The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1956



   “Consider Her Ways”
by John Wyndham
First publication: Sometime, Never, 1956

An amnesiac woman, Jane Waterleigh, awakens in an all-female future world with four castes (mothers, doctors, servants and workers), and she can only assume she’s in a dream or hallucination where she finds herself in an enormous body whom the doctors and servants call “Mother Orchis.”

 Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways. 


   “The Futile Flight of John Arthur Benn”
by Richard Wilson (as by Edward Halibut)
First publication: Infinity Science Fiction, Feb 1956

A man with a death wish wishes himself back in time.

 Now, he thought, what? This was scarcely dinosaur country. 




  Tales of Magic #2
Knight’s Castle
by Edward Eager
First publication: Feb 1956

The children of the first book are now grown up, but Martha and her husband have children of their own, Roger and Ann, who spend a summer with their cousins Jane and Mark (sprung from Katharine). It was that summer that the oldest of Roger’s toy soldiers came to life and took them all to the age of Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, chivalry, and knights.

 It happened just the other day, to a boy named Roger.
Most of it happened to his sister Ann, too, but she was a girl and didn

t count, or at least that

s what Roger thought, or at least he thought that in the beginning.
Part of it happened to his cousins Jack and Eliza, too, but they didn

t come into it till later. 




   “The Message”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Feb 1956

Time traveler and historian George tries to travel back to World War II without making any changes to the world.

 George was deliriously happy. Two years of red tape and now he was finally back in the past. Now he could complete his paper on the social life of the foot soldier of World War II with some authentic details. 




  
 Reggie Rivers #1
“A Gun for Dinosaur”
by L. Sprague de Camp
First publication: Galaxy, Mar 1956

Dinosaur hunters Reggie Rivers (no relation to the Denver Bronco) and his partner, the Raja, organize time-travel safaris in a world with a Hawking-style chronological protection principle.

In 1992, Silverberg asked de Camp to provide one sequel to the by-then classic “A Gun for Dinosaur.’ De Camp complied and used it as a springboard to write seven more stories over the next year. All those stories plus the original Reggie River adventure were published together in the 1993 collection Rivers of Time. After de Camp’s death, Chris Bunch wrote a tenth story as a tribute to the master.

 Oh, I’m no four-dimensional thinker; but, as I understand it, if people could go back to a more recent time, their actions would affect our own history, which would be a paradox or contradiction of facts. Can’t have that in a well-run universe, you know. 




   “Second Chance”
by Jack Finney
First publication: Good Housekeeping, Apr 1956

A college student lovingly restores a 1923 Jordan Playboy roadster—a restoration that takes him back in time.

 You can’t drive into 1923 in a Jordan Playboy, along a four-lane superhighway; there are no superhighways in 1923. 




   “The Failed Men”
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: Science Fantasy, May 1956

Surry Edmark, a 24th century volunteer on a humanitarian mission to save mankind from extinction some 360,000 centuries in the future, tells his story to a comforting young Chinese woman.

 You are the struback. 




   Through Time and Space with
Ferdinand Feghoot
by Grendel Briarton (aka Reginald Bretnor)
First story: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1956

Under the anagramatic name Grendel Briarton, Reginald Bretnor began a series of pun-terminated short, short stories in the May 1956 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, some of which included time travel. Among others, they were a hit with Asimov both imitated and republished them in “Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in the 1970s, and they also appeared in various other magazines. In fact, they were such a hit that any story-pun now goes by the generic name of a feghoot. But despite enjoying unforced puns, for me this kind of story is like a cross between that guy who built the Ark and the yellow part of a banana.

 “Marsh in flying sauce oars,” said Ferdinand Feghoot. 

—Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot LXIII




   “In the Cards”
by Alan Cogan
First publication: Galaxy, Jun 1956

Newlyweds Gerry and Marge are brought to the verge of divorce by a troublesome machine that shows the future without fail. That machine—the Grundy Projector—causes numerous problems in society, although (as we all know), viewing the future is not time travel. In this story, however, the solution to the Grundy problems does include a dose of real traveling.

 It’s no different than reading a story and then having to relive the whole thing, anticipating each action and bit of dialogue. 




   “The Man Who Came Early”
by Poul Anderson
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jun 1956

An explosion throws Sergeant Gerald Robbins from the 1950s to about 990 AD Iceland where, dispite his advanced knowledge, he had trouble fitting in.

 Now, then. There is one point on which I must set you right. The end of the world is not coming in two years. This I know. 




   “Absolutely Inflexible”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Fantastic Universe, Jul 1956

Whenever one-way jumpers from the past show up, it’s up to Mahler to shuffle them off to the moon where they won’t present any danger of infection to the rest of humanity, but now Mahler is faced with a two-way jumper.

 Even a cold, a common cold, would wipe out millions now. Resistance to disease has simply vanished over the past two centuries; it isn’t needed, with all diseases conquered. But you time-travelers show up loaded with potentialities for all the diseases the world used to have. And we can’t risk having you stay here with them. 


Classics Illustrated 133

Pendulum Press (1971)

   Classics Illustrated’s The Time Machine
adapted by Lou Cameron (art), Lorenz Graham (story) and George Wilson (cover)
First publication: Classics Illustrated 133, Jul 1956

This first comic book adaptation appeared in the month of my birth. Of course, as a self-respecting child of the ’50s and ’60s, I was never seen reading Classics Illustrated in public. Fortuntately, adults everywhere can now read the classic comic online.

A black and white version was reprinted in 1971 by Pendulum Press as a precursor to their original Pedulum Classics series.

 Then I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands and went off into time. 




   “Compounded Interest”
by Mack Reynolds
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Aug 1956

“Mr. Smith” shows up in 1300 A.D. to invest ten gold coins at 10% annual interest with Sior Marin Goldini’s firm, after which he shows up every 100 years to provide guidance.

 In one hundred years, at ten per cent compounded annually, your gold would be worth better than 700,000 zecchini. 


   “The Celebrated No-Hit Inning”
by Frederik Pohl
First publication: Fantastic Universe, Sep 1956

If pitcher and star hitter Boley—the league’s best player and certainly on par with Snider, Mays and Mantle—has any weakness, it is a lack of modesty, but the team owner’s uncle has a plan to address that involving the future of baseball.

 Don’t you see? He’s chasing the outfield off the field. He wants to face the next two men without any outfield! That’s Satchell Paige’s old trick, only he never did it except in exhibitions where who cares? But that Boley— 




   The Door Into Summer
by Robert A. Heinlein
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Oct-Dec 1956

Inventor Dan Davis falls into bad company and wakes up 30 years later, but he gets an idea of how to put things right even at this late point.

 Denver in 1970 was a very quaint place with a fine old-fashioned flavor; I became very fond of it. It was nothing like the slick New Plan maze it had been (or would be) when I had arrived (or would arrive) there from Yuma; it still had less than two million people, there were still buses and other vehicular traffic in the streets—there were still streets; I had no trouble finding Colfax Avenue. 


   “George All the Way”
by Richard Wilson
First publication: Galaxy, Oct 1956

Because of his sizeable donation to the time travel project in 1977, playboy Bill Marcer is one of the first to climb in the machine that’s supposed to take him to a fanciful 2177. Upon arrival, those who greet him have thoughtfully studied up on twentieth century slang, and women are paraded before him like commodities.

 “Then everything’s jake,” he said with a visible return of his assurance. “We’ve straightened up and are flying right. Ishkabibble?” 


   “Hopper”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Infinity Science Fiction, Oct 1956

I haven’t yet read this short story that Silverberg expanded to a novel in 1967, though perhaps some day I will spot the Ace Double paperback that packaged it along with four other stories and the short novel, The Seed of Earth.

The story also appeared in this 1957 anthology.   “The Man Who Liked Lions”
by John Bernard Daley
First publication: Infinity Science Fiction, Oct 1956

At a zoo, a Nobel time traveler (and mind manipulator) who hunted mankind’s ancestors and communes well with lions tries to evade capture by another Nobel and a Scientist who disapprove of the rift in time that the hunter created.

 “Lions seldom eat people,” said Mr. Kemper. 




   The Stars My Destination
by Alfred Bestor
First publication: Galaxy, Oct 1956—Jan 1957

Even before I found Asimov and Heinlein and other books with space ships on the spine in the local library, I stole this paperback from my dad’s shelf aroudn 1964. As you can see from the picture, it had an irresistible cover (yes, that’s the stolen copy).

For the most part, Bestor’s story has jaunting (teleportation through space) with no time travel, which is enough to cause plenty of excitement for Gully Foyle (aka Geoffrey Fourmyle) as he jaunts around the war-torn solar system, seeking revenge on various space merchants. But at one climactic point, he also manages a jaunt through time.

 And then he was tumbling down, down, down the space-time lines, back into the dreadful pit of Now. 




   “Gimmicks Three”
aka “The Brazen Locked Room”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nov 1956

Isidore Wellby makes a timely pact with the devil’s demon.

 Ten years of anything you want, within reason, and then you’re a demon. You’re one of us, with a new name of demonic potency, and many privileges beside. You’ll hardly know you’re damned. 




   “The Hohokam Dig”
by Theodore Pratt
First publication: Fantastic Universe, Nov 1956

George Arthbut and Sidney Hunt plan to spend their summer at an archeology dig to settle once and for all why the prehistoric Hohokam abandoned their villages, but wouldn’t it be nice if they could talk directly to the ancient people?

 “There’s a few questions I’d like to ask them,” said George. “I certainly wish we had some to talk with.” 


This story also appeared in this 1966 collection.

   “Of Time and Texas”
by William F. Nolan
First publication: Fantastic Universe, Nov 1956

Professor C. Cydwick Ohms has a way of solving the world’s population problem by opening a one-way time door to the wide-open spaces of 1957 Texas.

 And now—good-bye, gentlemen. Or, to use the proper colloquialism—so long, hombres! 


   “It Ends with a Flicker”
by William Tenn
First publication: Galaxy, Dec 1956

Max AlbenMac Albin is genetically predisposed to survive time travel, so he is the natural choice to go back in time and shift the course of a missle that shifted the course of history.

 Now! Now to make a halfway decent world! Max Alben pulled the little red switch toward him.

flick!

Now! Now to make a halfway interesting world! Mac Albin pulled the little red switch toward him.
flick!
 

   “The Sons of Japheth”
by Richard Wilson
First publication: Infinity Science Fiction, Dec 1956

When all Earth is destroyed in World War V, only bomber pilot Ray Vanjan and scientist Dr. Garfield Gar remain in outer space, so Gar sends Vanjan back to nip mankind in the bud at the time Noah and his family emerged from the Ark.

 “I want you to strafe the Ark, exercising car not to hurt any of the animals,” said old Dr. Garfield Gar. 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  The Crossroads of Time by Andre Norton [parallel universes ]

  The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick [precognition ]

  “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick, Fantastic Universe, Jan 1956 [precognition ]

  “A Question of Time” by Edmund Cooper, Fantastic Universe, May 1956 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “The Waitabits” by Eric Frank Russell, Astounding, Jul 1955 [personal time rate differences ]

  Time for the Stars by Robert A. Heinlein, Aug 1956 [time dilation ]

  “Time in Advance” by William Tenn, Galaxy, Aug 1956 [despite title, no time travel ]

 

31 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)