The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1967

   The Time Hoppers
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: 1967

The High Government of the 25th century has directed Joe Quellen (a Level Seven) to find out who’s behind the escapes in time by lowly unemployed Level Fourteens and put a stop to it.

 Suppose, he thought fretfully, some bureaucrat in Class Seven or Nine or thereabouts had gone ahead on his own authority, trying to win a quick uptwitch by dynamic action, and had rounded up a few known hoppers in advance of their departure. Thereby completely snarling the fabric of the time-line and irrevocably altering the past. 


   “Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne”
by R.A. Lafferty
First publication: Galaxy, Feb 1967

The Ktistec machine Epiktistes and wise men of the world decide to change one moment in the dark ages while they carefully watch for changes in their own time.

 We set out basic texts, and we take careful note of the world as it is. If the world changes, then the texts should change here before our eyes. 




   Super Green Beret
aka Tod Holton, Super Green Beret
by Otto Binder (story), Carl Pfeufer (art) and Wayne Marston (art)
First issue: Apr 1967

When teenager Tod Holton dons the magical green beret that was given to him by his uncle, Tod turns into a muscular adult green beret soldier himself with whatever magic power seems to be needed at the moment—including the power of time travel. In the first issue, Tod travels back to a World War II battle in the Black Forest; in the second (and final) issue, Tod plays a role in the American Revolution.

 This is a new one on me! Can my green beret’s supernatural powers even transport me back in time?? 


   “The Doctor”
by Theodore L. Thomas (as by Ted Thomas)
First publication: Orbit 2, Jun 1967

A doctor named Gant volunteers to be the first time traveler and ends up stranded in a time of cave people.

 There had been a time long ago when he had thought that these people would be grateful to him for his work, that he would become known by some such name as The Healer. 


The story also appeared in this 1970 collection.   “The Hole on the Corner”
by R.A. Lafferty
First publication: Orbit 2, Jun 1967

When Homer Hoose arrives home to his perfect home one evening, he is met by other Homers whom the Diogenes Pontifex insists are not Jung’s alternate versions of ourselves, but instead are actual versions of ourselves occupying the same space. None of which has to do with time travel, but the brilliant Diogenes does mention in passing his experiments in other fields. I suppose that’s another Lafferty story, but I haven’t run into it yet.

 “You speak of it as if . . . well, isn’t this the twentieth century?” Regina asked.
“This the twentieth? Why, you’re right! I guess it is,” Diogenes agreed. “You see, I carry on experiments in other fields also, and sometimes get my times mixed.” 


   “Hawksbill Station”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: Galaxy, Aug 1967

Jim Barrett was one of the first political prisoners sent on a one-way journey to a world of rock and ocean in 2,000,000,000 BC; now a secretive new arrival threatens to upset the harsh world that he looks after.

 One of his biggest problems here was keeping people from cracking up because there was too little privacy. Propinquity could be intolerable in a place like this. 




   Lost in Space
created by Irwin Allen
First time travel: 13 Sep 1967

Three seasons with 2 time-travel episodes.
  1. Visit to a Hostile Planet (13 Sep 1967)   to 1947
  2. Time Merchant (17 Jan 1968) back to the launch

 Danger Will Robinson, danger! 




   An Age
aka Cryptozoic!
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: New Worlds, Oct–Dec 1967

Once again, here’s an example that’s not time travel. Instead, an artist name Edward Bush (and others) “mind travel” to the Jurassic (and other ages) where they may view the past without physically traveling. Viewing the past is not time travel. Interestingly, though, the authoritarian government can’t seem to get their hands on the travelers while they’re traveling, so I am gonna count this as time travel.

 On his last mind into the Devonian, when this tragic illness was brewing, he had intercourse with a young woman called Ann. 






  
 Dragonriders of Pern #1
Dragonflight
by Anne McCaffrey
First publication: Analog, Oct 1967 (“Weyr Search”) and Dec 1967–Jan 1968 (“Dragonrider”)

By the time that Lessa of Ruatha Hold becomes Weyrwoman of the only remaining dragon weyr, the end of all Pern seems a possibility since a single weyr is not enough to fight off the falling threads from the Red Star.

Allison Thompson-Brown reminded me that dragons can go when as well as where, and the travel through time always results in a stable time loop, so that dragon travel can never change anything known to be certain in the past. The actual whening part (or going between time, as it’s called) didn’t come until the third installment (Part 2 of “Dragonrider” in the Jan 1968 Analog), but I’ll date the concept back to the slightly earlier appearance of the first story (“Weyr Search” in Oct 1967). The two stories were fixed up into the first Pern novel, Dragonflight, in July of 1968, but it was another ten years before I discovered it.

 “Dragons can go between times as well as places. They go as easily to a when as to a where.”
Robinton’s eyes widened as he digested this astonishing news.
“That is how we forestalled the attack on Nerat yesterday morning. We jumped back two hours between times to meet the Threads as they fell.” 


Aldiss’s story was one of eight that were selected for the first (1969) of three separate paperback volumes that together comprised the original anthology.

   “The Night That All Time Broke Out”
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: Dangerous Visions, Oct 1967

Aldiss confessed that this story contains one of the whackiest ideas that he ever had. Does it contain time travel? You should read the story first and decide for yourself, but here’s my spoil-laden take on the matter:

An invisible, subterranean gas can be supplied right to your house along with controls that let you control its delivery to your brain. Depending on the concentration, the result is to bring aspects of your previous consciousness (or that of your ancestors) right into your present-day brain: physical sensations, bodily abilities, mental attitudes, and the psychological make-up of the chanelled person all take over your body, although you remain present. To me, this could be ancestral memory—perhaps passed down genetically and triggered by the newly discovered gas—but I’m going to list it as time travel.

 Fifi could not understand what on earth he was talking about. Every since leaving Plymouth, she had been adrift, and that not entirely metaphorically. It was bad enough playing Pilgrim Mother to one of the Pilgrim Fathers, but she did not dig this New World at all. It was now beyond her comprehension to understand that the vast resources of modern technology were fouling up the whole time schedule of a planet. 




   “The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World”
by Harlan Ellison
First publication: Dangerous Visions, Oct 1967

A pedestrian blood-and-guts version of Jack the Ripper is pulled from 1888 into a sterile city of the future where he promptly slays Hernon’s granddaughter, an occurrance that leaves the equally evil Hernon unrattled.

 He had looked up as light flooded him in that other place. It had been soot silent in Spitalfields, but suddenly, without any sense of having moved or having been moved, he was flooded with light. And when he looked up he was in tht other place. Paused now, only a few minutes after the transfer, he leaned against the bright wall of the city, and recalled the light. 




   Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
created by Irwin Allen
First time travel: 3 Dec 1967

In the fourth season, the futuristic submarine Seaview and its crew had four time-traveling escapades, including the finale.
  1. Time Lock (12 Nov 1967) to the far future
  2. A Time to Die (3 Dec 1967) to 1,000,000 B.C.
  3. The Death Clock (24 Mar 1968)   Captain Crane is a time-machine guinea pig
  4. No Way Back (31 Mar 1968) to the time of Benedict Arnold

 Suppose we had a working time device. Would we be able to get back aboard Seaview before the explosion, find out what caused it, and prevent it from happening? 

—Admiral Nelson to Mr. Pem in “No Way Back”




   Dark Shadows
created by Dan Curtis
First time travel: 17 Nov 1967

If you were a cool kid in the 60s, you ran home from school to watch Dark Shadows, a vampiresque soap opera that presaged Twilight by about four decades. I wasn’t that cool myself, but my sister Lynda was, and from time to time I overheard her and the cool kids talking about the inhabitants of Collinwood trekking to the late 1700s (in episodes from late 1967 through early 1969) and the late 1800s (in the March 1969 episodes). There may well be other time-travel escapades that have escaped me.

 I’m afraid you must forgive me, miss. If we have met before, I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember it. 

—Barnibus to Victoria Winters when she unexpectedly travels to 1795 for the first time




   Journey to the Center of Time
aka Time Warp
by David L. Hewitt (Hewitt, director)
First release: a forgetable day in 1967

Hewitt was able to take the same plot from his 1964 The Time Travelers, change the blonde to a brunette, and make an even worse movie, which Tim and I really did try to watch on dvd.

 Dr. Gordon: And since space-time is a continuum, the present is only a point moving along that continuum.
Mr. Stanton: When you put it like that, doctor, even I can understand it. 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick, Feb 1967 [odd entropy ]

  “The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy...” by J.G. Ballard, New Worlds, Mar 1967 [despite title, no time travel ]

  The Jewels of Elsewhen by Ted White, Apr 1967 [despite title, no time travel ]

  “To Outlive Eternity” by Poul Anderson, Galaxy, Jun 1967 [time dilation ]

  “Compound Interest” by Christopher Anvil, Analog, Jul 1967 [despite title, no time travel ]

 

19 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)