The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1973



   Frankenstein Unbound
by Brian Aldiss
First publication: 1973

When the weapons of war-torn 2020 open time slips that unpredictably mix places and times, grandfather Joe Boderland finds himself and his nuclear-powered car in 1816 Switzerland along with the seductive Mary Shelley, a maniacal Victor Frankenstein, and Frankenstein’s monster.

 You know, Joe, you are my first reader! A pity you don’t remember my book a little better! 




   The Man Who Folded Himself
by David Gerrold
First publication: 1973

Reluctant college student Danny Eakins inherits a time belt from his uncle, and he uses it over the rest of his life to come to know himself.

 The instructions were on the back of the clasp—when I touched it lightly, the words TIMEBELT, TEMPORAL TRANSPORT DEVICE, winked out and the first “page” of directions appeared in their place. 








   Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon Stories
by Spider Robinson
First story: Analog, Feb 1973

At Mike Callahan’s bar, the regulars listen to the tall tales of all time travelers (and others including aliens, vampires, talking dogs, etc.).
  1. The Guy with the Eyes (Feb 1973) Analog
  2. The Time-Traveler (Apr 1974) Analog
  3. The Law of Conservation of Pain (Dec 1974) Analog
  4. Two Heads Are Better Than One (May 1975) Analog
  5. Unnatural Causes (Oct 1975) Analog
  6. A Voice Is Heard in Ramah . . . (Nov 1975) Analog
  7. The Centipede’s Dilemma (1977) in Crosstime Saloon
  8. Just Dessert (1977) in Crosstime Saloon
  9. The Wonderful Conspiracy (1977) in Crosstime Saloon
  10. Dog Day Evening (Oct 1977) Analog
  11. Mirror/rorriM off the Wall (Nov 1977) Analog
  12. Fivesight (Jul 1979) Omni
  13. Have You Heard the One . . .? (Jun 1980) Analog
  14. Pyotr’s Story (12 Oct 1981) Analog
  15. Involuntary Man’s Laughter (Dec 1983) Analog
  16. The Blacksmith’s Tale (Dec 1985) Analog
  17. The Mick of Time (May 1986) Analog
  18. The Paranoid (from Lady) (Winter 1988) in Pulphouse: Issue Two
  19. Callahan’s Lady (1989) 11 connected stories
  20. Lady Slings the Booze (1991) aka Kill the Editor
  21. The Callahan Touch Mary’s Place book
  22. The Immediate Family (Jan 1993) Analog
  23. The End of the Painbow (Jul 1993) Analog
  24. Off the Wall at Callahan’s 1994
  25. Callahan’s Legacy (1996) collection of quotes
  26. Post Toast (circa 1996) USENET group alt.callahans
  27. Callahan’s Key (2000) new novel
  28. Callahan’s Con (2003) new novel
  29. Too Hot Too Hoot (from Legacy) (Oct 2006) in This Is My Funniest

 And as Callahan refilled glasses all around, the time traveler told us his story. 


   “Linkage”
by Barry N. Malzberg
First publication: Demon Kind, Mar 1973

Donald Alan Freem is only eight, but he’s been institutionalized because of delusions that a time-traveling alien gave him the power to make people do whatever he wants.

 I made you say that. 








   Mad Magazine Movie Spoofs
cornballing by Alfred E. Newman
First time travel spoof: Mar 1973

As a kid, there were always too many comic books to read for me to have much interest in Mad, but in later years, I enjoyed the time-travel movie spoofs (though I’m unsure whether all the spoofs actually included time travel).
  1. The Planet That Went Ape and its sequels (Mar 1973)
  2. Superduperman: The Movie (Jul 1979)
  3. Bleak for the Future (Jan 1986)
  4. Peggy Got Stewed and Married (Apr 1987)
  5. Star Blecch IV: The Voyage Bombs (Jun 1987)
  6. Bleak for the Future Part II (Jun 1990)
  7. Iterminable Too Misjudgment Day (Jan 1992)
  8. Groundhog Deja Vu (Sep 1993)
  9. Star Blecch: Worst Contact (Dec 1996)
  10. Corntact (Nov 1997)
  11. Planet of the Remakes (Nov 2001)
  12. Interminable 3 Rise of the Bad Scenes (Aug 2003)

 For some reason which will never be satisfactorily explained, I have been transported back in time to 1960! I must remember that I’m now eighteen and not forty-three! It’s great to be young again and be back in the good old days when I had nothing to worry about except SAT’s . . . and acne . . . braces . . . and being flat chested and living with insensitive parents . . . and . . . hey, get me out of here and back to the present! 

—from Peggy Got Stewed and Married


   “Paths”
by Edward Bryant
First publication: Vertex, Apr 1973

A traveler from the future makes his way to Morisel’s office to warn the reporter about the consequences of continued mindless rape of the environment.

In addition to acknowledging that Ed Bryant’s stories are among my favorites, I can also add that he is a kind and generous mentor to writers in the Denver area, including myself!

 I don’t want to seem cynical. You may be my ten-times-removed egg-father or something, but right now it’s awfully hard not to believe you’re just a run-of-the-mill aberrant. I mean, here you crawl into my office close to midnight, spread yourself down, and then calmly announce you’re a traveler from the future. 




   ドラえもん
English title: Doraemon (translated from Japanese)
created by Fujiko F. Fujio
First episode: 1 Apr 1973

Doraemon, an imperfect, talking, cat-shaped robot from the futute, imperfectly helps young Nobita through coming-of-age problems. Neither the short-lived 1973 anime series nor the 26-year-long 1979 series made it to English-language tv, but English dubs of the third revival (665 episodes and counting) began airing on the Disney channel in 2014 as Doraemon: Gadget Cat from the Future.

The original manga comic was created by Fujiko F. Fujio.

 I wouldn’t get bogged down in the details right now. The thing to focus on is that ’ve come here to save you from a horrible fate. 

—“All the Way from the Future World”




   Time Enough for Love
by Robert A. Heinlein
First publication: Jun 1973

During his 2000 years of misadventures, Lazarus Long has loved and lost and loved again, so now he’s to die, unless Minerva can think of an exciting adventure: perhaps visiting his own childhood?

 This sad little lizard told me he was a brontosaurus on his mother’s side. I did not laugh, people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply. 


Pendulum Classics (1973)

Marvel Classics 2 (1976)

Academic Industries (1984)

   Pendulum Classics’ The Time Machine
aka Marvel Classics Comics 2
adapted by Otto Binder and Alex Niño
First publication: Jun 1973

There’s a papal dispensation (straight from Clifford Simak) that allows me to list all comic book adaptations of The Time Machine, even if they appeared after 1969. This Alex Niño version was printed as a small black and white graphic novel at least twice (Pendulum Press B&W 1973 and Academic Industries Pocket Classics 1984,). I haven’t seen it directly, but I recently found out that it was colored and printed as the second issue of the Marvel Classics series (cover by Gil Kane), which I first read in Pullman in early 1976. The storyline follows the 1960 movie closely.

 As a trial, I’ll just pull the future lever a short ways. 




   Idaho Transfer
aka Nuclear Escape
by Thomas Matthiesen (Peter Fonda, director)
First release: 15 Jun 1973

A group of secretive scientists develop time travel near Idaho’s Craters of the Moon, discovering a near-future apocalypse. Since anyone much over age 20 can’t survive traveling, they’re in the process of sending a group of young people, including Isa and her withdrawn sister Karen, beyond the apocalypse to rebuild civilization. Things go wrong (not the least of which are the plot, the dialogue,the acting, the sound track, and the requirement that the young Jane Fonda lookalikes must strip to travel through time), but even so, the film has a certain unprepossessing appeal.

 You see, Dad and Lewis are trying to get it together, to secretly transfer a lot of young people into the future, bypassing the eco-crisis or whatever it is. Start a new civilization. 




   “12:01 P.M.”
by Richard Lupoff
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sep 1973

Myron Castleman is reliving 59 minutes of one day over and over for eternity.

 And Myron Castleman would be permitted to lie forever, piling up experiences and memories, but each of only an hour’s duration, each resumed at 12:01 PM on this balmy spring day in Manhattan, standing outside near the Grand Central Tower. 




   Star Trek: The Animated Series
directed by Hal Sutherland and Bill Reed
First time travel: 15 Sep 1973

This series has a special place in my heart because of the day in 1974 when Dan Dorman and I visited Hal Sutherland north of Seattle to interview him for our fanzine, Free Fall. He treated the two teenagers like royalty and made two lifelong fans.

I think the series had only one time-travel story, “Yesteryear” (written by D.C. Fontana), which was the second in Sutherland’s tenure. In that episode, Spock returns from a time-traveling mission to find that he’s now in a reality where he died at age 7, and hence he returns to his own childhood to save himself.

 Captain’s Log, Supplemental: When we were in the time vortex, something appears to have changed the present as we know it. No one aboard recognizes Mr. Spock. The only answer is that the past was—somehow—altered. 


   “Road Map”
by F.M. Busby
First publication: Clairion III, Oct 1973

When Ralph Ascione dies, he is reincarnated as a female baby—but in what year and exactly which female?

 A new sound came; in the blurred distances, something moved. Vaguely seen, a huge face looked over him and made soft, deep clucking noises. Then he understood. 




   Love, American Style
First time travel: 23 Oct 1973

Even today, these vignettes hold a certain charm, although they’re also full of plot holes, and the one time travel episode has logic holes sufficient to drive a Delorean through. Even so, the episode “Love and the Time Machine” is the earliest presentation that I remember where a time machine provides multiple opportunities for a spurned suitor to court the object of his desire.

 Just think, Doctor, the time barrier broken at last. This puts you up there with Albert Einstein! Isaac Newton! Leonard Nimoy!! 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind” by Philip José Farmer, Nova 3, 1973 [memory tricks ]

  Dragonriders of Pern #2.1: “The Smallest Dragonboy” by Anne McCaffrey, 1973 [no time travel ]

  “A Witch in Time” by Janet Fox, Sep 1973 [differing time rates ]

  Sleeper by Woody Allen, 17 Dec 1973 [long sleep ]

 

18 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)