [just precognition ]

  Transformers by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and John Rogers (Michael Bay, director), 3 Jul 2007 [long sleep ]

  Afghan Knights by Brandon P. Hogan and Christine Stringer (Allan Harmon, director), 31 Jul 2007 [ghost story ]

  “In the Beginning, Nothing Lasts” by Mike Strahan, Intergalactic Medicine Show Oct 2007 [odd entropy ]

  CSI: NY (“Time’s Up”) by Trey Callaway, 17 Oct 2007 [despite appearances, no time travel ]



   Campfire’s The Time Machine
adapted by Lewis Helfand and Rajesh Nagalukonda
First publication: 2008

Campfire Graphic Novels, based in New Delhi, is producing an adventurous series of long graphic adaptations of classic novels with vivid colors and striking artwork. Nagalukonda’s work on “The Time Machine” jumps out at you with an exagerated perspective and an original interpretation of the Eloi and the Morlocks.

 We did not know the man standing before us, but he spoke with much excitement and passion. Over time, we came to know him as the Time Traveler. 




   Ctrl
by Robert Kirbyson and Bob Massey (Kirbyson, director)
First released: Jan 2008 (internet serial)

Nerd’s revenge with a keyboard, including ctrl-z which takes him back in time. The original 6-minute film took honors at the 2008 Sundance Festival, and then NBC picked it up for ten short webisodes.

 Just hit control-z. 




   Chilly Beach: The World Is Hot Enough
by Daniel Hawes and Doug Sinclair (Edin Ibric, director)
First aired: 2 Jan 2008

When Dale’s attempt to warm up Chilly Beach lead to an environmental disaster, he and his pal Frank go back in time to set things right, hopefully without destroying all the hilarious stereotypes of Canadians and Americans. Bonus points if you can guess what kind of vehicle the time machine is. Hint: Not a Delorean.

 Even now, while millions of Amercans are tannin in the warm sunshine of Calfornia and Texas, millions more in the snows of Minnesota and Alaska must pay for artificial tannin machines and synthetic foul-smellin creme to achieve a similar but not entirely convincing effect. I feel your pain. 




   The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything:
A Veggie Tales Movie
by Phil Vischer (Mike Nawrocki, director)
First release: 11 Jan 2008

This movie loses a full star for the line “Why would a blind guy come to the dinner theater anyway?” The three main vegetables in the movie are cabin boys (i.e., servers)—Ellit, Sedgewick and George—at the aforementioned dinner theater, when a magic ball comes to take them back in time to rescue another vegetable, Eloise, from the pirate Robert the Terrible.

 Now we’re headed someplace. We’ve got a metal ball. 




   The Sarah Connor Chronicles
created by Josh Friedman
First episode: 13 Jan 2008

After the events of the second movie, Sarah and teenaged John are trying to lay low when Cameron, a beautiful young terminator, arrives from 2027 and tries to take them away from their problems with a jump to 2007; other terminators follow and violence ensues.

 Come with me if you wanna live. 

—Cameron Philips to John while fleeing Cromartie




   Hamlet 2
by Pam Brady and Andrew Fleming (Fleming, director)
First release: 21 Jan 2008

Dana Marschz, a high school drama teacher whose theater program is on the cutting block, writes a sequel to Hamlet in which a time-traveling Hamlet forgives his father. Oh, time-traveling Jesus forgives his father, too.

Advice to time-travelers who may have come back for an authentic dvd experience with this comedy: For an exquisite and moving high school teacher movie, try Mr. Holland’s Opus instead; for a wonderful and funny Elisabeth Shue movie, go for Adventures in Babysitting, with a bonus of the Mighty Thor; nevertheless, Hamlet 2 has some amusing moments of its own.

 Brie: Hamlet 2? Doesn’t everybody die at the end of the first one?
Dana: I have a device. 




   Minutemen
by John Killoran, David Diamond and David Weissman (Lev Spiro, director)
First aired: 25 Jan 2008 (direct-to-tv)

When 14-year-old Charlie invents a time machine, he gets together with his nerdy friend and the school biker to fix the social embarrassments inflicited upon fellow outcasts.

 Stop! [Flashes badge] Bureau of Weights and Measurements! 


   “Inside the Box”
by Edward M. Lerner
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 2008

After foiling a murder attempt by his time-traveling grandson, Professor Thaddeus Fitch tries to explain Schrödinger’s cat to his class of undergraduates.

 Some assert that the realm of quantum mechanics is so removed from the realm of our senses we’re unequipped to judge. 


   “Knot Your Grandfather’s Knot”
by Howard V. Hendrix
First publication: Analog, Mar 2008

While sorting through the attic, elderly Mike Sakler finds a note from himself detailing how he must go back in time to save his grandfather from a mugging near the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

 Indeed the notes from that page on were most curious. “Planck energy for opening gap in spacetime fabric = 1019 billion electron volts,” read one, but then that was crossed out with a large X as the writer of the notes took a different tack. 




   Phineas and Ferb
created by Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh
First time travel: 1 Mar 2008

Stepbrothers Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher foil their sister Candace and undertake grand projects during their summer vacation, including some travel through time.
  1. It’s about Time (1 Mar 2008) to prehistoric times
  2. Quantum Boogaloo (21 Sep 2009)    Candance travels to future to bust brothers

 Mom, it’s me, Candace from the past. I came here in a time machine that Phineas and Ferb borrowed from a museum. You’ve gotta bust them! 




   Tripping the Rift: The Movie
by Amato, Goin, Laney, Minnis and Sweeney (Bernie Denk, director)
First release: 25 Mar 2008 (straight-to-video)

A mash-up of third season cartoon episodes (hence, all the writer credits) including the Terminator parody.

 So, it’s agreed: You and Babette travel back, decline the invitation to Chode’s party, and Bernice will shut down the Arnie-1000. 


   “The Beethoven Affair”
by Donald Moffitt
First publication: Analog, Apr 2008

In a world where music companies use time travel to plumb the past for new new pop hits, junior account executive Lester Krieg (no relation to my favorite Seattle Seahawk quarterback) comes up with the idea of getting Beethoven to write a tenth symphony—regardless of the cost.

 Everybody and his brother Jake knows that Beethoven wrote nine symphonies and stopped there. And even the dimmest of music lovers has wish fulfillment fantasies about what a tenth would have sounded like. 


   “Lost Continent”
by Greg Egan
First publication: The Starry Rift: Tales of Tomorrow, Apr 2008

The north of Khurosan, not part of our world, lies the site of a bloody battle between the Warriors and the Scholars, both of whom have come through time to take Islamic boys and turn them into soldiers in their war, but one boy’ uncle gives him to a man who promises to take him to a safe place or possibly a safe time.

 I haven’t just been to Mecca. I’ve been there in the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. 


Wismer’s fiction also appeared in this anthology.

   “Vis Insita”
by Asher Wismer
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 17 May 2008

Professor Rudnicki sits in a bar, bemoaning the particular mode of failure of his latest time travel.

 Time is relative to our senses, space doubly so. What we perceive to be real is in fact the simple accumulation of expectation; we expect the glass to hold the whiskey, and we expect the whiskey to get us drunk, but only AFTER we drink it. 




   “Back”
by Susan Forest
First publication: Analog, Jun 2008

Alan and Victor are carrying out a careful sequence of time-travel experiments with slips of paper, flatworms, stray cats, a potted palm and chimps, with the only problem being getting the time traveler back from the past.

 It was while Alan and Victor were touring the warehouse with the real estate agent tht a slip of paper bearing the words, “It worked,&rdqup; materialized on a desk in the office. 


   “Finalizing History”
by Richard K. Lyon
First publication: Analog, Jun 2008

In early 1960, Perry Mason author Earl (not Erle) Stanley Gardner and his wife host John W. Campbell, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, Edward Teller, Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur and Jackie Kennedy to discuss a shared dream in which a time-traveling alien requires them to pick one person to eliminate from history as a prerequisite to a final revision of mankind’s history.

 If one of these people dies young, that will pay your debt. 




   9th Wonders!
by Isaac Mendez
First publication in our world: 10 Jun 2008

You, too, can read some of these fictional comics from Heroes in the two volumes published in pleasant hardback books (transcribed by mortal artist Tim Sale).

 I did it! 




   Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox
by Eoin Colfer
First publication: 5 Jul 2008

In book six of the series, Artemis Fowl’s mother contracts a terminal disease for which the only possible cure lies in a species of lemur that Artemis made extinct eight years ago. The series is popular, but for me, the condescending tone of the series is its downfall.

 Oh, bless my bum-flap. You’re time travelers. 




   Termination Point
by Peter Sullivan (Jason Bourque, director)
First release: 20 Jul 2008 (made-for-tv)

A scientist at a top-secret weapons facility creates a weapon that he then regrets. So he steals it and gets on a plane to Mexico with the head security agent’s family, hoping that having the family along will restrict the agent’s options. But the response is out of the agent’s hands when the president orders the plane shot down. Fortunatly, the scientist activates the weapon just before the missles strike the plane—well, partly fortunate: One copy of the plane and most of the passengers are blown into yesterday, while the scientist and the agent’s family survive in a null space that will first eat all of California and then the rest of the universe.

So, why were the dead passengers and one copy of the plane blown into yesterday? I never did figure that out; it had no bearing on the movie, except perhaps the filmmakers were Donnie Darko wannabes, and it provided a cheap wrap-up at the end.

 Hunky Farm Boy at the Beginning of the Movie: What’s the date today?
Curvaceous Farm Girl: September second. Why?
H.F.B.: This [crashed] plane boarded tomorrow! 




   100 Million BC
by Paul Bales (Griff Furst, director)
First release: 29 Jul 2008 (direct-to-dvd)

After discovering a 64-million-year-old message written on a cave wall, Dr. Frank Reno, a scientist on the original Philadelphia Experiment, leads a group of modern-day Navy SEALs back to the Cretaceous to rescue those who were lost back in that 1949 experiment leading to machine-guns-vs-dinosaurs, a t-rex in Los Angeles, and potential paradoxes for the original travelers.

 FRANK IT WASN’T YOUR FAULT 




   Stargate: Continuum
by Brad Wright (Martin Wood, director)
First release: 20 Jul 2008

The Stargate crew (including Captain O’Neill, of course) have tracked down the last of the clones of the infamous Goa’uld System Lords and are ready to kill him off to make the many universes safe, but in his last words, he reveals the the original Lord still lives. Indeed, he does! And he’s traveled back to 1939 to sink the ship that was bringing the artifact that created the Stargate program in the first place. Even though his plan doesn’t fully succeed, various crew in the present start disappearing while others end up back in 1939 where they are rescued by a Stargateless Captain O’Neill from the future.

That’s just for starters. Yet to come are changes to the past and subsequent changes to change those changes back, all with no sensible model of time travel.

 Samantha: Guys, I hate to interrupt, but the temperature’s falling. We just passed minus forty.
Daniel: Celcius or Fahrenheit? 




  
 Spider Webb #1
Time Machines Repaired While You Wait
by K.A. Bedford
First publication: Aug 2008

In the first half of the twenty-first century, time machine repairman Spider Webb meets a ready-to-blow time machine with a dead body inside, so naturally he isolates it in the Bat Cave—i.e., a little walled-off universe where nothing can affect the real universe. I wonder how that worked out.

 That’s why we need the Bat Cave. We put the unit in there, and we stand outside, teleporting various tools, and if the thing does explode, nobody gets hurt. 




   Eureka
created by Andrew Cosby and Jaime Paglia
First time travel: 19 Aug 2008

Sheriff Jack Carter is not the brainiest person in the top-secret government enclave of Eureka (though his daughter Zoe might be), but even so, he gets his share of solutions to the zany science project problems that arise, including bouts with a time-loop wedding (“I Do Over” on 18 Aug 2008), a trip to 1947 (“Founder's Day”), a series-ending anomoly for Jack and Zoe (“Just Another Day” on 16 Jul 2012), and other time anomolies.

 Zoe: Dad, did you just see . . .?
Carter: Yeah, I’ll deal with that tomorrow. 

—from the series finale




   Lost in Austen
by Guy Andrews
First episode: 3 Sep 2008

Amanda Price, a young 21st-century Englishwoman and devotee of Jane Austen, swaps places with the heroine of Pride and Prejudice.

Unfortunately, the U.S. DVD movie mash-up omitted the bit where Amanda Price serenades Mr. Darcy, Mr. Binley, and Miss Bingley with Petula Clark’s “Downtown.” Damn those cheapskates who won’t pay for music rights! So, head straight for the full miniseries on Hulu!

 ♫Just listen to the misic of the traffic in the city.
La la la la, la la la and the neon lights are pretty.
How can you lose?♫ 




   The Tomorrow Code
by Brian Falkner
First publication: Oct 2008

Australian teenager Tane Williams and his best friend (and genius) Rebecca Richards use university lab equipment to detect messages from the future which include a lottery number and a possible route to change Rebecca’s tragic past.

 “Try to think logically,” Rebecca said firmly but not unkindly. “How could you transport a live human being through a pinhole of any kind?” 




In the U.S. pilot,
Colm Meaney was cast as Gene Hunt.

   Life on Mars (US)
adapted by Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg
First episode: 9 Oct 2008

I watched this show when it first came out, but it never engaged me, and somehow the casting seemed off. Not until seven years later did I watch the original U.K. version: Surprise! I was drawn in, partly because the characters appealed to me more, and partly because of a softer sell—still melodramatic, but not often over the top.

 It goes like this, Spaceman. We live on a rock, there ain’t no rhyme, there ain’t no reason. We live on a rock, just one of many. Hurling around in some big cosmic jumbalaya. Now you wanna get questiony, that’s your prerogative. My ma took me to a loud church every Sunday. She squeezed her eyes shut, she pressed her rosary beads to her lips and she prayed for good things for those she loved. But, cancer took two of her sisters. Her husband couldn’t make a move without a belly full of gin, her youngest son turned to a life of crime, and her oldest, me, is a nasty son of a bitch who can’t get out of third gear without a snarl. So, who was she talking to every Sunday and why wasn’t he answering? I will tell you why, because we live on a rock, just one of many. There ain’t no answers! There’s just this! And all you can really hope to do is to find a couple of people who make the seventy or eighty odd years we get to live on this sweet swinging sphere remotely tolerable.
I gotta take a leak. 


Mark Evan’s
interior illustration

   “Greenwich Nasty Time”
aka “Wizards of Science”
by Carl Frederick
First publication: Analog, Nov 2008

An experiment causes Great Britain to swap with a century-old version of itself, but fortunately, physics student Paul and his girlfriend Vicki were with their bicycles on the nearby Isle of Wight, so they make the crossing back to the main island and pedal to the rescue.

 The experiment could result in an alternate Great Britain being swapped with ours—one displaced backward in time from the instant of the experiment. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #20
Dragonheart
by Todd McCaffrey
First publication: 11 Nov 2008

You’d think that the people of Pern had suffered enough plagues—but no!—the dragons must now face an infection as well. You’d also think that the people of Pern would eventually catch on and start quickly realizing whenever time travel might be a help. But no! It seems to come as a complete revelation each time.

 K’lior’s face grew ashen. “Fort is lucky. We don’t have another Threadfall in the next three sevendays. We’ll probably be able to fight that,” he answered, adding a shake of his head, “but I can’t say about next Fall.”
The despair that gripped the Weyrleader was palpable. Egremer looked for some words of encouragement to give him but could find none. It was K’lior who spoke next, pulling himself erect and willing a smile back on to his face.
“We’ll find a way, Lord Egremer,’ he declared with forced cheer. “We’re dragonriders, we always find a way.” He nodded firmly and then said to Egremer, “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
“Certainly!” Egremer replied. “I’ll see you out. And don’t worry about those weyrlings, if it’s too much bother. Having them would only save us time.”
K’lior stopped so suddenly that Egremer had to swerve to avoid bumping into him.
“Time!” K’lior shouted exultantly. 










   Fringe
created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
First time travel: 2 Dec 2008

When smart and beautiful FBI Agent Olivia Dunham is recruited by Homeland Security to investigate strange happenings on the fringe of science, she’s given free rein to choose any colleagues she wishes, which leads her to the slightly mad (but kindly) scientist Walter Bishop and his jaded son Peter.

I didn’t get around to watching this until it appeared on Amazon Prime after the series finale. It’s a little too violent for my taste, but the three main characters have become favorites of mine just as much as Myca, Pete and Artie on that other show; and as I watched into the first half of Season 3, it became more and more addictive. By the time it reached the middle of Season 4, it became my favorite long love story ever.

The first glimpse of time travel was in Episode 10, when Walter tells of the time travel machine that he built to save Peter as a boy, although that episode didn’t see any actual traveling.
  1. Safe (2 Dec 2008) Walter tells of machine
  2. Ability (10 Feb 2009) Jones uses machine to escape jail
  3. August (19 Nov 2009) we learn the Observers time travel
  4. The Bishop Revival (28 Jan 2010)   possible Nazi time traveler
  5. Peter (1 Apr 2010) Observers time travel in alt univ
  6. White Tulip (15 Apr 2010) Dr. Alistair Peck loops thru time
  7. The Firefly (21 Jan 2011) Doc Brown’ son thru time
  8. The Day We Died (6 May 2011) Peter to future / machine to past
  9. Subject 9 (14 Oct 2011) short jumps back for Olivia
  10. Novation (4 Nov 2011) another short Olivia time loop
  11. And Those . . . Behind (11 Nov 2011)   events from four years in past
  12. An Origin Story (2 Nov 2012) a shipping corridor through time
  13. The Boy Must Live (11 Jan 2013) Windmark visits 2609
  14. Liberty (18 Jan 2013) still in 2609

 After all, I was the scientist; and my only son was dying and I couldn’t do anything about it . . . I became consumed with saving you, conquering the disease. In my research, I discovered a doctor, Alfred Gross—Swiss, brillant physician, he’s the only man that had ever successfully cured a case of heppia. But there was a problem: he had died in 1936. And so, I designed a device intended to reach back into time, to cross the time-space continuum, and retrieve Alfred Gross. 




   Extreme Movie
by Adam Jay Epstein, et. al. (Epstein, director)
First release: 5 Dec 2008

The saddest part is how my opinions of Frankie Muniz (Chuck) and Beverley Mitchell (Sue) dropped just because they accepted parts in this series of silly teen sex vignettes centering around a high school sex class (no, not really a sex-ed class). There are better time travel movies for both of these favorite child actors! As for time travel in this movie, one teen’s sexual obsession is with Abraham Lincoln, so of course he builds a time machine and heads to the 19th century.

 Well . . . I got to get ready for the theater. 


All good time machines must have crytals, including Napoleon Dynamite’s machine (shown above) and the machine in this story.

   “Sufficiently Advanced”
by Sam Clough
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 14 Dec 2008

A man’s time machine takes him to the far future where he’s given the choice of which of four collectors to ally with.

 My instruments detected his arrival—he’s mine by right. 



And Still More Time Travel of 2008
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “Chronolicide, She Wrote” by J.S. Kachelries, 365 Tomorrows, 8 Jan 2008
—Angela Lansburyfield time-travel murder

  “The Yellow Room” by Seth Koproski, 365 Tomorrows, 2 Feb 2008
—time-travel philosophy

  “The Incomprehensible Being” by Cal Glover-Wessel, 365 Tomorrows, 20 Jul 2008
—free movement thru time only

  “Unforeseen Consequences” by Luke Chmelik, 365 Tomorrows, 16 Aug 2008
—AIs and time machines don’t mix

  “Time and Space” by Rayne Adams, 365 Tomorrows, 4 Sep 2008
—thief to ancient Egypt

  “A Study in Logic” by Patricia Stewart, 365 Tomorrows, 29 Sep 2008
—Homes and Wattson

  “The Old Man and the Sea Redux” by Andy Bolt, 365 Tomorrows, 30 Sep 2008
—crowdsourcing the classics

  “The Collector” by Tom Manzenec, 365 Tomorrows, 7 Dec 2008
—sliding sideways and forward in time

  “The Time Traveller” by Gavin Raine, 365 Tomorrows, 18 Dec 2008
—miscalculation going forward




Romance Time Travel of 2008
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Challenge 2: Rogue's Challenge by Jo Barrett

  Highlander 6: Secrets of the Highlander by Janet Chapman

  Viking II 8: Viking Unchained by Sandra Hill

  Masters of Time 3: Dark Embrace by Brenda Joyce

  Slains #1 The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

  With Every Breath by Lynn Kurland

  Daughters of the Glen 3: Soul of a Highlander by Melissa Mayhue

  Highlands 1: Master of the Highlands by Veronica Wolff

  Highlands 2: Sword of the Highlands by Veronica Wolff

  Highlands 3: Warrior of the Highlands by Veronica Wolff




No Time Travel. Move along.
  Yesterday Was a Lie by James Kerwin, 17 Jan 2008 [surreal ]

  Turok, Son of Stone by Evan Baily and Tony Bedard, 5 Feb 2008 [secondary worlds ]

  “The Vortex of Youth” by Patricia Stewart, 365 Tomorrows, 17 Dec 2008 [bizarre physiological aging ]

  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by Eric Roth, 25 Dec 2008 [backward aging ]

   The Secret Life of Suckers
directed by Juanma Sánchez-Cervantes
First episode: circa 2009

The eponymous suckers of this 13-episode no-dialog Spanish cartoon are the beasties who live on car windows with suckers for hands and feet. Each episode shows snippets of the life of one such beastie (Travis), including a gag in the 12th episode where he visits caveman days and spaceman days, and various Travises keep appearing next to each other.

 Travis [drinks milk from the baby bottle from his own baby self]: Berurrrrp! 




   Being Erica
created by Jane Sinyor
First episode: 5 Jan 2009

Everything seems to go wrong for Erica Strange, the “cute young woman with a great educaiton and great friends.” Why can’t she get it together? Maybe therapist (so to speak) Tom Wexlar can help her figure it out, especially given that each time she sees him, she gets a chance to redo one of her bad past decisions.

 Erica: What about paradoxes, huh? Butterfly effects? Back to the Futures?
Dr. Tom: I love that movie.
Erica: If I change the past, if I don’t get drunk, won’t that cause, like, World War III in the present?
Dr. Tom: Or is it possible that your alcohol consumption, though very important to you, might not play a role in influencing world events? 




   College Humor Originals
First time travel: 26 Jan 2009 (internet serial)

I haven’t completely figured out what collegehumor.com is all about, but they do have at least three amusing short films with time travel.
  1. Time Gun (26 Jan 2009)
  2. Back to the Future Sex Scenes (9 Feb 2012)
  3. Hardly Working / Killing Hitler (11 Oct 2012)

 I invented a time machine to make the world a better place, which is why I’m going to travel back to kill Adolf Hitler. 




   “The Boogie-Woogie, Time-Traveling, Cyborg Blues”
by Barton Paul Levenson
First publication: Electric Spec 1 Feb 2009

Cliff Robinson—a black, piano playing cyborg soldier in the 39th century—escapes back to depression-era Pittsburgh where he is tracked down by a time-travel cop.

 Hosin Tau was Minister of Internal Security in the Silver Republic, a nation-state carved out of the Grand Union of the American South in World War VIII. 


Dunesteef Audio Magazine’s story illustration

   “This Must Be the Place”
by Elliot Bangs
First publication: Strange Horizons, 2 Feb 2009

At a bar, Andrea meets a loopy man who seems to already know her; he leaves a mysterious message on a napkin, which turns out to be a hint about their next meeting where the man is younger and no longer knows her.

 If I had the power to decide never to meet him again, I reasoned, surely I had the power to change the course of the relationship for the better. 


The story also appeared in Hart’s 2012 collection.

   “Time’s Arrow”
by Geoff Hart
First publication: geoff-hart.com, 10 Feb 2009

Physicist Tim with a dead girlfriend experiences various precognition episodes leading up to his attempt to travel to the past to undead the girlfriend, or at least plant the seeds for the precognition.

 I’m certain I didn’t send myself any mail recently, but then again, I have plans to do so in the near future—or near past, I suppose. 




   Before You Say ‘I Do’
by Elena Krupp (Paul Fox, director)
First release: 14 Feb 2009

Using a wish (followed by a car crash), George Murray travels from 2009 back to 1999 to stop his girlfriend Janie from marrying her no-good ex-husband.

 I wish I’d met Jane before she was married. 


from Fishbone’s website

   “Caesar’s Secret Weapon”
by Greg R. Fishbone
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 23 Feb 2009

A Roman general tests a maxim propounded by a time traveler.

 Your gods have abandoned you, Romanus. Your weapon has no power against us. 




   “I, Lensman”
by Adam Zabell
First publication: 365 Tomorrows 15 Mar 2009

A science-fiction-reading pilot of a time ship doesn’t mind that a lot of missions end up in the early-mid 1900 CE.

 They know I read golden age sci-fi and they think my Fix is interstellar travel, so they won’t assign me to anything after 2500CE. 




   “We Haven’t Got There Yet”
by Harry Turtledove
First publication: tor.com, 19 Mar 2009

Some 360 years before Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead was first performed in Edinburgh, Will Shakespeare himself attends a performance.

 His mind races faster than a horse galloping downhill. Try as he will, he can’t mistake her meaning. If Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is dead itself—a century dead!—then Hamlet must be older yet. But his head had only a little more hair, and that only a little less gray, when he wrote it. An impossibility—an impossibility he has just seen staged. 


   “Come-From-Aways”
by Tony Pi
First publication: On Spec, Spring 2009

I am a sucker for a soppy, romantic time-travel story. In this case, linguist Kate Tannhauser is one of the members of a team that’s assembled to deal with the arrival of a man who can be nothing but Prince Madoc of Gwynedd—a twelfth-century Welsh seafarer who seems to be skipping through time at 75-year intervals—and Kate intends to be with him on the next skip.

 Based on the linguistic evidence, I must conclude Madoc is truly a man out of time. 




   “Grandfather Paradox”
by Katherine Mankiller
First publication: Electric Velocipede, Spring 2009

Ann, who was abused by her father as a child, uses a time machine to break the cycle.

 “You may have free will,” Ann said, “but not me. I am a product of causal determinism.” 


   “Caveat Time Traveller”
by Gregory Benford
First publication: Nature, 2 Apr 2009

The mind comes up with story ideas in all kinds of roundabout ways. In this case, Benford notes that his 2009 story must have boiled up from a childhood memory of Mack Reynolds’ nearly identical 1952 story, “The Business, As Usual.”

 Yes, I learned that later. I must’ve read it as a kid (was 11 then).
I must look it up sometime. I knew Mack, too, visited him in Mexico in 1966. Odd how the mind works. 

—Gregory Benford on his website, responding to a fan’s question




   FAQ about Time Travel
aka Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel
by Jamie Mathieson (Gareth Carrivick, director)
First release: 24 Apr 2009

In a pub, nerd Ray meets beautiful time traveler Cassie who fawns over him before departing with a kiss. Of course Ray’s mates Toby and Pete don’t believe a word of it until Pete finds himself thrown through a time leak as he emerges from the loo.

 How many times . . . it’s not sci-fi, it’s science fiction or sf, which can also stand for speculative fiction. 




   Mac vs PC Commercial
First aired: May 2009

 I’m a PC, and I’m headed to the future. 


   The Princess and the Bear
by Mette Ivie Harrison
First publication: May 2009

An enchanted king (now a bear) and a wolf (who was a princess for a while) are sent back in time to stop the spread of unmagic in this second book of Harrison’s Animal Magic Universe.

Although I didn’t connect strongly with this book, I did enjoy meeting Mette, a friendly young mother who reads and writes all the time when she isn't spending time with her family. That meeting was at Orson Scott Card’s writing bootcamp in Orem, Utah, in the summer of 2002.

I suspect that the title of this book is a nod to one of my favorite Card stories, also called “The Princess and the Bear,” although there is no other connection between the two stories.

 Yet your kingdom needs you to return, so I held time open for you to go back and be king once more. If you so choose. 




   Star Trek (the reboot)
by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Gene Roddenberry (J.J. Abrams, director)
First release: 8 May 2009

Young Kirk and Spock meet future Ambassador Spock who has come back in time to stop Nero from destroying Vulcan.

Tim and I saw the reboot in the theater on opening day.

 You know, coming back in time, changing history . . . that’s cheating. 




   Dino Dan
created by J.J. Johnson
First episode: 11 May 2009

Young Dino Dan is a boy who sees dinosaurs in his world. Sometimes others see the dinosaurs, too, and from time to time, time traveling occurs back to the Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous. It could just be a boy’s overly active imagination, but that’s okay by me.

 Unfortunately, the time machine ain’t working right now. We gotta get some new space-time capacitors. 




   “Time Machine”
by Simon Rich
First publication: Free-Range Chickens, 12 May 2009

Just one of many fun gags in Simon Rich’s second collection, Free-Range Chickens.

 As soon as my time machine was finished, I traveled back to 1890, so I could kill Hitler . . . 


   “The Affair of the Phlegmish Master”
by Donald Moffitt
First publication: Analog, Jun 2009

Given the title, I figured I might run into comedy or puns, but that wasn’t the case for this story of Dutch historian and translator Peter Van Gaas who travels back to an alternative timeline with a billionaire to commission a Vermeer portrait of the billionaire’s wife while trying not to run afoul of the thug hired by those who have a financial interest in not seeing more works of art from past masters.

 Harry’s going to upset a multibillion dollar applecart. I don’t know what strings he pulled to get an import license for a priceless artifact from another timeline, but it’s not going to be worth what he thinks. 


from Ian Rennie’s blog, showing his NaNoWriMo award

   “Contraband”
by Ian Rennie
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 5 Jun 2009

A Chronology Enforcement agent is after archaeologist Lloyd Fry for bringing something other than his body back to a pre-unity time.

I wish that it had been clear at the end whether Lloyd remembered anything of the encounter, but even without that, there were pieces I enjoyed.

 And I wanted to get a hologram of the eiffel tower before it was wrecked by the earthquake. My mother asked me to. 






   Land of the Lost
by Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas (Brad Silberling, director)
First release: 5 Jun 2009

The 70s tv show (which had no actual time travel, but did have dinosaurs from another dimension) is updated as paleontologist Rick Marshall propounds time warps, as embodied in his tachyon amplifier, as the solution to today’s energy problems. Even though everyone else thinks he’s crazy, one beautiful graduate student, Holly Cantrell, encourages him to finish the device (her confidence coming from a fossil of a 265-million-year-old cigarette lighter, and together with souvenir hawker Will, they set off to “another dimension where past, present and future all meet.”

The movie has a high enough silliness quotient that it can only be truly appreciated en español (especially preferable if you are not a Spanish speaker).

 Rick: It’s the only real solution to solving this fossil fuel crisis we’re experiencing, and it boils down to two simple words.
Matt Lauer: Renewable biofuels.
Rick: Close . . .: time warps. 


   “In the Cracks of Time”
by David M. Alexander (as by David Grace)
First publication: Sci Fi Storiesk Vol. 4, 8 Jun 2009

Mark needs to travel 1000 years into the future because he is the only one capable of ensuring a successful restart of the human race after a millennium-long plan to exterminate the alien, invading Ants. But the only way to make that trip is for him to spend 1000 (non-aging) years in various alternate history pasts, after which he can head back to his own future.

 Mark had been supplied with a thousand names and bank account numbers, identities of organizations and individuals throughout the Twentieth Century together with details of various winning lottery numbers, sporting events and stock market fluctuations plus a handful of gold coins. Luckily the field was strong enough to encompass his clothes and a few personal effects. Mark often fantasized about how much more difficult his life would have been had he been forced to arrive naked like the time travelers in the Terminator movies. 




   “Palimpsest”
by Charles Stross
First publication: Wireless, Jul 2009

As much as I love Asimov’s The End of Eternity, I’ve also always wondered about the logistics of Eternity’s access to the different centuries. Stross stated that his story, which begins with a clever hazing ritual for Agent Pierce to join the Stasis organization, was a rewrite of Asimov’s story, and I’d hoped that it would address the questions in the back of my mind. Did it? No, although it did take the ideas to a trillion-year span of history hacking and solar system engineering.

 They’ll have no one to remember their lives but you; and all because you will believe the recruiters when they tell you that to join the organizaton you must kill your own grandfather, and that if you do not join the organization, you will die.
(It’s an antinepotism measure, they’ll tell you, nodding, not unkindly. And a test of your ruthlessness and determination. And besides, we all did it when it was our turn.) 


   “Turning the Grain”
by Barry B. Longyear
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug to Sep 2009

By the halfway point of the story, Gordon Redcliff (angry, jaded ex-military sniper and bodyguard) is stranded in a primitive civilization 140,000 years in the past, and he must face the question of whether the widow he’s falling in love with is enough motivation to violate his directive to not interfere with “one hell of a disaster coming in just a matter of a few months.”

 Three weeks in prehistory, Mr. Redcliff. Aren’t you excited? 




   S. Darko
by Nathan Atkins and Richard Kelly (Chris Fisher, director)
First release: 3 Jul 2009

Seven years after Donnie Darko’s death, his sister has even more artsy adventures in death and time travel.

 It’s like everybody knows everything about me, but I’m invisible at the same time. 




   The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations
by Holly Brix (Seth Grossman, director)
First release: 31 July 2009

Lots of blood and gore in this third of the butterfly horror movies, wherein Sam Reide uses his time travel ability to pose as a psychic for police, all of which is fine until he breaks the rules to try to prevent the murder of his first girlfriend.

 There’s two big rules: You never jump back to alter your own past, and you never jump unsupervised. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #21
Dragongirl
by Todd McCaffrey
First publication: Aug 2009

At the end of Dragonheart, Fiona took a band of merry dragons and their riders back in time to train for the next Threadfall. Now it is time for their return, but even with their addition, there are not enough dragons to fight the fall.

 “Because there wasn’t time,” Fiona said. He glared at her. “I had just enough time to realize that I would have to time it myself, not enough time to explain.” 




   The Time Traveler’s Wife
adapted by Jeremy Leven and Bruce Joel Rubin (Robert Schwentke, director)
First release: 14 Aug 2009

I thought the book suffered from not exploring the consequences of Henry’s travel on free will and determinism, but the movie had even less depth.

I watched this one with Harry on my short visit to Scotland in the summer of 2010.

 And after she gives him the blanket she happens to be carrying, he explains to her that he’s a time traveler. Now, for some reason I’ll never understand, she believes him. 




   “First Flight”
by Mary Robinette Kowal
First publication: tor.com, 25 Aug 2009

When time travelers want to create a film of the Wright Brothers’ first flight, their only choice is to send Louise because she’s the only living person who speaks English and was also alive in 1905.

 Louise hesitated. “The Good Book promises us free will.” 




   “Nix Nix”
by Paul E. Holt
First publication: Aoife’s Kiss, Sep 2009

Sra and Cork travel from five centuries in the future back to 1963 where they hope to be the first to succeed in actually changing history for the better despite the Fillagian principle. Ah, you think, must be presidential history that they’ve set their hearts on, and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

And speaking of long periods of time, more than a quarter century passed between this Paul Holt time-travel story and his previous one in a 1983 issue of Asimov’s, which is a feat that deserves high congratulations!

 She was strectched out on one of the deck chairs on the balcony of their apartment. They had rented it temporarily until they could cash in a few more diamonds, pretty much worthless in their own time but extremely valuable here, and buy a house. They were rich of course. Why would they come back poor?

Cork was standing at the railing pointing at his bell bottoms. “People are looking at me funny,” he said. “Nobody else is wearing these.” Their pre-migration research indicated people did, but they could have been a couple of years off. 




   “The Solid Men”
by C.J. Henderson
First publication: Nth Zine, Sep/Oct 2009

Somebody is using Gravty Wells to steal people’s souls from the past, which creates a dire threat to Proven Time (or sometimes Perfect Time). Time Patrol agent Rick Rambler is determined to bring the murderous theifs to a halt.

 I mean, the first thing they all want you to do is explain Proven Time, as if anyone could. The accident that set man’s sight on the One True Timeline from which all others spring was no blessing. 




   Dinosaur Train
created by Craig Bartlett
First episode: 7 Sep 2009

Buddy, a tyrannosaurus rex, is being raised by a pteranodon family who has access to a dinosaur train that can travel through the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods.

 See kids, in the Jurassic period, there’s no grass or flowers. 




   “Augusta Prima”
English title: “Augusta Prima” (translated from Swedish)
by Karin Tidbeck
First publication: Mitrania, 3rd quarter, 2009

A curious story about a curious girl, Augusta Prima, who lives in the most perfect of the eight lands, a land where places and time (and other abstractions, I would say) float in an unmeasurable way.

After its original Swedish publication, this story was translated to English and widely reprinted, including Weird Tales, Lightspeed and The Time Traveler’s Almanac. Artistic stories tend to be hit-or-miss with me (mostly miss). This one hit, but I never seem to be able to say why.

 The hands are moving now. Time is passing now. 




   From Time to Time
adapted by Julian Fellowes (Fellowes, director)
First release: 24 Sep 2009

At his granny’s house during World War II, 13-year-old Tolly sees ghosts from the 19th century and then finds that he can travel there, interact with those who believe, and solve a family mystery.

This one had several British actors that Janet likes including Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins and Alex Etel.

 Rose: Are you a ghost?
Tolly: I don’t think I can be. I’m not dead. 




   Dark Adventure Radio Theatre
First time travel: “The Shadow Out of Time,” 27 Oct 2009

Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, does audio dramatizations of Lovecraft’ stories including a nice 77-minute production of “The Shadow Out of Time.”

 Tales of intrigue, adventure, and the mysterious occult that will stir your imagination and make your very blood run cold. This is Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, with your host Chester Langfield. Today’s episode: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Out of Time! 


   “Joan”
by John G. Hemry
First publication: Analog, Nov 2009

It’s comforting to know that when you open a science fiction story named “Joan,” your expectations will be met—as in this story of our heroine Kate, time travel, and Joan of Arc.

 I realize I may seem a little obsessive, but is it so wrong to wish I could have saved her from being burned? She was such a remarkable person and it was such a horrible fate. 


   Time Travelers Never Die
by Jack McDevitt
First publication: Nov 2009

Early in the novelization of the story, Shel has a conversation with his dad about the chronological integrity principle. There is only one timestream, and if we try to do anything to change what is already known about the stream, then time will stop us. On the other hand, if we can arrange for an event to happen that meets the known facts without being quite what we thought it was . . .

 What did you try to do? Post somebody at the Texas School Book Depository? 




   Misfits
created by Howard Overman
First episode: 12 Nov 2009

Five teens, trapped in a freak storm, acquire superpowers, including Curtis who can rewind time. More graphic and less intense than Heroes (Season One)—and nobody can fly.

Later, in Season 2, another of the misfits travels back from the future.

 There's always someone who can fly. 




   Turtles Forever
by Rob David, Matthew Drdek and Lloyd Goldfine (Roy Burdine and Goldfine, directors)
First aired: 21 Nov 2009

Some goofier-than-the-real-turtles turtlebodies seem to be impersonating the real Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and what’s more they seem younger than today’s turtles, young enough to have come from 1987.

The younger shellheads come from an alternate 1987—the original incarnation of the cartoon—but I figure it’s still the past. In addition, perhaps all the turtle universes are splinters from the original Turtle Prime which that bad guy targets.

 I’ve already got four turtles to worry about. These are . . . superfluous. 


   “A Flash of Lightning”
by Robert Scherrer
First publication: Analog, Dec 2009

High school student Terri Bradbury and her high school class take a field trip to the distant past where Mr. Schoenfield sets off a nuclear explosion to experimentally study three theories of time travel’s effect on the future.

 We’ll discuss the ethics of time travel in the spring semester. 




   “Inside Time”
by Tim Sullivan
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec 2009

On returning from the future via the Arrowhead mechanism that he invented, Herel Jablov finds himself trapped in a small station between universes along with a pretty woman named Mae and a criminal named Conway.

 This is going to sound odd to you, Herel, but the reason for the blank spot in your memory is that you’ve just come from the future. 








   How I Met Your Mother
created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas
First time travel: 7 Dec 2009

While Ted once again pursues some girl, Marshall does the more important task of writing a letter to his future self, and future Marshall comes back to anonymously deliver a plate of hot buffalo wings (in “The Window,” Episode 10 of Season 5).

And in an episode that Janet called me in to watch just before Hannah’s wedding (“The Time Travelers,” Episode 20 of Season 8), Ted goes down to the bar where he meets Barney, Twenty-Years-from-Now Barney, Twenty-Years-from-Now Ted, Twenty-Hours-from-Now Ted, and Twenty-Minutes-from-Now Barney—not to mention two versions of Twenty-Months-from-Now Coat-Check Girl.

 Okay, guys, I’ve been waiting twenty years for this. Just like we practiced, one, two, ah one-two-three-four: ♫ Whooooa, ooooooh, ooooooh, oooh, for the longest time . . . ♫ 



And Still More Time Travel of 2009
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “Visits” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 12 Jan 2009
—visits from a future self

  “Temp Agency” by Paul Starkey, 365 Tomorrows, 12 Apr 2009
—working temp jobs in past

  “Presque Vu” by Debbie Mac Rory, 365 Tomorrows, 2 May 2009
—escape artists exiled in time

  “Trains” by Jacob Lothyan, 365 Tomorrows, 11 May 2009
—ancient telegram warns time traveler

  “Instruments of War and Peace” by John Logan, 365 Tomorrows, 13 Jun 2009
—preventing the human scourge

  “P is for . . .” by Steven Odhner, 365 Tomorrows, 12 Jul 2009
—I don’t know what P is for

  “The Future Was What We Made It” by Adam Zabell, 365 Tomorrows, 21 Jul 2009
—time-travel lecture

  “The Jump” by Apollyn, 365 Tomorrows, 15 Aug 2009
—time travel/bungee cord analogy

  “The Accident” by Iva K., 365 Tomorrows, 13 Sep 2009
—time-travel bigwig and guide get stuck

  “Please Pick Up Your Bread Crumbs” by J.E. Moskowitz, 365 Tomorrows, 16 Sep 2009
—time cops to Biblical times

  “Time Net” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 8 Oct 2009
—a net to catch time meddlers

  “Spotted” by Ryon Moody, 365 Tomorrows, 17 Oct 2009
—old man finds traveler

  “Through the Hoop” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 26 Oct 2009
—time machine with no receiver

  “Archived” by Bryan Mulholland, 365 Tomorrows, 31 Oct 2009
—archivist interviews scientists

  “Cogito, ergo sum” by Jacob Lothyan, 365 Tomorrows, 1 Nov 2009
—mind travelers . . . or not?




Romance Time Travel of 2009
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  MacCoinnich 1: Binding Vows by Catherine Bybee

  Highlander 7: A Highlander Christmas by Janet Chapman

  Outlander 7: An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

  Viking II 9: Viking Heat by Sandra Hill

  Scottish Highlands 2: Before the Fire by Tia Isabella

  Masters of Time 4: Dark Victory by Brenda Joyce

  Masters of Time 5: Dark Lover by Brenda Joyce

  Till There Was You by Lynn Kurland

  Daughters of the Glen 4: A Highlander of Her Own by Melissa Mayhue

  Blue Bells 1: Blue Bells of Scotland by Laura Vosika

  MacGregor 1: Timeless Mist by Terisa Wilcox

  Highlands 4: Lord of the Highlands by Veronica Wolff




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Greetings from Kampala” by Angela Ambroz, Strange Horizons, 12 Jan 2009 [differing time rates ]

  17 Again by Jason Filardi, 17 Apr 2009 [fountain of youth ]

  Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian by Thomas Lennon, 22 May 2009 [despite appearances, no time travel ]



   How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe
by Charles Yu
First publication: 2010

Holy Heinlein! Jim Curry kindly gave me this book as a retirement gift. It is more of a lit’ry work than a science fiction novel, and as such, I wish it had more deeply explored the question of free will.

 I’m saying: you are stuck in a time loop. If you take that call, then you always took that call. You always take that call. It’s got to be self-consistent with the rest of this. If you pick up that phone, it’s just one more thing that we’ll have to do again. And who knows what complications it leads to. 




   Time Machine Diorama
sculpted by Joe Laudati
First released: Jan 2010

Who doesn’t want their very own Time Machine diorama complete with Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, a Morlock (standing), and another Morlock (lying in repose)?

 Above average model skills recommended. 1:8 scale. 


from fodey.com newspaper generator

   “Chronomechanic”
by Duncan Shields
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 1 Jan 2010

Duncan Shields is one of the more prolific writers at 365 Tomorrows—quite possibly producing 365 time travelers on his own—and for me, this is one of his better stories.

Normally, I don’t like suicides in stories because I feel that the topic is often approached in a shallow manner, but in this case, Shields’s hero has a hobby of tracking and trying to understand teen suicides while he philosophizes about the alternate universes created by time travel.

 I suppose as hobbies go, it’s a little dark. Whatever. It keeps me humble, rooted in the now, happy to be alive, and aware of death. 




   “Married Life Is Strange”
by Kathy Kachelries
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 12 Jan 2010

I love the cavalier attitude of this woman whose sweetheart invents things. Must be a metaphor for something.

 I knocked on the door to the garage. “There is a Frenchman in my kitchen,” I said. 




   “The Times That Bleed Together”
by Paige Gardner
First publication: Flash Fiction Online, Feb 2010

With the help of a little man in a grey suit, Luke Russell thinks that he can fix a horrific event of the past.

 “It’s a time machine,” Luke says. ”I’m going to fix it.” 




   Sponge Bob Square Pants
created by Stephen Hillenburg
First time travel: 15 Feb 2010

Admitedly, I don’t watch the porose crusader, but I did hulu one time-travel episode, “Back to the Past” (15 Feb 2010). I wonder whether Rick, my marine biologist friend, watches Sponge Bob.

 This device allows us to transport into the future or past, at a date or destination of our choosing. Unfortunately, the consequences of altering the order of history are so dangerous [thunder], we’ve chosen to leave it alone. So you mustn’t touch! 




   Coke Zero Commercial
First aired: 8 Mar 2010

 Isn’t it time to bend time? 




   時をかける少女
English title: The Girl Who Runs Through Time (translated from Japanese)
aka Time Traveller: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
adapted by Tomoe Kanno (Masaaki Taniguchi, director)
First release: 13 Mar 2010

Riisa Naka (Japanese voice of Makoto in the 2006 Anime adaptation) plays the daughter, Akari, of a grown-up Kazuko (from the original novel). Akari tries to leap back to the time of her mother’s first love, Kazuo, in hopes that he can bring her mom out of a coma induced by a car accident.

 So you believe me? You’re an SF geek, right? 




   The Penguins of Madagascar
created by Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell
First time travel: 13 Mar 2013

In one episode (“It’s about Time”), Kowalski invents the chronotron (“So why not just call it a time machine?”, asks Skipper.)

 So while we’re at it, why not just call the Great Wall a “fence,” Mona Lisa a “doodle,” and Albert Einstein “Mr. Smarty-Pants”? 




   Hot Tub Time Machine
by Josh Heald, Sean Anders, John Morris, et. al. (Steve Pink, director)
First release: 26 Mar 2010

Three middle-aged losers (along with a nephew) head back to their teenaged bodies at a ski resort twenty years earlier.

 Yes, exactly. You step on a bug and the fucking internet is never invented. 


   “The Time Traveller Smith”
by JC McLaughlin
First publication: ebook, Apr 2010

Watchmaker apprentice Maxwell Smith is hurled by an explosion from 1908 London to a dystopian 2008.

 But that’s the thing, Miss Brown, don’t you see? I did not vanish from the face of the Earth, I merely vanished from time. 




   “Grandfather Paradox”
by Ian Stewart
First publication: Nature, 29 Apr 2010

I didn’t understand the logic of this short story, which is part of Nature’s Futures series of short, short sf stories. The grandfather, Hubert, is traveling forward in time, begging his grandson to kill him so that he won’t invent a time machine that he’s already invented—but I can’t see how killing him after the fact will do any good. Please explain it to me!

In any case, thank you to the kind librarian at the Norlin Library who made an electronic copy for me when we couldn’ track down a hard copy of the journal.

 With its logical basis wrecked, the Universe would resolve the paradox by excising the time machine, and snap back to a consistent history in which Hubert married Rosie, with all of its consequences. 




   Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
by Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard (Mike Newell, director)
First release: 9 May 2010

In ancient Persia, young street-urchin Dastan noble behavior draws the attention of the king, who brings the boy into the royal family as an equal with two other princes. As the boys grow up and lead the king’s army, they conquer the magical city of Alamut. But when Dasmat and the Alamut princess are forced to flee after being framed for the king’s murder, Dasmat realizes that the entire reason for attacking Alamut in the first place was a deception. Of course, he also realizes that he’s in love with the princess and that her magic dagger can turn back time minute by minute.

 Incredible! Releasing the sand turns back time. 




   The Toles Cartoons
by Tom Toles
First time travel: Washington Post, 19 Jun 2010

Editorial cartoonist Tom Toles has an astute solution to the problem of global warming.

 No! That’s the great thing about this technology! 




   Through the Wormhole
hosted by Morgan Freeman
First episode on time travel: 23 Jun 2010 (Season 1, Episode 3)

The time-travel episode of this Science Channel series is worth watching just to see interviews with the likes of Frank Tippler, Kip Thorne and Analog’s own alternative scientist, John G. Cramer.

 That’s the way that entanglement works; and so, if I put a spool of fiber optics in here that’s, say, 10 kilometers long, then she would send the signal 50 microseconds after Bob received it. 

—John Kramer




   “How the Future Got Better”
by Eric Schaller
First publication: Sybil’s Garage, 7 Jul 2010

Images from the past: not time travel. Precognition of the future: not time travel. But images from the future: yes, time travel. (I know the rules can be difficult to grasp, but it will come to you.) In this case, the whole family, plus the Willards from next door, gather ’round to see the first broadcast of their own future.

 In the future, I got a beer. 


The story also appeared in this 2012 collection.   “The Battle of Little Big Science”
by Pamela Rentz
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Aug 2010

A council of Native American elders has been funding Agnes Wilder’s project to view the past, but now they’re ready to cancel the shoestring budget because they haven’t yet seen a demonstration of the technology.

 When can you make the machine work? 


   “Superluminosity”
by Alan Wall
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Aug 2010

After Jack Reynolds, a historical phenomenologist, has an affair, Fiona demands that he use the time machine he stole from a shut-down program to retrieve a fancy handbag from the early 1900s.

 Prove it then. Prove it by doing something for me. Something special. 




   Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
by Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall (Wright, director)
First released: 13 Aug 2010

Yes, Scott Pilgrim also travels back in time (when he’s defeated at Level 7)!

 Steal my boyfriend, taste my steel! 


from Chaponda’s website   “By His Sacrifice”
by Daliso Chaponda
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

In a hidden underground compound, a group of scientists raise nineteen children including Saul Baron, who years ago warned us of the coming nuclear disaster and saved the world.

 The man chuckled at himself because of the bewilderment on Saul’s face. “The fuckin’ messiah and you don’t even know it.” 


The story also appeared in this 2014 Johnson collection.   “Written by the Winners”
by Matthew Johnson
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

Dave Lawson’s job is sifting through artifacts—e.g. old episodes of Family Ties, LPs from the 80s, etc.—for snippets that no longer fit the officially approved timeline, but his decidedly more dangerous, clandestine avocation is preserving those very anomalies.

I found the idea of how time travel changes the timeline in a piecemeal manner, leaving behind inconsistencies, to be thought-provoking, although for me, the story’s ending was incomplete.

 The device that had changed time was more like a shotgun than a scalpel: It had established the present its makers wanted through hundreds of different changes to the timeline, some contradicting others. The result was a porous, makeshift new history that made little sense, but the old one had been thoroughly smashed to bits. It was those bits that remained that he and his department were tasked by the new history’s makers with finding and erasing. 


   “Backlash”
by Nancy Fulda
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sep 2010

Counter-terrorist agent Eugene Gutierrez, who suffers from flashbacks of his wife’s death, is contacted by a young time-travel agent from his own future with a plea to stop Gutierrez’s own daughter from setting off a chain of terrorist events.

 It is possible to create a set of coherent relationships between individual tachyons, similar to quantum entanglement. 


   “Red Letter Day”
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First publication: Analog, Sep 2010

Without completely forbidding it, the government allows limited time travel: Each person may send a single letter from himself or herself at age 50 back to age 18 with information about a single event, though not everyone sends the letter and not everyone approves of the procedure. Our narrator did not receive the letter when she was young, and now she approaches 50 as a counselor for others who do not receive a letter.

 You know the arguments: If God had wanted us to travel through time, the devout claim, he would have given us the ability to do so. If God had wanted us to travel through time, the scientists say, he would have given us the ability to understand time travel—and oh! Look! He’s done that. 


   “Conditional Perfect”
by Jason Palmer
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

Like all the other yahoo teens, Paitin and his buddies head to an alternate past for a Friday night of violent hunting whomover they happen to spot from their hovercrafts. But unlike the others, Paitin plans to stay behind to be with unReal Sandra.

 Paitin shook his head. Civics 101: conditional perfects are neither citizens nor their ancestors. Therefore, they are not real. 


A few years after this story, Emrys published her first chapbook, A Litany of Earth.   “Correspondence”
by Ruthanna Emrys
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

Dena Feinberg, a psychology grad student who dreams of being a hard scientist and/or a Victorian time traveler, writes a compelling message on a stone table for future time travelers.

 The hard part was figuring out what to say. I needed something that would matter enough to the inventors of time travel that they would want to come visit me, right along with Jesus and Galileo and Heinlein. 


from peterclines.com

   “The End of the Experiment”
by Peter Clines
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

In the twenty-first century, on the very spot in London where Wells’s traveller first had his dinner party, physics student Jon has a similar party with his own friends and his own tiny model of a time machine.

 At the heart of it was a small seat carved from wood, almost a saddle, and before it was a console, barely two inches across, decorated with levers of what looked like glass and bone. 


   “Midnight at the End of the Universe”
by Eric Ian Steele
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

Wanting to see the end of time, Matheson travels forward in his quaint machine only to be greeted by the athletic and immortal telepath, Rococzky Saint-Germain, who is somewhat distainful of time travelers. Together, they watch the universe collapse.

 Even so, he grew nervous each time he left the pod—ever since that encounter with the Fascist Government of Greater Britannia in the twenty-second century. Not to mention the alligator population that plagued London after the Great Flood in the twenty-third. That had caught him completely unawares. 


from Wood’s website   “One One Thousand”
by Willaim R. D. Wood
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

When Dr. Heller’s scientific contraption goes awry and threatens the universe, it’s fortunate that the machine is also a time machine to take Aaron back one day, albeit in a manner where his time rate is a thousand times faster than (most of) those around him.

 Static past. Unmoving. Like wandering around in an old, overexposed photograph. 


from Hull’s website   “Perpetual Motion Blues”
by Harper Hull
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

In a future world being evacuated by spaceships, four travelers try over and over again to get to the evac point, each time with all of them being slightly older versions of themselves.

 What this mean, Howard explained, was that the traveler could only jump to a time and place where they had previously existed. The traveling version of the person would take the place in the world of the old version, with all the knowledge they had gained since that time kept intact. 


from Edwards’ website   “Professor Figwort Comes to an Understanding”
by Jacob Edwards
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

In a series of flashbacks over Professor Figwort’s eighty-year life, we learn of his first love letter (the failure of which prompted his discovery of time travel) and his three subsequent great discoveries.

 It was then that he devined a solution to his new-found problems: he would travel back in time and stop himself from disturbing Miss Bonsoir in the first place—on any level, molecular or otherwise. Yes, that ought to do it. While he was there, he might even return those now-overdue library books. 


Jianshi Jiao’s Legoland
Time Machine		   “Rocking My Dreamboat”
by Victorya
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

 There lay a Legoland Time Machine kit that he always imagined belonged to his father. There was no image on the box, just Think of the Time and Place, and Go! written in precise lettering across the side. 


An excerpt from this story appeared on Timelines website.   “Spree”
by John Medaille
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

An unnamed man who can shoot supersonic baseballs and bullets through time starts his time travel agenda by assasinating Hitler. And so on.

 The Time Traveler tinkers with the pitcher, increasing the torque and velocity of its engine and by the little, sickly hours of the early morning he is finally able to successfully launch three Major League regulation baseballs into the late Mesozoic Era. 


The story also appeared in this 2013 Onspaugh collection.

   “Time’s Cruel Geometry”
by Mark Onspaugh
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

We learn what really happened after the Time Traveller left his 1895 London house for the final time, and along the way we also learn the answer to what happens should he meet himself.

 In those trials he saw her die more than a dozen times, and it nearly drove him mad. If he was not sure he could rescue her, he might have set the controls for the far distant future when the sun would engulf the Earth. 


Shortly before this story, Goodman published The Apocalypse Shift, which is being made into a movie.   “The Woman Who Came to the Paradox”
by Derek J. Goodman
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

Reggie heads to 19th century Austria to kill baby Hitler, but once there he runs into Reggie-B (among others).

 “When you stopped me from stopping me,” Reggie-B said, “you ceased to exist because I never became you. But if I never became you then you never existed to stop me from stopping me. 


   “XMAS”
by Douglas Hutcheson
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

In a world where Japan won World War II and went on to conquer the world, a father (amidst pesky attacks) recounts history (including the roles played by time travel) to his two spoiled children.

 I thought you were old enough for big-kid toys. 


   “The Window of Time”
by Richard Matheson
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sep/Oct 2010

Eighty-two-year-old Rich Swanson, “Swanee,” knows that he’s a burden living with his daughter, so he decides to rent a room on his own, but instead finds himself 68 years in his past, but still at age 82 and uncertain about why or what he can do in the years of his childhood.

 Of course! How had I missed it? If there was any reasonable point to all this . . . 




   A Rip Through Time Pulp Series
by Chris F. Holm, Charles A. Gramlich, Garnett Elliott and Chad Eagleton
First story: Beat to a Pulp 90, 3 Sep 2010

This series of stories (available in a 2013 e-book collection) follows pulp hero Simon Rip through time as he first takes care of problems caused by H.G. Wells’s traveller and then searches for Dr. Berlin, a later inventor of time travel.
  1. The Dame, the Doctor and the Device (2010) by Chris F. Holm
  2. Battles, Broadswords, and Bad Girls (2011) by Charles A. Gramlich
  3. Chaos in the Stream (2011) by Garnett Elliot
  4. Darkling in the Eternal Space (2011) by Chad Eagleton
  5. Loose Ends by Garnett Elliot
  6. The Final Painting of Hawley Exton by Chad Eagleton

 But to my way of thinking, all of the events of existence have already happened, and are therefore immutable. Thus, there are no so-called ‘time paradoxes.’ 


The story also appears in this 2013 collection.

   “Fiddle”
by Tim Pratt
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 6 Sep 2010

How did Nero fiddle while Rome burned if the fiddle wasn’t invented until the 16th century?

 At any rate, ready your cameras and make sure your bows are rosined. 






   Warehouse 13
created by Jane Espenson and D. Brent Mote
First time travel: 7 Sep 2010

The secret service does more than just protect the president: Agents Myka Bering and Peter Lattimer (under the guideance of Artie, not to mention the help of girl genius sidekick Claudia and slighty psychic landlord Leena) also gather and protect remarkable scientific artifacts from throughout history. H.G. Wells shows up at the start of Season 2, but time travel didn’t appear until Episode 10 of that season, when Myka and Pete head to 1961. Later, in the first episode of Season 4, after the deaths of all and sundry (not to mention the demolition of the warehouse), Artie goes back in time again (at great expense to himself). I was expecting more time travel in Season 5 and was not disappointed when our favorite agents follow the evil Paracelsus back to 1541 (“Endless Terror”) to prevent the creation of a warehouse of horrible human experimentation; plus there’s a smidgen of 1942 time travel in the mushy (in a good way) series finale.

 Pete: I’m not gonna remember . . .
Artie: Remember what?
Pete: Remember dying.
Artie: No. No, Pete, you won’t remember. [Pete dies.] But I will . . ., I will. 




   Celestial Elf’s The Time Traveller
by Celestial Elf
First publication: 26 Sep 2010

Using the Four Winds Sims animation packet and pieces of the Radio Theatre Group’s audio play of The Time Machine (based on the 1948 Escape radio program), Celestial Elf produced an eight-minute animation. Looks like they had fun.

 with grateful thanks to H.G. Wells for his Inspiration & to Koshari Mahana for use of Four Winds 




   “In His Prime”
by K.C. Ball
First publication: Every Day Fiction, Oct 2010

After being stripped of his license to box for refusing to be inducted into the Army based on his religious beliefs, the Greatest finds himself in a dreamlike locker room being prepared for a fight while the crowd outside cheers his name.

 He remembers going to bed, tired after a long day of training, and he remembers noises in the night, the rush of cool air over his bared body, but he doesn’t recall how he got here; wherever here may be. 


The story also appeared in Jonathan Strahan’s best-of-the-year anthology.   “Names for Water”
by Kij Johnson
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2010

I didn’t understand this poetic story of a failing engineering student, Hala, who imagines that a phone call of white noise is many different things, one of which is a call from the future—but I am delighted by the mastery of language by my former teacher at the University of Kansas Center for the Study of Science fiction. She and I also had a perfect day climbing in the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

 It is the future. 


   “The Termite Queen of Tallulah County”
by Felicity Shoulders
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2010

When Lacey Tidwell’s dad has an attack that leaves him unable to communicate, she completely takes over the family exterminator business including the occassional time-travel trip to delete the origins of various bug problems. I enjoyed the story, but was annoyed that Shoulders brings up the paradoxes without offering any solution.

 Termite Trouble? You Can Turn Back Time! 




Young Bruce reads good magazines, too!

   Altitude
by Paul A. Birkett (Kaare Andrews, director)
First release: 3 Oct 2010

Sara, whose parents died in a small-plane crash when she was a child, now has her pilot’s license and is taking a group of friends to a concert in a small plane. One of the group is her boyfriend, Bruce, who has the power to make weird 1950s comic book stories come true: So we get a nice dose of in-flight mechanical failure, horrific monsters, wng-walking heroics, and a piece of time travel that certainly could have come from an E.C. comic. (The most horrific monster, though, is Sara’s best friend’s jerky boyfriend who—you’re not gonna believe this!—destroys an actual 1950s comic book!)

 Aren’t you listening? I made these things come true just by thinking about them! 


Brons, a librarian, has also had stories published in Two-Fisted Librarians.

   “Time Crossing”
by Adena Brons
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 9 Oct 2010

A young couple waits in line 45 days so that they can emmigrate to the 14th century.

 The Public Release, 47 years ago, had created a wave of emigration as other times were suddenly opened to those seeking other lives. 


from Albert’s website

   “Addendum to the Confessions of St Augustine of Hippo”
by Edoardo Albert
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 15 Oct 2010

A man visits Saint Augustine in the final days of the of Hippo, where the future saint tells him how his own son (and others) traveled through time in dreams.

 I wrote once that the more I thought about time, the less I understood it. 




   “Flipping the Switch”
by Michael Vella
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 29 Oct 2010

A scientist building a time machine regrets never spending time with his understanding wife and young children.

 I just had an intense déjà vu . . . 




   “Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters”
by Alice Sola Kim
First publication: Lightspeed, Nov 2010

Because of Hwang’s problem, he ends up in odd, far future times, trying to make connections to his daughters.

 Whenever Hwang goes to sleep, he jumps forward in time. This is a problem. This is not a problem that is going to solve itself. 




   “Over Tea”
by T.M. Thomas
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 2 Nov 2010

An accidental time-traveler in the times of the American Revolution has tea and a philosophical discussion with a much older time traveler.

 And I’ve been trying to figure it out for forty-seven years. I’m going to solve it now, so you know. 




   Regular Show
created by J.G. Quintel
First time travel: 2 Nov 2010

Two park groundskeepers, Mordecai (a blue jay) and Rigby (a raccoon), live out a surreal sit-com life twelve minutes at a time, including some encounters with time travel such as the do-over that Mordecai wishes for after a bad first kiss with a red bird named Margaret.
  1. Prank Callers (2 Nov 2010)    back to the eighties
  2. It’s Time (4 Jan 2011) Time Pony takes Mordecai back to episode start
  3. Night Owl (31 May 2011) contest to win a car goes to 4224 A.D.
  4. Bad Kiss (4 Sep 2012) redo a bad first kiss
  5. Exit 9B (2 Oct 2012) back in time two months to save the park

 All I know is guys from the future lie. 

—Mordecai in “Bad Kiss”




   “The Man from Downstream”
by Shane Tourtellotte
First publication: Analog, Dec 2010

Americus, a despondent time traveler, comes to the 1st century Roman Empire (726 AUC) to introduce clocks, steam engines and other marvels.

The original publication of this story is followed by a Shane Tourtellotte article, “Tips for the Budget Time-Traveler,” about the economics of trading through time.

 He argued to the scribes that they were naturals for typesetting jobs: literate, intelligent, good at fine work and at avoiding mistakes. “Most of us thought we knew. There were many congenial mealtime arguments about which overarching theory of time travel was the true one. I had my ideas, but they dismissed them. I wasn’t one of them; I didn’t understand.” He ounded a fist into his thigh, a startling burst of violence. “But their theories were such violations of common sense!” 




   Chinese 7up Commercial
First aired: Dec 2010

   


   “Uncle E”
by Carol Emshwiller
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec 2010

Twelve-year-old Sarah decides to keep her mother’s death quiet so that the kids can all stay together, but somehow the previously unknown Uncle E gets wind of the happening.

 We have a hard time getting to sleep—except for Elliot. 




   “The Sound/Fury Variable”
by Steven Odhner
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 15 Dec 2010

A mad scientist wants to travel back to meet God before He destroyed Himself to create the universe we live in.

 I have one shot for this, one chance to meet my maker. 




   “Palindrome”
by William Arthur
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 28 Dec 2010

Mike, a time patrol type of character, finds himself in a yoyo of a time loop.

 Of all the types of time snags Mike had seen since joining Timeguard—recursive, crablike, anagrammatic—palindromic was the worst. 


The story was reprinted in DSF’s Year One anthology.

   “The Plum Pudding Paradox”
by Jay Werkheiser
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 29 Dec 2010

H.G. Well’s traveller goes back in time to persuade J.J. Thomson to not allow Rutherford to observe the nucleus of an atom.

 Rutherford’s work will lead to a new theory called quantum mechanics. It’s nearly an inverse of your model, a central positive nucleus surrounded by a negatively charged cloud. 




   NBA Back-in-Time Commercials
First aired: 2010/2011 Season

 Stephen? Stephen Curry? Your dad played in the NBA? 



And Still More Time Travel of 2010
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “Adam” by Clint Wilson, 365 Tomorrows, 11 Jun 2010
—android wonders about origin of life

  “Return to Sender” by Dennis Gray, 365 Tomorrows, 7 Oct 2010
—accidental retrieval of past dignitary

  “The Great Leap Ahead” by Matt Matlo, 365 Tomorrows, 1 Dec 2010
—leaping ahead a few millennia

  “Future Saviors” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 25 Dec 2010
—making best possible world




Romance Time Travel of 2010
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  MacCoinnich 2: Silent Vows by Catherine Bybee

  MacCoinnich 3: Redeeming Vows by Catherine Bybee

  A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn

  Outlander 7.1: A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows by Diana Gabaldon

  Viking II 10: Dark Viking by Sandra Hill

  Magic of the Highlands 1: Highland Destiny by Laura Hunsaker

  Civil War Brides 1: The Bride Price by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Civil War Brides 2: The Bride Found by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Civil War Brides 3: The Bride Spy by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Daughters of the Glen 5: A Highlander's Destiny by Melissa Mayhue

  Daughters of the Glen 6: A Highlander's Homecoming by Melissa Mayhue

  A Cottage by the Sea by Ciji Ware

  MacGregor 2: Between Now and Then by Terisa Wilcox




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “The Hand from the Past” by Christopher Anvil, The Power of Illusion, 2010 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “Sunlight and Shadows” by John Sunseri, Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, 2010 [no definite time travel ]

  My Name Is Memory by Ann Brashares, Jun 2010 [reincarnation ]

  “And Happiness Everafter” by Gerald Warfield, Timelines, Sep 2010 [virtual reality ]

  “The Time Traveler” by Vincent L. Scarsella, Timelines, Sep 2010 [long sleep ]

  “The Value of Folding Space” by Tim Patterson, Daily Science Fiction, 3 Nov 2010 [just teleportation ]



   The Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Sequels
by Frank Cottrell Boyce
First book: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again,

At the end of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, the fabulous car’s Chronojuster is jolted, taking them to the Jurassic and the start of the second sequel (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time) to Ian Flemming’s original story. In the third sequel (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Over the Moon), the modern-day family that now has the car find themselves in 1966 where they need help from the original owners.

 Most cars don’t have a Chronojuster. It’s a special handle that allows you to drive backward and forward in time. That’s how special Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is—time travel is fitted as standard. 


a portion of a cipher code, which has a role in the story

   A Traveller in Time
adapted by Michael Johnston
First publication: 2011

Novelist and playwright Michael Johnston adapted Alison Uttley’s 1939 children’s book to the stage in this short three-act play with multiple transitions between the twentieth and the sixteenth century.

 The lights dim and the kitchen is “transformed” into how it was in the Spring of 1582 but many of the kitchen props, including the table and rocking chair remain. As the lights come up again, loud cock crows are heard suggesting that time has passed and it is the following morning. An offstage voice is heard calling out for Dame Cecily. Tabitha enters stage leading a puzzled Penelope by the hand. Penelope is wearing a green dress with wide sleeves. 


   “A Snitch in Time”
by Donald Moffitt
First publication: Analog, Jan/Feb 2011

In the same world as the Beethoven and Vermeer affairs, rogue policeman Francis Patrick Delehanty uses his own resources to travel back to the scene of the first homicide that he dealt with as a rookie cop.

 Have you thought this through, Lieutenant? You see a murder in progress. You’re a cop. Do you try to stop it? But you’re not a cop in that timeline, are you? Your lieutenant’s badge is no good there. Are you acting extra-legally? The only badge around belongs to a rookie cop name Delehanty who doesn’t have a clue about what’s going down. And what if you don’t try to stop it? Are you culpable? In that timeline or this one? 




   “12:02 P.M.”
by Richard Lupoff
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jan 2011

Maybe eternity isn’t as long as Myron Kastleman had feared.

 The same hour keeps happening over and over again. Only it isn’t an hour. Not really. It seems to be getting shorter. 




   Ticking Clock
by John Turman (Ernie Barbarash, director)
First release: 4 Jan 2011

Investigative reporter Lewis Hicks, who doesn’t trust cops, pursues a gory time-traveling serial murderer who’s tracking down all those people whom he thinks did him wrong in life.

I’m surpised that this movie never made it to the theaters in the states. It generated good tension for a Fugitive-type police-don’t-the-protagonist type of story.

On the other hand, the ending shows zero comprehension of the grandfather paradox or universes that split upon time travel, but never mind.

 Lewis: What if you could kill Hitler or Manson when they were a child?
Polly: No way. They’re children. They’re not Hilter or Manson, not yet. No. 


Trianon

   Time Travel Urban Legends
by The Wikipedia Editors
First posted on Wikipedia: 8 Jan 2011

The second sentence of this Wikipedia article saddens me.

 All of these reports have turned out either to be hoaxes or to be based on incorrect assumptions, incomplete information, or interpretation of fiction as fact. 




   T.U.F.F. Puppy
created by Butch Hartman
First time travel: 15 Nov 2011

Dudley Puppy, a dog and a spy, together with his cat friend keep Petropolis safe from various baddies such as Snaptrap who, in one episode (“Watch Dog”), becomes ruler of Petropolis—now Snaptrapolis—when Dudley and his time watch inadvertently change the past in an attempt to snag the last chocolate donut away from Kitty.

 Or, I could set this watch back one minute and risk horribly altering reality to beat Kitty to that donut. 




   “The House That Made the Sixteen
Loops of Time”
by Tamsyn Muir
First publication: Fantasy Magazine, Feb 2011

Dr. Rosamund Tilly lives in a house that fights her every step of her life, including a day when it keeps resetting time to 8:14.

 She would have been excited if she hadn’t been so horrified: The house was probably destroying the space-time continuum right now and forming a thousand glittering paradoxes all because she hadn’t really cleaned the kitchen. Once she’d forgotten to weed the window boxes and the house had dissolved her feet right up to the ankle. 






   Where No Sheldon Has Gone Before
by Sheldon Cooper
First rehearsed in: “The Thespian Catalyst” on The Big Bang Theory, 3 Feb 2011



Despite buying George Pal’s original time machine on ebay, Sheldon, Leonard, Penny and their gang have never traveled in time, but in “The Thespian Catalyst,” it was revealed that Sheldon had written a one-act play (Where No Sheldon Has Gone Before) in which Spock comes to take him to the 23rd century.

 Oh, Shelly, a man’s here to take you away to the future. Be sure to pack clean underwear. 




   Kia Optima Commercial
First aired: Superbowl XLV, 6 Feb 2011

 One epic ride. 


   “Do Over!”
by Jeff Kirvin
First publication: Kindle E-Book, 13 Feb 2011

Our hero, Rick “Richie” Preston, is ten years out of high school and doing nothing but flipping burgers when a fight with his father (and bargain landlord) tosses him back into his senior year of high school where he gets a chance to redo everything so long as he agrees to not alter other people’s lives.

Even though I didn’t see this released until 2011, it is set in 1998 and 1988, and I think the writing predated the identically named and similarly plotted 2002 TV show. In any case, I’m glad that Denver resident Jeff Kirvin released this story on Kindle.

 As I stood gaping at the rows of ten-year-old magazines, a fortyish, balding man sidled up next to me. ”Pretty cool, huh, Preston?” 




   Flashback
aka Time Lord
by Brendan Rogers and Will Phillips (Rogers, director)
First release: 15 Feb 2011

I can’t believe that I watched this long enough (24:30) to verify that Flashback, a future movie studio that robotically remasters the classics, uses time travel to retrieve props from the past.

 Now pretend that this urinal cake is me, alright? 


   “Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in the Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms”
by John G. Hemry
First publication: Analog, Mar 2011

Ninety-year-old Jim Jones is sent back into his 15-year-old body in 1964 to help Betty Knox (who is already back in her 15-year-old body and doesn’t expect him) because all the time-travel agents (sent back to that time to avert the world’s toxin disasters) have disappeared with no discernable effect on history.

 And I know that after Johnson, Richard Nixon is elected president. Then comes Ford. Who comes next? 




   “Meet Me at the Grassy Knoll”
by Lou Antonelli
First publication: 4 Star Stories, Issue 1, Spring 2011

A man pays $20 million to a Russian to be taken back in time to discover who was really on the Grassy Knoll in Dallas that day in November 1963.

 You can’t change anything. You certainly can’t tell anyone. 




   No Ordinary Family
created by Greg Berlanti and Jon Harmon Feldman
First time travel: 22 Mar 2011

In this family of superheroes, Mom time travels at the end of Episode 18 (“No Ordinary Animal”) and in Episode 19 (“No Ordinary Future”).

 Time travel, Stephanie! We’re talking the big leagues! The Flash! Silver Surfer!! Doc Brown’s DeLorean!!! 

—Katie in “No Ordinary Future”




   Time Travel Tales
by Jay Dubya
First story: Time Travel Tales, 31 Mar 2011

Jay Dubya notes that these 21 stories share similar anachronistic plots and themes dealing with movements or shifts in time. I read the first one—“The Music Disk”—about the nostalgic music experts Chad and Jeremy who long for the 50s and find themselves taken to the times sung about in the war songs on a CD from Satan Records. Two of the stories (“The Music Disk” and “Batsto Village”) are part of the free Kindle sample at Amazon.

 “And look! There’s an abnormal fog cloud up ahead right near the entrance to Atlantic Blueberry’s packing house!” the history teacher alerted the already distressed and bewildered driver. 

—The Music Disk


   The Ian’s Ions and Eons Stories
by Paul Levinson
First story: Analog, Apr 2011

In the first story (“Ian’s Ions and Eons”), a man travels back to December 2000, hoping to alter the momentus Supreme Court decision of that month.

Ian and his cohorts have a reprise in “Ian, Isaac and John” (Nov 2011), where a descendant of David Bowe comes back to 1975, purportedly to improve the mix on a Bowe track, but quite possibly with additional motives involving John Lennon. And there are more stories to come, all in Analog.
  1. Ian’s Ions and Eons (Apr 2011) The 2000 election
  2. Ian, Isaac and John (Nov 2011) David Bowe and John Lennon
  3. Ian, George and George (Dec 2013) Orson Welles to the 1970s

 The Supreme Court will announce its decision the day after tomorrow. Gore’s people want the recount to proceed in Florida. Bush’s do not. 


   The Time-Traveling Fashionista Series
by Bianca Turetsky
First book: Apr 2011

Twelve-year-old Louise Lambert has a passion for vintage fashions from the turn of the century through the 70s, although when she wakes up as a seventeen-year-old actress on the Titanic, she’s worried about more than just fashion.

I found this book in the ship library on a cruise of my own (no, not the Titanic, though we did see some icebergs. The first book, on the Titanic, was followed by two others.
  1. The Time-Traveling Fashionista (Apr 2011) on the Titanic
  2. The Time-Traveling Fashionista (Sep 2012) at the Palace of Marie Antoinette
  3. The Time-Traveling Fashionista (Dec 2013) and Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile

 It seemed as though on the inside she was Louise Lambert, but to everyone else she was this Miss Baxter, a gorgeous teenage actress. Definitely rich. Probably even famous. She smiled and unconsciously began twirling a strand of hair between her thumb and index finger. That was how she did her best thinking, and none of this made any sense. Somehow she had woken up in the body of a woman who was taking a first-class trip on the White Star Line, with her own personal maide and her uncle/manager, from England to New York City. 




   Judas Kiss
by Carlos Pedraza and J.T. Tepnapa (Tepnapa, director)
First release: 1 Apr 2011

Filmmaker Zachary Wells (née Danny Reyes) totally flopped when he dropped out of the first year of film school to head to Hollywood after winning a college festival award. Years later, he reluctantly returns to the college to be a festival judge, but somehow after making love to a student, he finds that the student is his very own younger self entered in the very same contest—only now he’s the judge. Hard to tell whether he’s in the past or his younger self is in the future, but the question either way is whether he’ll he let himself win, causing him to head down the same failed path as the first time.

 Wise Father Figure: Danny Reyes went to school here fifteen years ago.
Zach: That was me.
W.F.F.: Huh! What happened to him?
Zachary: I . . . he’s gone.
W.F.F.: Just like that? You think changing your name added IQ points? How many times you done rehab now? You’re getting a second chance! Zachary . . .
Zach: Okay. We’re done here! W.F.F.: This is the key to your future. [mysterious hugging and electricity] Change his past. Change your future.  




   Source Code
by Ben Ripley (Duncan Jones, director)
First release: 1 Apr 2011

Spoiler alert! I usually try to keep my spoilers mild, but I am irresistibly drawn to spoil Source Code, since the inventor of The Source Code in the movie explicitly says, “Source Code is not time travel. Rather, Source Code is time reassignment. It gives us access to a parallel reality.” But what does the inventor know? Go watch the movie (which I enjoyed) before reading on!

A common form of time travel is when the traveler goes back in time and a new reality branches off. That’s the form of time travel that I see in Source Code, and from my reading of an interview, perhaps the director sees it that way, too. This view fits better than the parallel worlds postulate of the inventor, because each time the captain goes back, he is in exactly the same moment, with the same passengers, same comment coming from future girlfriend, same woman about to spill coffee, etc. If he were shifting to a parallel universe, then perhaps some things would differ before he arrives. So, I see it as branching worlds time travel, with the twist that the mechanism to do the time travel is to pop the traveler’s consciousness inside the head of a dead person at about eight minutes before the death. I believe that the original world where the traveler came from (and usually returns to) continues along its original path (as evinced by the fact that after one return in which he saved girlfriend, there was no record of her being saved).

 What is the Source Code? 




   My Future Boyfriend
by James Orr and Jim Cruickshank (Michael Lange, director)
First release: 10 Apr 2011 (made-for-tv)

From a utopian world without love or passion, 497 goes back to 21st century New Orleans to learn of these things from romance writer Elizabeth Barrett.

 I really shouldn’t be telling you this, 497, but ancient legends have it that this love condition was like some kind of virus which apparently made people act in strange and illogical ways bordering in some extreme cases on obsessive dementia. It is now also thought to be one of the root causes of all the suffering in the world. 




   Repeaters
by Arne Olsen (Carl Bessai, director)
First release: 22 Apr 2011

Recovering adicts Kyle, Sonia and Mike are caught in a time loop in a day away from the recovery facility when they are supposed to make amends with those they hurt; a wild spree ensues on the first few loops, and then one of them spirals off into ever-increasing violence.

 Sonia: Doesn’t part of you wonder if maybe he’s right? I mean, every good thing we do gets erased; every bad thing we do gets erased. What does it really matter what we do?
Kyle: I guess . . . I just need for it to matter. 


Another of Friedman’s story appeared in this 2013 anthology.

   “Unveiled”
by Ron S. Friedman
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 9 May 2011

Itami invents the first time machine.

 If time travel is possible, then why didn’t we see tourists from the future taking pictures of Neil Armstrong on July 20th 1969, when he took his first step on the Moon? 




   “Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order”
by Damien Broderick
First publication: tor.com, 25 May 2011

This time, Bobby and Moira are in 2073 Melbourne with a mission that could get Bobby arrested, but will save millions if successful.

 On the tram, I had a different kind of hassle, the usual sort. Other passengers stared at me with surprise, disdain or derision. You couldn’t blame them. For obvious reasons, we’d found no reliable records in 2099 or later of the fashions in 2073. 




   “The Mighty Peculiar Incident at
Muddy Creek”
by Ian Thomas Healy
First publication: 28 May 2011

In the old west town of Muddy Creek, Sheriff Jesse Hawkins and the hasily deputized barber Angus come across a train that’s frozen in the midst of a robbery by a strangely dressed man and woman.

 How could ye make time stop? 




   “Just Enough Time”
by Douglas K. Beagley
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 31 May 2011

A guy and his 20-something Friends are visited in a coffee shop by a time traveler with limited time to tell them about the futility of fusion, how to cure autism, the solution to cancer, and other things that they are not so interested in.

 Just listen, please—peanut allergies are a virus. 




   “Apology”
by Sam Ferree
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 3 Jun 2011

A 26-year-old redheaded woman comes back in time to kill the one man in all history who has no effect on anything.

 “At no point in the past or future will your life have any bearing on anything, at all,” the redheaded, twenty-something time traveler with a sleeve of tattoos tells me. “That’s why it’s okay to kill you.” 




   Midnight in Paris
by Woody Allen (Allen, director)
First release: 10 Jun 2011

Would-be novelist Gil Prender is in Paris with his fiancée who doesn’t understand why he would want to live in Paris or hang out with Hemingway and his pals in the 1920s.

 I was trying to escape my present the same way you’re trying to escape yours—to a golden age. 


from Bellet’s website

   “Love at the Corner of Space and Time”
by Annie Bellet
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 23 Jun 2011

The boyfriend of a time traveler finds himself stranded in a nevertime after yet another minor argument with his girlfriend.

 But he knew that in a long-term relationship with a Time Traveler, things got sticky on occasion. 


from Penguins and Steelers fan Barrett’s twitter page

   “Something Famous”
by Samantha L. Barrett
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 29 Jun 2011

Dan can’t figure out why dozens of people are staring at him during the month that scientists announce the discovery of time travel.

 Was I on America’s Most Wanted or something? 


   “The Messenger”
by Bruce McAllister
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jul 2011

Fifty-year-old Tim goes back to the time before he was born with two important questions for the woman who would become his mother.

 If you actually wanted to change things—say, to tell your mother lies about your father so she’d marry someone else, so you wouldn’t be born because you hate your life in the present—you wouldn’t be able to do it. 


The story also appeared in this 2012 anthology.   “Pug”
by Theodora Goss
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jul 2011

In the time of Napoleon, a sickly English girl discovers a dog in her garden, and the dog leads her through a door to other times and places.

 (Imagine our relief to learn of Waterloo.) 




   Stealing Time
by Alex Calleros and Michael Tucker (Calleros, director)
First release: July 2011

It does irk me when an otherwise fun time-travel plot is hijacked by a waving-of-the-hands explanation of how, during the time-travel, the Earth continued to rotate or orbit the sun or orbit the Milky Way or whatever, but never mind: The emphasis is on the word fun in this 17-minute short that was written based on the following constraints submitted by the filmmakers’ fans (but—dammit!—where’s Dinosaur Kid?):
  • Cannot take place entirely in one location.
  • Someone must say the words “time travel.”
  • Two characters must have a long-standing rivalry.
  • When one character was a kid, he/she used to wish he/she could travel back in time to see real-life dinosaurs.
  • One character is a wine lover and is very picky/elitist about their wine.
  • One character prefers bubble baths to showers.
  • Someone has to say: “I have to go back.”

     Howard [looking at dead self]: What happened? What did you do?
    Jim: I didn’t do anything. You disappeared, two more of you burst in, one of you shot the other one, then you jumped in the box and disappeared again. 




   Penn and Teller’s Fool Us
starring and created by Penn & Teller
First time travel: 16 Jul 2011

I love Penn and Teller’s friendly and praise-filled personalities as much as the magic of the magicians who are trying to fool the most renowned magicians (Penn and Teller themselves). One episode included the time traveling pair of Reece Morgan and Robert West.

 And not only are we magicians, time travelers, and all-around spiffy chaps, we are also tourists—fourth-dimensional tourists. 


The story also appeared as a podcast on Toasted Cake.

   “Deathbed”
by Caroline M. Yoachim
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 18 Jul 2011

I don’t always consider living life backwards to be time travel. It depends on whether or not the person in question is experiencing time in a normal forward fashion—which is not the case in this time travel story.

 I could save my past self some trouble if I told him the ingredients, but I cherish those early memories of failed soup, and I worry that giving him the recipe would change the past. 




   “Only Backwards”
by Kenneth S. Kao
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 26 Jul 2011

Just as Mason is leaning in for his first kiss, he finds himself naked and decades in the future.

 We rewound your biology. 


   “We Were the Wonder Scouts”
by Will Ludwigsen
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Aug 2011

As an old man, Harald recounts the days of 1928 when he was one of Mr. Fort’s original Wonder Scouts, seeking out the true explanations for inexplicable phenomena in the woods of upstate New York.

 At worst, we’ll be absorbed into the super-consciousness, learning and seeing all knowledge at once in a single stupendous flash. More likely, we’ll find a tunnel to an underground civilization of pygmies or a portal through time. 




   “A Gentlewoman’s Guide to Time Travel”
by Alice M. Roelke
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 11 Aug 2011

More precisely: a guide for time travelers headed to a future of scrofulous morals.

 . . . be certain several of your numbers keep smelling salts handy. 




   “No Time”
by Andrew Bale
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 13 Aug 2011

A battlefield plunderer meets his own dead self.

 You get attacked, you have no backup, so you become your own. 




   “Restoring the Great Library of Georgia”
by Patricia Stewart
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 15 Aug 2011

Anthony and Lamar travel back to find copies of Stephen Hawking’s lost papers

 That’s why the government gave us the two trillion dollar grant, so we could travel back in time and get hard copies of the monumental technical papers, and rebuild the database from the ground up, similar to what the Greeks did for the Ancient Library of Alexandria. 




   Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
in 4D Aroma-Scope
by Robert Rodriguez (Rodriguez, director)
First release: 19 Aug 2011

Perhaps this would have been better had I smelled it in the theater. As it was, though, retired spy Marissa Wilson and her family chasing the evil Timekeeper didn't grab or hold my interest long enough for me to get to the time travel parts.

 At this rate, we’ll be out of time in no time. 


   “The Observation Post”
by Allen M. Steele
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sep 2011

In 1962, Ensign Floyd Moore is the communications officer for the blimp Centurion patrolling the Caribbean for Russian shipments of nuclear missles to Cuba. But what he and his lieutenant stumble upon on the larger Inagua island couldn’ possibly be Russian technology.

 The world was on the brink of nuclear war, and no one knew it yet. Almost no one that, is. 


from the Anderson Institute’s page on wormholes

   “Shadow Angel”
by Erick Melton
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sep 2011

No, I won’t vouch for this one having time travel, but it might—I just never fully understood what was happening to pilot Emil as he tries to steer(?) his dive-dreamship through a wormhole(?) while being haunted by his ex and being pulled back and forth by different possible futures vying for their existence.

 “There are several futures, Emil,” Real Haneul said. ”Each one is trying to reach back to shape the past so it can be.” 


from Stasik’s website

   “Spiral”
by Sarah Stasik
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 14 Sep 2011

Nadia wishes for more time from a man with a silver finger, and she gets it in a way that causes her to relive her past in a confusing pattern.

 Time is only a line, a curve, a wave of the hand, and its course is moved. 




   Terra Nova
created by Kelly Marcel and Craig Silverstein
First episode: 26 Sep 2011

I finally had a free Saturday morning, so I hulued the pilot, but couldn’t get through the melodramic story of a family from 2149 that goes back to an alternate prehistoric time stream as part of the 10th pilgrimage.

 That wasn’t a very nice dinosaur. 

—Zoe in Episode 2




   “Regret Incorporated”
by Andy Astruc and RJ Astruc
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 27 Sep 2011

Marcus hopes that the time-travel office will see his application as having a low-risk of creating a major change so that he can go back and make things right with his choice of a career.

 Reason for traveling back in time: He had heard this was the big one. That if you didn’t get this one right it was all over. 


   “The Sock Problem”
by Alastair Mayer
First publication: Fiction, Oct 2011

The narrator’s explanation to his preteen son pretty much sums it up.

 Okay, a spacetime warp. It’s formed by the interaction of the complicated magnetic field from the motor, and the rotation of the drum. The metal drum picks up an induced field and right in the center, a spacetime vortex forms. Any sock falling through disappears. 




   “This Petty Pace”
by Jason K. Chapman
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2011

Theoretical physicist Kyle Preston is getting garbled visitations from a hologramish future descendant who carries dire warnings, which Kyle wishes did more for him and his girlfriend Anna.

 It’s like Schroedinger’s Subway Rider. He’s both here and twenty minutes away at the same time and you don’t know which until he meets his girlfriend. 




   “Some Fortunate Future Day”
by Cassandra Clare
First publication: Steampunk!, 6 Oct 2011

In a war-torn, fable-like, Victorian kind of world, Rose’s father goes off to war leaving her various inventions: talking dolls, a garden robot, a mechanical cook, and a time device that comes in handy when a wounded soldier makes his way to her doorstep.

 When he said that, he looked at Rose’s mother’s portrait, hanging over their fireplace mantel. He had invented his time device only a few short months after she had died. It had always been one of his greatest regrets in life, though Rose sometimes wondered whether he could have invented it at all without the all-consuming power of grief to drive him. Most of his other inventions did not work nearly as well. The garden robot often digs up flowers instead of weeds. The mechanical cook can make only one kind of soup. And the talking dolls never tell Rose what she wants to hear. 




   Time Ship
by Gary Cottrell
First publication: 9 Oct 2011

I was excited when I read that the book was intended to “challenge the reader to consider the difficult subject of predestination and free will,” but the story itself (of two time-machine-making scientists, one of whom as a boy watched to murder of his parent) was too bogged down in exposition and repetition for me to recommend.

 Just think of it—time travel! If we pull this off, it will mean the Nobel Prize for sure! 




   Shuffle
by Kurt Kuenne (Kuenne, director)
First release: 21 Oct 2011

Each time he wakes up, photographer Lovell Milo finds himself in a different piece of his life in seemingly random order. It’s hell, and he wants it to stop—and then, around the time that he learns he’s married to his childhood best friend, he also learns from a little girl that his traveling is “a present” which he’s supposed to use to save someone in trouble.

 I’m 28. The day before that I was 15. The day before that I was 30. The day before that I was 8. One day, recently, I was past 90. Every day I wake up at a different age and a different year on a different day of my life, and it’s scaring the hell out of me. I want it to stop. I need help. I’ve been awake for the past 48 hours because I don’t know where I’m going to be once I fall asleep. Can you help me? Have you ever heard of this before? Anywhere? 




   “Shall I Tell You the
Trouble with Time Travel?”
by Adam Roberts
First publication: Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, Nov 2011

Professor Hermann Bradley has managed to have his time travel device last seventeen seconds in various past times before spectacularly exploding. Now he’s on the verge of cracking that seventeen second barrier (and, according to the narrator, possibly the wiping out of the dinosaurs as well as hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tunguska), but the damnable Professor Notkin is blocking him, claiming that Bradley has committed crimes against humanity (and perhaps against dinosaurity).

 He steps through into a room and his beaming, grinning, smiling, happy-o jolly-o face shouts to the world: “We’ve done it, we’ve cracked it—thirteen seconds!” 






   11/23/63
by Stephen King
First publication: 8 Nov 2011

Jake Epping's dying friend Al points him toward a rabbit hole that always leads to the same moment in 1958, so what can he do other than live in the Land of Ago, fall in love with Sadie, stalk Oswald and become America’s hero?

 Save him, okay? Save Kennedy and everything changes. 




   Hoops&Yoyo Ruin Christmas
created by Bob Hold and Mike Adair
First aired: 25 Nov 2011

Cheaply animated Hallmark greeting card icons Hoops and Yoyo (and their dog Piddle) travel through a wormhole to the days of Santa’s youth where they endanger Christmas for all time.

 I think that kid in there . . . is Santa Claus. 


An audio version of the story is available on
Escape Pod.

   “‘Run,’ Bakri Says”
by Ferrett Steinmetz
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec 2011

Irena is sent back in time to rescue her brother from a prison, all the time trusting that if things go fatally wrong, she’ll be rewound for another attempt.

 It was supposed to trigger a rewind when her heart stopped. If he’d misconfigured it, Irena’s consciousness would have died in an immutable present. 


   “Strawberry Birdies”
by Pamela Sargent
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dec 2011

Maerleen Loegins travels back to the 1950s where she becomes a physics student and live-in help for a family where both parents are overwhelmed by young Addie, an even younger austistic Cyril, and two newborn twins.

 The reason her parents had put an ad in the paper offering free room and board and a small stipend to a college student was to have someone around to look after their children, especially Cyril, who wouldn’t be ready to go to school that fall, not even to kindergarten, and might never be. 




   Juko’s Time Machine
by Kai Barry (Barry, director)
First release: 8 Dec 2011

When the wife of Juko’s lifelong friend Jed gets fed up with Juko living in their garage, Jed comes up with his best plan yet, to build a time machine so Juko can go back in time and win the heart of the girl whom he's waited twenty years for, even if Juko isn’ cool like her finance is.

Lauren Struck, one of the producers, sent me a press kit and an invitation to stream the film in May of 2012, precisely 35 years after my first press-kit-and-invitation-to-a-fan-to-see-an-sf-movie-preview—that other one being from a little-known producer named George something, of course, so Lauren is in excellent company. (Thank you, Lauren.)

 Jed? Are you Jed Four? I think you’re Jed Four. 




   “A Time to Kill”
by Melanie Rees
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 12 Dec 2011

Jonah sometimes gets too close to the targets that he must kill for the good of the timeline.

 The Time Agency knows what they’re doing. Future terrorists, dictators . . . it’s justified. 




   12 Dates of Christmas
by Aaron Mendelsohn, Janet Brownell and Blake J. Harris (James Hayman, director)
First release: 11 Dec 2011 (made-for-tv)

After the requisite bump on the head, Kate Stanton finds herself reliving Christmas Eve over and over, whereupon the romantic hijinks ensue.

 That ship has sailed. You blew your chance. You can’t go back and change it. 



And Still More Time Travel of 2011
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “The Third Millennium” by Laura E. Bradford, 365 Tomorrows, 1 Feb 2011
—teen time travelers

  “No One Ever Considers the Unforeseen Consequences” by Patricia Stewart, 365 Tomorrows, 16 Feb 2011
—killing a despot’s ancestor

  “Time Travel” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 22 Feb 2011
—amateur time traveler

  “Traveler” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 17 Mar 2011
—traveler emerges from alley

  “Serial Killer” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 26 May 2011
—serial killer targets travelers

  “Coincidences” by K. Clarke, 365 Tomorrows, 23 Jun 2011
—Why so many travelers at my house?

  “So the Guy at the Bar Turns to Me and Says . . .” by Macpherson, 365 Tomorrows, 23 Aug 2011
—dead authors sign books

  “Introdus” by Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 16 Nov 2011
—700,000 burning time travelers

  “Grandfather Clock” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 19 Dec 2011
—grandfather paradox twist




Romance Time Travel of 2011
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  River of Time 1: Waterfall by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  River of Time 2: Cascade by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  River of Time 3: Torrent by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  Highlander 8: Highlander for the Holidays by Janet Chapman

  Civil War Brides 4: The Bride Ransom by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Civil War Brides 5: The Rebel Bride by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Civil War Brides 6: The Bride Star by Tracey Jane Jackson

  The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

  The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

  Daughters of the Glen 7: Healing the Highlander by Melissa Mayhue

  Daughters of the Glen 8: Highlander's Curse by Melissa Mayhue

  Timeless 1: Timeless by Alexandra Monir

  Time Spirit 1: Golden Blood by Melissa Pearl

  Time Spirit 2: Black Blood by Melissa Pearl

  A Knight in Central Park by Theresa Ragan

  Tennessee Waltz 1: Kiss Me, I'm Irish by Bella Street

  After Cilmeri 0: Daughter of Time by Sarah Woodbury

  After Cilmeri 1: Footsteps in Time by Sarah Woodbury

  After Cilmeri 2: Prince of Time by Sarah Woodbury




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “The Most Important Thing in the World” by Steve Bein, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Mar 2011 [no definitive time travel ]

  In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds by Michel C. Nachoff, 3 Apr 2014 [secondary worlds ]

  “Eleven Minutes” by Gareth L. Powell, Interzone, Jul 2011 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “Hand and Space” by Dean Wesley Smith, Self-Published, Aug 2012 [fountain of youth ]

  “Thief of Futures” by D. Thomas Minton, Lightspeed, Sep 2011 [surreal ]

  “Thirty Seconds from Now” by John Chu, Boston Review, 1 Sep 2011 [precognition ]

  “The Little Bear” by Justina Robson, Lightspeed, Oct 2011 [parallel universes ]

  “Time to Go” by Erin M. Hartshorn, 3 Nov 2011 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “A Stitch in Space-Time” by Nicky Drayden, Daily Science Fiction, 14 Dec 2011 [despite title, no time travel ]



   Dating Rules from My Future Self
by Wendy Weiner, Leah Rachel and Sallie Patrick
First release: 9 Jan 2012 (internet serial)

Budding Lucy gets romantic advice from her future self via text messages.

Janet found this one on the web, and we watched a daily installment with tea in my first September of retirement. In the second season, our heroine switches from nicely nerdy Lucy (Shiri Appleby) to lovely and lonely Chloe (Candice Accola). Now, if we can only get writer Sallie Patrick to slip some time travel into the other show she works on, Revenge.

 Lucy: tell me who this is.
Unknown: I’m u. 10 years in the future. 




   Alcatraz
created by Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lillen, Bryan Wynbrandt
First episode: 16 Jan 2012

This show has a Ph.D. with a comic book shop, a kindly old uncle, Vince Lombardi as a 1963 jail warden, a crochety FBI agent who really has a kind heart, residents of 1963 Alcatraz showing up today, and a girl with a gun! What’s not to love?

 All the prisoners were transferred off the island, only that’s not what happened—not at all. 




   “Auburn Tresses”
by Roi R. Czechvala
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 23 Jan 2012

Dr. David Jansen travels back to the late 1960s, falls in love with a beautiful redhead, and promises to return.

 One sandaled foot was outthrust. The caption below the figure admonished the viewer to “Keep on Truckin’” 


   “Cretaceous on Ice”
by K.C. Ball
First publication: Snapshots from a Black Hole & Other Oddities, Feb 2010

Sheriff Lyle, daydreaming of his retirement just outside of Bozeman, spots his brainiac buddy Pete and his egghead nephew Jimmy chasing a Deinonychus full-speed down the highway in their stretch-cab Ram pickup—and it’s not the only one on the loose.

 “Lookee here, it’s good you know what this thing is, but where in hell did it come from?”
“The early Cretaceous. One hundred twenty million years ago,” Peter said.
Sometimes real smart people can be a little dense. 




   Toyota Camry Superbowl Commercial
First aired: Superbowl XLVI, 5 Feb 2012

 This is the reinvented baby. It doesn’t poop. It is also a time machine. 




   Mysterious Island
adapted by Cameron Larson
First release: 11 Feb 2012

I wonder whether all eigthteen of the executive producers (yes, I counted them) of this movie were sitting around (maybe in a hot air balloon with no burner), trying to come up with a movie idea.

“Let’s do a movie of Lost,” said one. “It’s a big hit.”

“No, we can’t do Lost,” said another. “We don’t have the rights.’

“Then let’s find some old sci-fi thing—you know, by one of those old French guys—and rewrite it so that it’s like Lost with time travel.”

“Wait, didn’t Lost have time travel?”

“Maybe, but not with Civil War dudes and hot chicks in a crashed plane.”

 Well honestly, to me ma’am, it looked like a flying locomotive. 


The story also appeared in this 2015 collection.

   “Life and Death and Bongo Drums”
by Larry Hodges
First publication: Every Day Fiction, 20 Feb 2012

Life and Death argue over the fate of a time traveler.

 “You are a problem,” Death finally said. “You were scheduled to die seventy years ago, during World War II, but since you hadn’t yet been born, I skipped the appointment.” 




   JCPenney Commercials
acted by Ellen Degeneres
First aired: 84th Oscar Awards, 26 Feb 2012

 Was it always this way? 


   “The Man Who Murdered Mozart”
by Robert Walton and Barry N. Malzberg
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2012

In the late 21st century, frustrated violin player Howard Beasley and his six friends make a plan to kidnap Mozart from his death bed, so that Beasley can get him to finish his Requiem and thereby ride the crest of the ensuing admiration to becoming the head of the world.

 That question is beyond me. Try asking Mozart. 


   “Mrs. Hatcher’s Evaluation”
by James Van Pelt
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Mar 2012

Perhaps you know how much I enjoy being deeply dragged into an engaging story, and then, only after some time, realizing that it’s a time travel story. If you haven’t yet read this story, then I apologize for depriving you of that pleasure. Now go read it now and find out about why Mrs. Hatcher’s teaching methods are indeed ”best practices.”

 What happened in Hatcher’s room? 


   “Twember”
by Steve Rasnic Tem
First publication: Interzone, Mar/Apr 2012

On the plains of eastern Colorado, Will Cotton and his family deal resignedly with the great escarpments sweeping through the world, like the wall of an enormous time-al wave, lifting artifacts and flashes of people from one era to another in a way that is a metaphor for shifting perspectives as you age.

Steve Rasnic Tem and his wife Melanie were the writers-in-residence at the 2014 Odyssey Writers Workshop which I attended with many wonderful students and two remarkable writers-in-residence. Melanie died the following spring, and we all miss her wisdom and kindness greatly.

 Trapped in most of these layers were visible figures—some of them blurred, but some of them so clear and vivid that when they were looking in his direction, as if from a wide window in the side of a building, he attempted to gain their attention by waving. None responded in any definitive way, although here and there the possibility that they might have seen him certainly seemed to be there.
The vast majority of these figures appeared to be ordinary people engaged in ordinary activities—fixing or eating dinner, housecleaning, working in offices, factories, on farms—but occasionally he’d see something indicating that an unusual event was occurring or had recently occurred. A man lying on his back, people gathered around, some attending to the fallen figure but most bearing witness. A couple being chased by a crowd. A woman in obvious anguish, screaming in a foreign language. A blurred figure in freefall from a tall building. 




   My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
developed by Lauren Faust
First time travel: 10 Mar 2012

Not until the fourth reincarnation of the My Little Pony cartoons did Twilight Sparkle dabble in time travel by receiving a dire warning from her future self (“It’s about Time,” Episode 20 of Season 2).

 Who are you? I mean, you’re me, but I’m me, too. How can there be two me’s? It’s not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible! 




   Virgin Media Commercial
acted by David Tennent and Richard Branson
First aired: Spring 2012

 Rich? Rich?! 




  Spider Webb #2
Paradox Resolution
by K.A. Bedford
First publication: 29 Mar 2012

Time machine repairman and ex-cop Spider Webb has another case of a time machine gone astray: This time it’s his boss’s souped-up time machine that’s been stolen, and of course it must not fall into the wrong hands.

 Now Spider’s new boss, Mr. J.K. Patel, wanted him to figure out how to bring in more business by offering a paradox resolution service as well. 


   “Living in the Eighties”
by David Ira Cleary
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr/May 2012

Living in Minneapolis, fifty-something Bob Marshall and his cult-band friend Clayton discover a website that can move them through time: Bob back to the eighties where he longs to save his long-dead girlfriend Gretchen from his younger self; Clayton to the future where he seeks a diabetes cure.

 “This web site, Bob,” he said to me, shaking the snow off his black beret, sitting down beside me at the bar, ”it’s a time travel site. Time travel?” 


Moe Berg

   Wilber’s Moe Berg Stories
by Rick Wilber
First story: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr/May 2012

At the end of Wilber’s first Moe Berg story, Moe himself admits that he doesn’t know what’s going on, and I admit that I’m in the same boat—but I can tell you that that was the first story that I read in the Moe Berg subgenre of time travel stories. In this case, Red Sox catcher Moe Berg travels (as he did in real life) to Zurich with the mission to kill Heisenberg, but this is only one of many Moe Berg lives; in many of those lives he interacts with a beautiful young woman and seeming time-travel agent who only sometimes encourages him to kill Heisenberg. You can also read about Moe in one other of Wilber’s alternate history stories and at least one independently conceived story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
  1. Something Real (Apr/May 2012) Asimov’s
  2. At Palomar (Jul 2013) Asimov’s

 But I have to admit I’m not real sure what’s going on here. 




   The Shadow Out of Time
adapted by Richard Svensson and Daniel Lennéer (Lennméer and Svensson, director)
First release: 3 Apr 2012 (internet)

A short adaptation of Lovecraft’s story, but just narration over video with no dramatization (similar to the story itself for that matter).

 This is the story of the nightmare that took hold of my life. 




   “Older, Wiser, Time Traveler”
by M. Bennardo
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, Apr 9. 2012

Time machines are useful after you commit a crime, especially a crime of passion.

 It doesn’t need to be anything fancy—one of those ones from the kits in the back of Popular Mechanics will do fine. But the point is that you need one. If you don’t have one, then forget about it. There’s nothing you can do. 




   “The Sanctimonious Time Traveler Trap”
by Larry Hodges
First publication: Quantum Muse, May 2012

Bob travels from the future to save skydiver Harvey, whose chute is fated to not open.

 Okay, Bob, why won’t my parachute work? And does everyone in the future dress like a cucumber? 




   Men in Black III
by Etan Cohen (Barry Sonnenfeld, director)
First release: 23 May 2012

When Boris the Animal escapes from lunar prison and returns to 1969 to kill Agent K and expose Earth to attack, Agent J must follow to save Agent K and Earth.

Tim and I saw this with Michelle on Fathers Day Eve in 2012.

 This is now my new favorite moment in human history. 




   Continuum
created by Simon Barry
First episode: 27 May 2012

Policewoman Kiera Cameron is sucked into a time transporter when a group of seven terrorists escape from 2077 to 2012. For me, the main drawback is the stereotyped terrorists whom Kiera fights; I felt that they didn’t need to be pure evil, particularly when the governments of the future have all be overtaken by corporations.

 Time traveler—hello? 




   僕だけがいない街
English title: Erased (translated from Japanese)
aka Bokudake ga Inai Machi (The Town Without Me)
by Kei Sambe (aka Kei Sanbe)
First publication: Young Ace (Jun 2012 – Mar 2016)

From time-to-time, Satoru Fijinuma, a 29-year-old hopeful manga artist, finds himself propeled through time in order to prevent tragedies. Usually, these are short trips in time, but when his mother is murdered, Satoru finds himself back at age ten where he must change things to prevent the far-future murder of his mother and the present-day murders of his classmates.

The eight-volume English version of the manga appeared in 2017-18 with the title Erased.

 I'm afraid . . . of digging deeper into myself. 


   “The Widdershins Clock”
by Kali Wallace
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jun 2012

I didn’t understand the significance of the title clock in this story story told from the point of view of Marta who could have been a brilliant mathematician, but such was not allowed in 1950s America, so instead we hear of Marta’s grandmother’s clock and a search for the missing grandmother, meeting (along the way) at least one old woman who seems out of time.

 Grandma and I have a theory about how John Carter found his way to Mars. We think we can explain it with Schrödinger’s equation. 




   The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee
by John Hambrock
First time travel: 3 Jun 2012

Young Edison Lee is Danny Dunn (from my childhood) crossed with Bill Watterson’s Calvin (from my kids’ childhood), complete with a time machine (which both Danny and Calvin also had). The first appearance I saw was in 2012, although it wasn’t until 2014 that the real travelin’ seemed to start, with a trip back to 1972.

Even then, though, I almost put the whole thing into the it’s-only-in-his-imagination category, but what could possibly be more real than a kid’s imagination?

 Edison Lee: So do me a favor. In forty-two years don’t let me “borrow” your tools without your knowledge to build this stupid time machine.
1972 Dad: I’m such a horrible father.
Edison Lee: And buy more chocolate milk. 




   Safety Not Guaranteed
by Derek Connolly (Colin Trevorrow, director)
First release: 8 Jun 2012

Shy, beautiful Darius, an intern at Seattle Magazine, goes to investigate an awkward guy who placed an ad calling for a companion for a time-travel adventure.

Janet and I saw this for our 32nd anniversary. What a wife!

 Stormtoopers don’t know anything about lasers or time travel. They’re blue collar workers. 




   Cars Toon: Mater’s Tall Tales
created by John Lasseter
First time travel: 16 Jun 2012

Mater, the sidekick in Cars and the hero of Cars 2, spins a good yarn in each episode of this Disney Channel series, including a time trip to Radiator Springs.

 Wait a minute—if Stanley don’t stay here in the past . . . ah choo! . . . ahhhh! . . . there’ll be no town here in the future! 




   “Elsewhere”
by Benjamin Rosenbaum
First publication: Strange Horizons, 18 Jun 2012

No, I don’t understand Benjamin Rosenbaum’s stories any more than you do (and quite possibly no more than the author does), but the fact remains that I like the images in his writing (such as “Droplet”), and in “Elsewhere” I detected something that could be time travel as much as Anything Else. And foolish you thought I never fell for abstract art.

 That’s how they beat the time-skew problem: Not Very would express sentiments and opinions aloud, then shuffle through the images to find those which contained (and had always already contained) Unlike Themselves’ responses. 


   “Zip”
by Streven Utley
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jul 2012

Three time travelers—Chernikowski, Plant, and the narrator—keep going further and further back in time to escape the wave of destruction that’s seemingly following their time machine.

 I do not have to be a physicist, and I certainly am not one, to recall Einstein’s words: “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion.” 






   Geico Happier-Than Commercials
First aired: Aug 2012

 . . . happier than Christopher Columbus with speedboats. 

  Hey. They’re comin’. Yeah, British. Later. 




   “My Wife Hates Time Travel”
by Adam-Troy Castro
First publication: Lightspeed, Sep 2012

When a not-so-brilliant man and his similarly equipped wife find out that one of them is destined to invent time travel, they end up continuously fighting, not the least cause of which is their future selves popping in all the time, intent on informing them that they should do this and not that.

 Being the future inventors of time travel wasn’t all bad, of course. It was great to know that we’d never lose anything, never go to a movie that turned out to be a stinker, never buy a book we wouldn’t want to finish, never go out to a restaurant where the service was lousy, and never get stuck in a traffic jam, because we’d always be warned away, beforehand. It was terrific to have some future version of myself pop in just as I was about to irritate my wife with some inconsiderate comment and tell me, “It would be a really bad idea to say that.” 




   Marvin
by Tom Armstrong
First time travel: 2 Aug 2012

Precocious little Marvin Miller was a baby/toddler for all of his comic strip life until, on his thirtieth anniversary, grown-up Marvin came back in time to take the tyke to see his future. The process of time traveling had the side effect of aging the baby to an adult, but worry not: Marvin reverts to his tiny self on the return trip.

 It’s just that I was kind of hoping that when I grew up I’d look like Brad Pitt, not Opie. 




   Time Again
by Ray Karwell, C.S. Hill and Debbie Glovin (Karwell, director)
First release: 21 Aug 2012

When Sam (the good sister) fills in for waitress Marlo (the not-so-good one) at the diner, a bad guy leaves a time of ancient coins that end up getting Sam killed by the bad guy’s even badder boss, but fortunately 70-year-old Agnes also has some of the coins which repeatedly let Marlo go back to try to change things.

 Man Customer: Relativity’s the best.
Woman Customer: I’m sorry, but Time’s Arrow is much better. 




   “12:03 P.M.”
by Richard Lupoff
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sep 2012

After the events of “12:02 P.M.,” Myron Castleman finds that he can jump back to different times, not just 12:01 P.M., and that he can make small changes that have big consequences—although it’s still nearly impossible to get anyone to believe his story, except, perhaps, for Dolores.

 The man in the dark suit has become the most talked-about mystery man in the world. Who is he? Where did he come from? He appeared and unquestionably saved the life of one President but inadvertently—we presume inadvertently—caused the death of another. 




   Dodge Dart Commercial
First aired: 5 Sep 2012

 Send future guy home. Destroy time machine. 




   The Garfield Show
created by Jim Davis
First time travel: 18 Sep 2012

At least one episode of our favorite cat’s cartoon show (’It’s about Time.” written by Mark Evanier) includes a time machine in which a jealous Nermal goes back in time to replace Garfield at the pet shop when he was first adopted by Jon. After that, Garfield still has his Jon-centric memories, but nobody at Jon’s house recognizes the lasagna-eating cat.

 Interviewer: Professor Bonkers, is it true you’ve invented a time machine?
Professor: That is correct.
Interviewer: How long did it take you?
Professor: The rest of my life. I actually finished it 47 years from now, and then when I was done, I jumped into my time machine and came back here to today in it. 




   “Professor Jennifer Magda-Chichester’s Time Machine”
by Julian Mortimer Smith
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 19 Sep 2012

Each time professor Magda-Chichester invents her time machine, it turns out that someone else has already beaten her to the punch.

 And yet it didn’t happen like that. 




   Looper
by Rian Johnson (Johnson, director)
First release: 28 Sep 2012

Too much exorcist and not enough consistent time travelin’ for my taste; even so, I enjoyed this story of a future where gangsters send inconvenient people back in time to be killed by hitmen in the past, and eventually each hitman is sent back to be killed by himself.

 If I hurt myself, it changes your body; so, does what I do now change your memory? 


   “The Mongolian Book of the Dead”
by Alan Smale
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2012

When the Chinese invade Mongolia, a wandering American named Tanner is taken by four Mongols because he has a critical role to play for Khulan and her shaman sister Dzoldzaya.

 To her all times are one, all distances are one. 




   “The Number Two Rule”
by Lesley L. Smith
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 23 Oct 2012

What happens when a time-travel agent completes her mission in the past but the recall mechanism fails?

 We didn’t have any other rules, just the two. 


   “The Man in the Pink Shirt”
by Larry Niven
First publication: Analog, Nov 2012

Hanny Sindros, a writer, travels back to meet John W. Campbell, Jr., and talk about whether the Nazis might gain something from Cleve Cartmill’s atomic power stories.

 What if these German spies see that Astounding has suddenly stopped publishing anything about atomic bombs? What would they do? They’d think we were hiding something. 


   “Tech Support”
by Richard A. Lovett
First publication: Analog Science Fiction, Nov 2012

Still uncertain about what to call his new device to transmit voice over wires, young Alec receives a call from a troubled man who can only be from the future.

 Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you. 


Another of Carhart’s stories appeared in this 2015 anthology.

   “And Yet, It Moves”
by Susan Nance Carhart
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 6 Nov 2012

Solberg—a rich, individualist inventor—insists on using his time machine without having it vetted by his staff, and he thereby falls into a trap. Perhaps I have just read too much time travel (blasphemy!), but I feel that Carhart fell into the same trap as her protagonist: For me, the story needed to be vetted by someone who could say how much this particular idea needs a new twist if it’s to work.

 You have a team to vet your ideas. Bring them in on this! 




   “Since You Seem to Need a Certain Amount of Guidance”
by Alexander Jablokov
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 6 Nov 2012

Alex Jablokov brought this funny story for the students to read at the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2014. The story, in the form of a letter from the future, tells us how much happier and better the future is. And don’t contact them again!

I loved meeting Alex. He is kind and mentoring to new writers!

 We do not think the Marx Brothers are funny. 




   Bravest Warriors
by Pendleton Ward and Breehn Burns
First time travel: 8 Nov 2012

In the year 3085, the four children of the Courageous Battlers (who died) form a new team to right wrongs (such as that time loop in the first regular episode, “Time Slime”) across the universe using the power of their emotions and other moop.

 Repair the time loop! Save Glendale! 


   “The Mouse Ran Down”
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
First publication: Carnage: After the End, Volume 2, 15 Nov 2012

John, Ellie and Marcus have a spot in late 16th century London where they live nine months of the year to escape the destruction of the Now, but even the future of that space is uncertain as the enemy hunts them.

 Living space is tough to find, though—there just aren’t many places in any city of any time that will stay overlooked for the duration. The invisible spaces of Babylon in 1700BC would already be staked out and claimed by whoever was taking refuge there. 


   Dino Time
aka Back to the Jurassic
by Greco, Rosenblatt, Beechen, Park, Choi and Kafka (Choi and Kafka, director)
First publication: 30 Nov 2012 (straight-to-video)

Rocket-boarding Ernie Fitzpatrick is always pushing his mom’s rules to the limit (and beyond) along with his best friend Max (and usually tailed by his tattle-tale sister Julia). On one escapade, the trio accidentally activates Max’s dad’s time machine and end up back in the age of friendly, anthropomorphic T. Rexes.

 See that carving? It’s been dated all the way back to the Cretacious period. Which is weird, ’cause who could have carved it? No humans were around 145 million years ago, just dinosaurs. 




   “He Could Be Ambrose Bierce”
by Shannon Kelly Garrity
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 11 Dec 2012

Mona, who works as a file clerk in the modern-day Wisconsin office of the Time Displacement Bureau, suspects that her new nieghbor may be a displaced time traveler or time terrorist, but her awkwardness prevents her from effectively findout out more.

 Skirmishes with Purity were no laughing matter, and any traveler who showed the slightest inclination toward interfering with the past would find his or her license permanently removed.
But it made for a good story. 




   The New Yorker Cartoons
by Tom Toro, et. al.
First one that I saw: 17 Dec 2012

I’d wager there have been many New Yorker cartoons with time machines, but the first one I saw came to me from my high school friend Jim Martin, written and drawn by Tom Toro in the 17 Dec 2012 issue (I think) and reprinted in a Readers’s Favorites contest in 2013.

 You invented a time machine to come back and . . . 




   “The Ghosts of Christmas”
by Paul Cornell
First publication: tor.com, 19 Dec 2012

A depressed, pregnant scientist is the first to try her own machine that takes her backward and forward into her own body on a myriad of Christmas Days.

 If I stopped now, I was thinking, the rest of my life would be a tragedy, I would be forever anticipating what was written, or trying . . . hopelessly, yes, there was nothing in the research then that said I had any hope . . . to change it. I would be living without hope. I could do that. But the important thing was what that burden would do to Alice . . . If I was going to be allowed to keep Alice, after what I’d seen. 



And Still More Time Travel of 2012
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “Causality” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 25 Jun 2012
—branching universes suck

  “Final Effect” by Desmund Hussey, 365 Tomorrows, 12 Aug 2012
—mention of tachyons

  “Drunken Paper Dolls” by Clint Wilson, 365 Tomorrows, 30 Aug 2012
—time machine in copy mode

  “Ghost of Christmas Future” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 5 Sep 2012
—janitor visits himself

  “Stranded” by Suzann Dodd, 365 Tomorrows, 10 Nov 2012
—traveler not picked up

  “The Loneliness of Time Travel” by George R. Shirer, 365 Tomorrows, 25 Nov 2012
—traveler hooks up with self




Romance Time Travel of 2012
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Ravenhurst 1: Forgotten Time by Lorraine Beaumont

  Ravenhurst 2: Shadows of Yesterday by Lorraine Beaumont

  Ravenhurst 3: Time to Remember by Lorraine Beaumont

  River of Time 4: Bourne & Tributary by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  MacCoinnich 4: Highland Shifter Vows by Catherine Bybee

  Hide in Time by Anna Faversham

  A Time for Everything (aka Shadows in Time) by Ann Gimpel

  Second Chances 1: Come Home to Me by Peggy L. Henderson

  Magic of the Highlands 1.5: Highland Games by Laura Hunsaker

  Civil War Brides 7: The Bride Pursued by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Civil War Brides 8: The Bride Accused by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Celtic Brooch 1: The Ruby Brooch by Katherine Lowry Logan

  Warrior 1: Warrior's Redeption by Melissa Mayhue

  Warrior 2: Warrior's Last Call by Melissa Mayhue

  Warrior 3: Warrior Reborn by Melissa Mayhue

  Timeless 1.5: Secrets of the Time Society by Alexandra Monir

  Roman 1: Love, Eternally by Morgan O'Neill

  Roman 2: After the Fall by Morgan O'Neill

  Roman 3: Return to Me by Morgan O'Neill

  Time Spirit 3: Pure Blood by Melissa Pearl

  Heritage 1: Out of the Past by Dana Roquet

  Blue Bells 2: The Minstrel Boy by Laura Vosika

  Overseas by Beatriz Williams

  After Cilmeri 2: Winds of Time by Sarah Woodbury

  After Cilmeri 4: Crossroads in Time by Sarah Woodbury

  After Cilmeri 5: Children of Time by Sarah Woodbury

  After Cilmeri 6: Exiles in Time by Sarah Woodbury




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Memories of My Mother” by Ken Liu, Daily Science Fiction, 19 Mar 2012 [time dilation ]

  “Glass Future” by Deborah Walker, Nature, 25 Oct 2012 [precognition ]



   Chrononauts Game
designed by Andrew Looney
First publication: 2013

Although I don’t usually put time-travel games in the list, it is my list and I can do what I want, such as listing this card game that Hannah and Paul gave to me on our ferry trip to Victoria. Each character in the game has the goal of adjusting the timeline back to their original home settings; and each character’s card includes a super-quick flash story, which as far as I can tell has nothing to do with the character, but is fun nonetheless.

 The Time Traveler swiped Shakespeare’s still-warm corpse (replacing it with a synthetic replica) and restored his health using 23rd-century medical technology. “Now write!” he commanded. 


   “Boomerang”
by Russell James
First publication: Out of Time: Five Tales of Time Travel, 2013

When Robbie’s tenure comes to an end as a historical researcher at the Bridenbaugh Institute, he’s offered the chance to actually study the Great Depression in person—but only because another wacko has gone back to change history.

 Yes, but to do it, you are letting a kidnapper brutally murder a child. There’s a moral case for Akako’s actions. 


All royalties from Out of Time are donated to Doctors without Borders.   “The Paths We Choose”
by Paul Siluch
First publication: Out of Time: Five Tales of Time Travel, 2013

A janitor in a physics lab uses the lab’s time travel cage to go back in time and alter the outcome of abusive moments that made him who he is.

 Intelligence was a wind blowing humanity faster and faster. But a man can hide from the wind, he thought. Even change its direction for a moment. 


The authors of the Out of Time anthology also published this second volume a year later.   “A Thousand Different Copies”
by Janet Guy
First publication: Out of Time: Five Tales of Time Travel, 2013

Lieutenant Kyuoko Morioka travels seventy years into the past to bring the inventor of time travel to her day because strange anomalies are appearing in the time stream.

 I’m from seventy years in the future, and we need you to save us all. 


from Teresa Robeson’s website   “Unfillable Void”
by Teresa Robeson
First publication: Out of Time: Five Tales of Time Travel, 2013

Cindy Lau’s mother died when Cindy was young, motivating adult Cindy to invent time travel in order to spend as much time as possible with her mother before the death.

 Nobody thought Cindy would devote her life to studying the nature of time solely to fill the hold in her heart, even as she immersed herself in the subject during the last year of her undergrad degree. Nobody believed she would succeed when the mechanics of temporal movement had eluded some of the greatest minds in physics. 


from Kelly Horn’s website   “The Widow in the Woods”
by Kelly Horn
First publication: Out of Time: Five Tales of Time Travel, 2013

Grad student Max has just four hours to find his shady his shady friend's brother who's been lost in time at an old archaeological dig site.

 I didn't lose him in the woods. I lost him in time. 




   El último pasajero
English title: The Last Passenger (translated from Spanish)
by Manel Loureiro
First publication: 2013

Reporter Cataline Soto, aka Kate, takes an assignment covering wealthy Isaac Feldman’s attempt to recreate the exact situation that led to him being discovered as the only survivor on a Nazi cruise ghost ship in 1939.

 If they can go back in time, they’ll be able to help Hitler avoid making the same mistakes that led to his defeat. Stalingrad. Normandy. None of it will have ever happened. 




   Pizza Hut Commercial
First publication: Jan 2013

 Invest in the internet. 


A revised version of the story appeared as A Time Foreclosed in 2013.   “Time Out”
aka “A Time Foreclosed”
by Edward M. Lerner
First publication: Analog, Jan/Feb 2013

Ex-felon Peter Bitner jumps at the chance for a steady job with Dr. Jonas Gorski, only to end up debating time-travel paradoxes and ethics with the disgraced scientist who keeps building bigger and bigger time machines.

 Stop Hitler and what else do you alter? Millions of lives saved, sure, but billions of lives changed. 


   “The Woman Who Cried Corpse”
by Rajnar Vajra
First publication: Analog, Jan/Feb 2013

Ali Campbell-Lopez’s mother dies and comes out of a coma for the fourth time under circumstances that imply Ali has powers that will interest various national security agencies and enemy spies, prompting a violent assault on Ali and her teenage daughter, soon followed by the appearance of a much younger, time-traveling version of her mother.

 You wanted to build a time machine to go back and save my grandfather! 




   Robot Chicken
created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich
First time travel: 20 Jan 2013

Claymation Doc Brown and his somewhat faulty time machine comes to Robot Chicken in Episode 16 of Season 6 (“Eaten by Cats”). Unlike Claymation Marty, I kinda like the Weinermobile version. Bonuses in this episode: Thor’s hammer and Cap’s shield, Hawkeye’s bow, and Hulk’s cathater, and possibly Nick Fury’s gun.

 If I’m gonna build a time machine, it’s got to be iconic. I’m not gonna use a Honda f-bleep-ing Civic! 




   John Dies at the End
adapted by Don Coscarelli (Coscarelli, director)
First release: 25 Jan 2013

Dave’s friend John takes a psychedelic drug (given to him by Bob Marley—no, not that Bob Marley) giving him a distorted sense of time and pitching him into an interdimensional battle with leech monsters. It’s possible that there’s time travel, too, or at least a time telephone.

 You know what I think? You’re going to be getting phone calls from me for, like, the next eight or nine years, all from tonight. 




   Man in the Emppty Suit
by Sean Ferrell
First publication: Feb 2013

After inventing a time sled at age 18, Sean Ferrell’s hero treks through history, periodically returning to a post-apocalypse party that he holds for only himself in an abandoned New York hotel. It seems like the perfect party with the perfect company until at age 38 he takes pity on a younger self, stopping the Youngster from breaking his nose in a fall and setting off a chain of untetherings wherein the past lives of his many selves are no longer following the same path—especially that of his 39- and 40-year-old selves, the Elder of which is murdered.

 The old man’s rheumy eyes watered at me. “Welcome to the secret club of the convention, boy. Now you know. This is where you die.” 




   The Time Portal Stories
by David Erik Nelson
First story: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 2013

In the first story, Taylor, the orientation guy from HR in a fabrication company tells us how his company brings in workers from other times because they’re cheaper than contemporary labor.

In the fun second story, Travis, an HR man for the company that imports laborers from other times, begins recruiting radicals throughout time—such as Suze and her gang in 1995 Nebraska—but he and Suze soon discover that avoiding The Sound of Thunder is more difficult than killing Hitler.
  1. The New Guys Always Work Overtime (Feb 2013) Asimov’s
  2. There Was No Sound of Thunder (Jun 2014) Asimov’s
  3. Where There Is Nothing, There Is God (Dec 2016) Asimov’s

 Anyway, we tried, me and Deke. I personally tried four different times. But Hitler is a really charismatic baby. 




   Hyperfutura
by Eric Kopatz and James O’Brien (O’Brien, director)
First release: 1 Feb 2013

In the future, when a worker loses his job, he has little choice but to participate in medical experiments, such as the experiment that Adam Leben undertakes to become a new type of human who will then be sent back to seed the Earth.

 I’ve got a few kinks I’ve got to work out. You see . . . see, it fragments the personality right now, and there’s . . . no return. 




   “The Time Travel Device”
by James Van Pelt
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 7 Feb 2013

One of my rules is that time travel must involve interaction, which this story—of a literary engineer visiting deaths of his literary heroes—might not have, but I like James Van Pelt enough that I wanted to list the story anyway (and mark my first visit to Daily Science Fiction).

 Time travel existed, but I could not interact with the past or the future. 




   “Pioneers”
by Bob Newbell
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 14 Feb 2013

When the crew of the Tsiolkovsky took off on a 100-year hibernation journey to Alpha Centauri, they didn’t quite realize what their legacy as pioneers would be

 Starship Tsiolkovsky, this is the Haven Space Station calling. Please respond. 




   Time
by Liam Connor (Connor, director)
First release: 17 Feb 2013

In this seven-minute short, Australian schoolboy Jimmy tells his three mates about the special thing his future self left for him to find.

 If time travel became possible within our lifetime, and one of us was able to use it and, perhaps, go back and leave a message or an object for ourselves to find—what would that be? It could be anything, anywhere: a note on your wedding day, a super-powerful ray gun, even some weird perpetual motion machine. 


   “Pre-Pirates”
by Don D’ammassa
First publication: Analog, Mar 2013

Somewhat lazy computer science graduate Teresa Grant has the power to see written words before they are written, whereupon she publishes the best on her website.

 Could you steal something that didn’t exist yet? 




   “Uncertainty”
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 2013

For me, the main story of time-travel agent Leah wandering from one World War II encounter with Heisenberg to another did not have a clear notion of time travel, and the ties to the uncertainty principle were not germaine to the story. The exposition of the uncertainty principle itself was also confused, conflating it with the observer effect and not correctly representing the fact that a particle cannot simultaneously possess both a sharply localized position and a sharply localized momentum. On the other hand, I did enjoy the opening scene with Moe Berg, and the mix-ups are partly from his layman’s point-of-view.

 Werner Heisenberg’s controversial uncertainty principle was one of the cornerstones of quantum physics. Heisenberg postulated that it was possible to know a particle’s position or that it was possible to know how fast the particle moved, but no one could know both the position and movement of the particle at the same time. Berg had spent quite a bit of time in Oxford, talking with leading scientists as he prepared for this job, and one of them used a description that moved away from particles into theory, which Berg appreciated. That scientist had told Berg that at its core, Heisenberg’s principle meant this: The act of observing changes the thing being observed. 




   1001 Nights
created by Aly Jetha and Shabnam Rezaei
First time travel: 26 Mar 2013

In the one time travel episode (“The Man Who Went Back in Time”) of this Canadian cartoon, Shahrzad tells of a ne’er do well man who complains that he could been a contender had he only had the same breaks as his neighbor.

 That coulda been me. I coulda been rich and successful. But no . . . 


   “The Wall”
by Naomi Kritzer
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr/May 2013

In 1989, a college freshman named Meghan receives a visit from her future self who encourages her to investigate the fall of the Berlin Wall later that year.

 I’m you. You from the future. 




   Esurance Commercial

 Oh! And your car is a time machine. 


I like this silly image (from columbiatalk.blogspot.com) enough to use it for the story, even though these aren’t Pankau’s Eraser Men.

   “Leaving Home”
by Kurt Pankau
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 8 Apr 2013

Agents of the Temporal Response Bureau—a.k.a. Eraser-Men—protect the timeline, but given what happened to her husband, Grace does not approve when her own 17-year-old son applies to become an agent and is accepted.

 Last summer I applied to join the Temporal Response Bureau. 


   “For Fleur”
by Ian Anderson
First publication: Tales of Hope and Time, 20 Apr 2013

As John Elliot’s wife lies dying of a malignant lymphoma, his technology gathers information about cures from the future.

 Fleur’s type of lymphoma was very malignant. The specialists told them that there would be a fifty percent chance of a ’cure’. He felt helpless in the doctors hands and as a scientist he knew enough to be very frightened, but he dare not show it. 




   “Grief in the Strange Loop”
by Rhonda Eikamp
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 23 Apr 2013

A ten-year-old boy manages to first lose his sister in 11th-century Britain (via his father’s time machine) and then lose his Pop somewhere in the 9th-century Bulgarian Empire. The sister is found fairly quickly, but not until thirty years later does an archeology colleague bring a clue as to exactly where his father might be.

 When he’d left the room for a moment Sis dared me to send her somewhere. 


   The Change Storm Stories
by Rand B. Lee
First story: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May/Jun 2013

For some reason, the world has splintered into a multitude of pockets from different times and different timelines. Who ya gonna call? Whitsun: pocketbuster.
  1. “Changes” F&SF, May/Jun 2013
  2. “The Judging” F&SF, Nov/Dec 2014

 But nobody had any explanations to proffer concerning why the Storm had splintered the world into probability-zones, replacing slices of the known, familiar present with slices of past, future, or alternative presents more or less probable. 

—from “Changes”




   Star Trek: Into Darkness
by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof (J.J. Abrams, director)
First release: 17 May 2013

Tim denies it, but there’s a little-known rule that says that any time Spock Prime gets to talk to new Spock, the movie is counted as possessing time travel under a grandfather clause, even if said movie contained no actual new time travel.

For me, the dark aspects of the movie were nothing but forced melodrama, although it did have great special effects, terrific casting of the principles, and fun trekkie jokes. Those positives, though, weren’t enough to cover up the plot holes and Kirk’s questionabe decisions. Good grief, just blast the bad guy with a photon torpedo rather than blasting your way through a bunch of Klingons (who never harmed you) to give the guy a fair trial. And if you don’t do that, at least blast him to bits on the bridge of that dreadnaught.

 As you know, I have made a vow never to give you information that could potentially alter your destiny. Your path is yours to walk and yours alone. 




   “Private Memories”
by Michael Haynes
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 20 May 2013

The narrator loops over the same stretch of a few minutes over and over in order to talk you out of suicide, and then a second set of loops, and . . .

 I watch you commit suicide for the fourth time. This time I almost have you talked out of it. 


Betancourt is the editor of many sf story megapacks which have an occassional new story and many other fine stories that are from the public domain.

   “Try, Try Again”
by John Gregory Betancourt
First publication: The Time Travel Megapack, Jun 2013

After Dr. Keith O’Conner sends a message back in time to save his dead son, it seems that there is always one more message that needs sending.

 It was a matter of life and death for Dr. Keith O’Conner. Not his life, but the life of his son. That’s why he had invented time travel . . . the transmission of electrically charged impulses back through the years to a human brain . . . his brain, to be precise. 


The story also appeared in this 2015 anthology.

   “Jinki and the Paradox”
by Sathya Stone
First publication: Strange Horizons, 3 Jun 2013

Mathematical beings called the Rathki set up three experimental human colonies, one of which includes Jinki, a child made of light, and Mr. Quest, a trickster whose job is to generate random errors. Jinki would rather talk with Mr. Quest than anyone else, because he talks of interesting things such as Alice in Wonderland, the dangers of recursive wishes on falling stars, walking through Time, and (most importantly) avoiding pa-ra-dox!

 There’s many a reason a light baby mustn’t walk through Time. You shouldn’t, Jinki, because you’re tied with the human timeline, you’d cause a thing, a great big knot of a thing like a briar-rose patch, called a paradox. A pa-ra-dox! 


Wilson has also written a series of Flatworld books about a world beyond the void.

   “The Time Goblin”
by Clint Wilson
First publication: 365 Tomorrows, 3 Jun 2013

Wilson tells of a unique being who waits at wormholes to gobble time travelers.

 His kind has known of time travel since before ninety-five percent of all time traveling species in the known galaxy. 




   “Note to Self”
by Hans Hergot
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 4 Jun 2013

Thomas meets a messenger from the future who brings him six words.

 I am from the future. You won a contest, in the future, to send a message to your younger self. 


Shvartsman also edits the Unidentified Funny Objects series.

   “True Love”
by Alex Shvartsman
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 6 Jun 2013

Molly goes back in time to try to experience the true love of Helen of Troy of Cleopatra, but she is disappointed that she can only observe. Based on that, I was about to relegate the story to the no-time-travel pile, when I spotted something that changed my mind.

 We can only be spectators of the past. Passengers, along for the ride. 


   7 Against Chaos
by Harlan Ellison and Paul Chadwick
First publication: Jun 7, 2013

Paul Chadwick’s exquisitely detailed and dynamic art illustrates Harlan Ellison’s story of a band of seven resilient misfits from across the solar system who are led by the deeply scarred Roack, hoping to bring an end to the time chaos that plagues Earth.

The work comes across as dated, but still, I enjoyed seeing the latest work from my childhood friend, Paul Chadwick.

 The crisis computers say the structure of Earth’s local field of time itself is collapsing. Eras are mixing. 


   The Rewind Agency Series
by Jill Cooper
First book: 10 Jun 2013

In a world where highly regulated time travel permits only observation, teenager Lara Crane Montgomery discovers that she can interact with the past. So, she becomes determined to use her fifteen minutes in the past to prevent her mother’s murder, not knowing that those actions would lead to her father’s conviction for attempted murder (and to a series of follow-up books)
  1. 15 Minutes (10 Jun 2013) save Mom
  2. Plugged (23 Mar 2015) aftermath for Lara

 “When you go back in time, you’re a hologram. You know that, so how can you change the past?” Rick says.
I swallow hard. “When I went back on my birthday . . . I touched stuff while I was there. I helped people. I know I can do this. I know.” I shrug. “I think I’m special.” 


   “Without You”
by Craig Allen
First publication: 26 Jun 2013

In a Big Brother world, Eric is supposed to be working on eavesdropping technology for the government, but instead he builds a secret time machine to rescue Anna, a young singer who is repeatedly killed in various violent mishaps.

 No!
No, damn it! It couldn’t be.
But it was, and her young life ended like that.
But only in one timeline. 


   “Dear Tomorrow”
by Simon Clark
First publication: The Mammoth Book of Time Travel, Jul 2013

Among the myriad of sad stories of people who desperately wish to turn back the clock—John Salvin who loses his wife and child in a vanished plane, Kamana Banerjee who loses her husband to a random bullet—a reality tv program, Impossible, Isn’t It?, plans to archive the most heart-wrenching of the stories for future time travelers who may respond to those pleas by coming back to appear on the program and providing solice.

 What’s more, it’s my personal belief that time machines will be invented one day; that’s why I’m inviting time-travelling viewers from the distant future to visit us at our rendezvous point on Mount Snowden in North Wales, on the tenth of July— 




  
 Dino-Mating #1
“Not with a Bang”
by Rosemary Claire Smith
First publication: Analog, Jul/Aug 2013

Marty Zuber, a lovesick time-ship pilot and bodyguard on Dr. Derek Dill’s trip to the late Cretaceous, is sulky because the girl he’s dating keeps making eyes at Dill in the t-mail messages.

Later stories in the series continue the love triangle.

 Can you comment on the rumors that you’re secretely planning on launching missiles to knock the comet off course and save the dinosaurs? 




   The Chronic Argonauts Graphic Novel
adapted by Jason Quinn and Russ Leach
First publication: ebook, Jul 10, 2013

Writer Jason Quinn and artist Russ Leach render Wells’s Time Machine precursor as a graphics novel, expanding the story to include an alien invasion (could it be War of the Worlds?) two millenia in the future.

 They’ve got no manners, those English. 




   “Diamond Doubles”
by Eric Brown
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 16 Jul 2013

A novel writer from the fourth millennium is trapped in the 1960s and subjecting a contemporary editor to his work.

 I have first-hand experience of life in the fourth millennium as I hail from that era. 




   Timeholes
by Paul F. Taylor and Toby Williams (Ben Mallaby, director)
First release: 16 Jul 2013 (internet)

What will happen when time travel becomes as commonplace as hopping on a bus? This short film tells us in just two minutes.

 The nearest booth’s down there, on the left. 


In addition to writing fiction, Pinsker rocks out on her home page.

   “Join Our Team of
Time Travel Professionals”
by Sarah Pinsker
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 18 Jul 2013

Magda lands a job that many people would jump at: watching after time-travel tourists to make sure they don’ screw up the time line, but who watches the watchers?

 Manhattan in 1985 didn’t have jawbone communications, but it did have plenty of bag ladies who talked to themselves. Magda was temporarily one of them. 


Pickett’s first story (“Diatra”) appeared in the second DSF anthology.

   “Sticks and Stones”
by Kevin Pickett
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 24 Jul 2013

A man returns to the school where he was bullied as a child.

 The little boy crouched defensively, making a smaller target for their cruelty, but knowing their aim was good. 




   “Timeless Bore”
by Peter Wood
First publication: Stupefying Stories Showcase, 26 Jul 2013

A none-too-wealthy time traveler insists on passing the time of day in Mac’s two-pump filling station in Perdue, North Carolina.

 As the man from the future droned on and on, Mac immersed himself in the paper. He grunted every so often to feign interest. 




   Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
adapted by James Krieg (Jay Oliva, director)
First released: 30 Jul 2013 (direct-to-dvd)

By my count, the Flashpoint comics by Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert had a total of 72 comics, but it all fit in 81 minutes of this animated dvd in which the Flash awakens without his powers in a world where the rest of the Justice League is at war with pretty much everyone. Initially, he blames his arch-enemy Professor Zoom for messing with the timeline, but it turns out that it’s not Zoom who needs to be stopped from time traveling.

 We have to find out what he changed and change it back before they kill everyone on the planet. 




   Rewind
by Justin Marks
First aired: 26 Aug 2013

For this rejected-series pilot, mega-handwaving went into creating a setting where a government team could send people back to change the past in a way that the team and the travelers can remember the original timeline and observe the effect of any changes—somewhat like Seven Days but without without the charm of Lt. Frank Parker. My thought is that one particular plot device totally missed the boat: The team has a technology that allows them to confidently predict the outcome of any proposed change before enacting it. Imagine how boring The Butterfly Effect would have been had Evan had such a technology in his pocket. Even so, I would have watched this series if it had ever made it into full production.

 Basically, Charlie can show us how an action in the past creates ripples in the present. 


This was the first professionally published story that I read by one of my Odyssey Workshop classmates—nicely done, Chip!

   “Flip Side”
by Chip Houser
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 29 Aug 2013

The story follows a woman in the moments after a traffic accident.

 Look before you cross, Tommy! 


   “Affirmative Auction”
by James Morrow
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sep/Oct 2013

A Plutonian captain in the Pangalactic Virtue Patrol brings his time-traveling spaceship to a South Carolina slave auction in 1801 for a muddled morality lesson.

 . . . we have journeyed here from our mutual sun’s ninth body to rectify an anomaly that for over two centuries has corrupted your civilization. 




   Insidious: Chapter 2
by Leigh Whannell and James Wan (Wan, director)
First release: 13 Sep 2013

The first scene goes back to the time of Josh (the dad in Insidious) as a boy when he was possessed by a woman in white. The movie then returns to the present day, just after Josh murdered the exorcist who had treated him as a child, and gives a horrorific, supernatural explanation of it all. Oh, yes: If I understood this right, the filmmakers are not the only ones who go back in time.

 Specs: Lorraine, is that Josh?
Lorraine [frightened]: How is that possible? 




   “Eternity and the Devil”
by Larry Hodges
First publication: The Haunts & Horrors Megapack, 19 Sep 2013

Dr. Virgil Nordlinger makes a deal with the devil in which Nordlinger will formulate the Grand Unified Theory of physics, live on this Earth for another fifty years, and spend the rest of eternity in hell.

 After solving GUT, I moved on to temporal studies. 




   The Rush Revere Series
aka Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans
by Rush Limbaugh and Kathryn Adams Limbaugh
First book: Oct 2013

Twenty-first century history teacher Rush Revere visits key points in American history.
  1. Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims (Oct 2013)  
  2. Rush Revere and the First Pilgrims (Mar 2014)  
  3. Rush Revere and the American Revolution (Oct 2014) with K.A.L.  
  4. Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner (Oct 2015)  

 The experience over the past several months is not something I want to repeat. 


   “The Time Travel Club”
by Charlie Jane Anders
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2013

At Lydia’s second time at the Time Travel Club, she tells them of her pirate activities in the past and her solar sail demolition races in the future, which is all well and good until the outlandish Madame Alberta shows up and asks them all to help her with ethical questions of building a real time machine, not to mention figuring out a rather strange use for the thing.

 They already have warrantless wiretaps and indefinite detention. Imagine if they could go back in time and spy on you in the past. Or kill people as little children. 




   Dimensions:
a Line, a Loop, a Tangle of Threads
by Antony Neely (Sloan U’Ren, director)
First release: 9 Oct 2013

Imagine that you’re a boy in 1921 Cambridge when your sister dies falling down a well. What would you do? Naturally, you’d vow to become a great scientist in an artsy movie so you can go back in time to alter the tragic event.

 Annie: Are you ready to leave?
Stephen: Yes.
Annie: How long will it take?
Stephen: I don’t know: seconds, decades, an eternity.
Annie: An eternity? For a few moments together?
Stephen: Yes. 


Larsen’s first story appeared in this anthology.

   “Chronology of Heartbreak”
by Rich Larson
First publication: Daily Science Fiction, 10 Oct 2013

Jack heartlessly breaks up with Kristine in a restaurant.                                                                                    

 The professor was idling the time machine. 




   Free Birds
by Jimmy Hayward and Scott Mosier (Hayward, director)
First release: 1 Nov 2013

Reggie, the turkey who’s awarded the Thanksgiving presidential pardon, has it pretty cushy until he’s kidnapped by Jake for a mission (via time machine S.T.E.V.E., voiced by George Takei) to stop the first Thanksgiving.

 We’re going back in time to the first Thanksgiving to get us off the menu. 




   About Time
by Richard Curtis (Curtis, director)
First release: 8 Nov 2013

Poor Rachel McAdams—always the bride, never the time traveler. This time it’s romantic comedy with Domhnall Gleeson in the time traveling co-star role. For me, the writer/director had a good vision, but couldn’t make it gel.

 I can’t kill Hitler or shag Helen of Troy, unfortunately. 




   Pete’s Christmas
by Peter McKay, Gregg Rossen and Brian Sawyer (Nisha Ganatra, director)
First release: 8 Nov 2013 (made-for-tv)

We all watched this on a visit to Colorado by Hannah and Paul, and everyone agreed that it was a nice (and moralistic) Groundhog Day take-off with 14-year-old Pete reliving Christmas until he gets it right.

 Santa forgot my present? Again?! 




   The In Times Like These Series
by Nathan Van Coop
First book: 13 Nov 2013

Athletic, twenty-something Ben Travers chases through time along with none other than a scientist’s beautiful daughter in this adventure series.
  1. In Times Like These (2013)
  2. Chronothon (2015)
  3. The Day After Never (2016)

 Next thing we know, they’ll be rolling out a Delorean. 




   “Unsolved Logistical Problems in
Time Travel: Spring Semester”
by Marissa Lingen
First publication: Nature, 21 Nov 2013

The instructor of a laboratory/field practicum in time travel presents project ideas.

 2. Queueing theory for assassination tourism: If a dozen time travellers show up to assassinate Hitler in the chaos after the Beer Hall Putsch, who gets precedence? 




   Kristin’s Christmas Past
aka Last Chance Holiday
by Rachel Stuhler
First release: 23 Nov 2013

Thirty-four-year-old Kristin, miserable and estranged from her family, is given a Christmas bottle of champaign by a New York City liquor store owner, and after taking a sip, she wakes up beside her seventeen-year-old self with a chance to fix all her past wrongs.

Janet and I watched this on Christmas Day in 2015, shortly after watching Rachel Stuhler’s similar but later movie, Back to Christmas.

 You’ve had a lotta years to make mistakes: It’s my turn now! 




   Get a Horse!
by Paul Briggs, Nancy Kruse, Lauren MacMullan and Raymond S. Persi (MacMullan, director)
First publication: 27 Nov 2013

Out on a 2-D black-and-white hayride, Mickey and the gang run afoul of Peg-Leg Pete, who knocks Mickey into a 3-D color future.

 I’m gonna knock you right inta next week! 


   “The Chorus Line”
by Daniel Hatch
First publication: Analog, Dec 2013

Billionaire Mr. Croesus thinks Eric Cunningham faked the 4-million-year-old images of our ancestors dancing that made such a hit on YouTube recently, and he intends to prove it.

 The concensus is that butterflies don’t know anything about regression analysis. Things tend to return to their mean over time 




   95ers: Echos
aka 95ers: Time Runners
by Thomas Gomez Durham, James Durham and Kip Rasmussen (T.G. Durham, director)
First release: 12 Dec 2013

At the start, a young girl’s father has died and then snow starts falling upward. Later, after a slightly creepy falling-in-love by a man named Horatio, there’s an FBI agent, quite possibly Fox Multer, who’s very good at guessing things. Then her husband dies and we discover that her good guessing comes from being able to wind back time a few seconds—and I’m lost, my patience exhausted before any meaning appears.

 Account locked out.
Account locked out.
Account locked out.
Account locked out
Account locked out.
Password accepted.
[Sally smiles.] 



And Still More Time Travel of 2013
The story pilots haven’t yet taken these adventures out for a test drive.
  “Be Patient, Brethren” by Patricia Stewart, 365 Tomorrows, 16 Jan 2013
—astronaut repeated tossed back

  “Dinner with the Morlocks” by David Barber, 365 Tomorrows, 24 Feb 2013
—blood-suckers from the future

  “Ghost in the Machine” by Clint Wilson, 365 Tomorrows, 7 Mar 2013
—observe but don’t be observed

  “Steampunk” by David Stephenson, 365 Tomorrows, 10 Mar 2013
—time machine blueprints are found

  “Traveller’s Mistake” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 13 Mar 2013
—jokester time traveler

  “A Swirl of Chocolate” by K. Esta, 365 Tomorrows, 11 May 2013
—stop yourself from traveling

  “It All Makes a Difference” by James McGrath, 365 Tomorrows, 8 Jun 2013
—to 1066

  “Party for Two” by Kevin Richards, 365 Tomorrows, 20 Jun 2013
—Hawking’s time travel party

  “Flux” by J.D. Rice, 365 Tomorrows, 10 Jul 2013
—robot from the future

  “Historicity” by Bob Newbell, 365 Tomorrows, 24 Jul 2013
—realities of time travel

  “Pulped” by Bob Newbell, 365 Tomorrows, 29 Jul 2013
—Dr. Sinistral’s evil time machine

  “Intentional Paradox” by Clint Wilson, 365 Tomorrows, 20 Aug 2013
—early humans receive tools

  “Timecasting” by Duncan Shields, 365 Tomorrows, 22 Sep 2013
—the first time traveler

  “Life Itself” by Richard Halcomb, 365 Tomorrows, 2 Nov 2013
—to Primal Earth

  “The Longest Distance” by Aaron Koelker, 365 Tomorrows, 18 Dec 2013
—a long distance relationship




Romance Time Travel of 2013
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Aura by ABRAHAM M.A. Abraham

  Aura by M.A. Abraham

  Challenge 3: Playboy's Challenge by Jo Barrett

  MacCoinnich 5: Highland Protector Vows by Catherine Bybee

  Outlander 7.2: The Space Between& by Diana Gabaldon

  Outlander 7.3: Virgins by Diana Gabaldon

  Second Chances 2: Ain't No Angel by Peggy L. Henderson

  Civil War Brides 9: The Brides United by Tracey Jane Jackson

  Slains #2 Thew Firebird by Susanna Kearsley

  Roses in Moonlight by Lynn Kurland

  Celtic Brooch 2: The Last MacKlenna by Katherine Lowry Logan

  Warrior 4: Warrior Untamed by Melissa Mayhue

  Timeless 2: Timekeeper by Alexandra Monir

  Italy 1: The Other Side of Heaven by Morgan O'Neill

  Italy 2: Time Enough for Love by Morgan O'Neill

  Heritage 2: Into the Future by Dana Roquet

  Tennessee Waltz 2: Kiss Me, I'm Yours by Bella Street

  Spirit Path 1: The Spirit Path by Tammy Tate

  Spirit Path 2: The Secret Path by Tammy Tate

  St Mary's 1: Just One Damned Thing after Another by Jodi Taylor

  St Mary's 2: A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor

  St Mary's 2.5: When a Child Is Born by Jodi Taylor

  Westin 1: Living London by Kristin Vayden

  Westin 2: Surviving Scotland by Kristin Vayden

  Blue Bells 3: The Water is Wide by Laura Vosika

  After Cilmeri 7: Castaways in Time by Sarah Woodbury




No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Gazing Into the Carnauba Wax Eyes of the Future” by Keffy R.M. Kehrli, What Fates Impose, 2013 [precognition ]

  Martha Speaks (”Bulldozer Versus Dinosaur“) by Ken Scarborough, cd .. [just a dream ]

  “The Golden Age of Story” by Robert Reed, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Feb 2013 [despite title, no time travel ]

  Martha Speaks (”Bulldozer Versus Dinosaur“) by Ken Scarborough, 1 Feb 2013 [just a dream ]

  Bones (“The Fact in the Fiction”) by Keith Foglesong, 25 Feb 2013 [despite appearances, no time travel ]

  “Ahead of His Time” by Ian Anderson, Tales of Hope and Time, 20 Apr 2013 [time phenomena without time travel ]

  “Doing Emily” by Joe Haldeman, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 2013 [virtual reality ]

  “The Grande Complication” by Christopher Reynaga, Writers of the Future XXIX, Jun 2013 [stopping time ]

  “Karina Who Kissed Spacetime” by Indrapramit Das, Apex Magazine, Jun 2013 [alternate timelines ]

  “Old Dead Futures” by Tina Connolly, tor.com, 17 Jul 20913 [visions of possible futures ]

  “Hiking in My Head” by Gareth D Jones, Daily Science Fiction, 12 Aug 2013 [no definite time travel ]

  Sleepy Hollow created by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Phillip Iscove and Len Wiseman, 16 Sep 2013 [long sleep ]

  “No Others Are Genuine” by Greg Frost, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2013 [no definite time travel ]

  Bacardi Through Time Commercial, Nov 2013 [no definite time travel ]

  “Images of Undiluted Love” by Joanna Kavenna, New Scientist, 17 Dec 2013 [viewing the past ]

 

843 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)