The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1991



   Warlock
by David Twohy (Steve Miner, director)
First release: 11 Jan 1991

A captured warlock in 1691 Massachusetts is thrown forward 300 years to Los Angeles with warlock-hunter Giles Redferne in hot pursuit. Twentieth century chase ensues with pretty nurse Kassandra aiding the hunter.

 A grand grimore? Here? Now? 




   “The Romanian Question”
by Michael Moorcock
First publication: Back Brain Recluse 18, Spring 1991

Jerry appears to be a time traveler (or maybe God) involved with Hitler and the democratic movement in Romania, but really did’t get it. But the bicycle he rides as a time machine shares a description with the time machine in “Behold the Man.”

 The time machine was a sphere of milky fluid attached to the front lamp-holder of a Raleigh “Royal Albert” Police Bicycle of the old, sturdy type, before all the corruption had been made public. 




   “Crossroads”
aka “Cross Roads Blues”
by Paul McAuley
First publication: Interzone, Apr 1991

In an alternate 1960s America where the U.S. is isolationist and Adam Clayton Powell is president, Time traveler (or “Loop rider”) Ike Turner has a fascination with blues player Bobby Johnson, so he sticks around a bit longer than he should in 1937 to meet the musician. It shouldn’t be a big deal; after all, according to Einstein, not even the Loop riders can change the past.

 Anyway, he went away maybe a year, and I don’t know if he went to the crossroads with ol Legba or not, but Son House told me when he came back he was carryin a gitar, and asked for a spot like old times. Well, Son was about ready to take a break, and told Bobby Johnson to go ahead and got himself outside before the boy began. But that time it was all changed. That time, he tol me, the music he heard Bobby Johnson make put the hair on his head to standin. 




   “Robot Visions”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1991

A team of Temporalists send robot RG-32 200 years into the future where it seems to almost all that mankind is doing better than expected on Earth and in space.

 RG-32 was a rather old-fashioned robot, eminently replaceable. He could observe and report, perhaps without quite the ingenuity and penetration of a human being—but well enough. He would be without fear, intent only on following orders, and he could be expected to tell the truth. 


   Outlander
aka Cross Stitch
by Diana Gabaldon

I am a snob. Normally, I relegate time travel romances to the slag heap at the end of each year. But this novel changed the whole genre from a backwater to a raging waterfall, so it gets its own happy spot in the grown-up list.

 The truth is that nothing moved, nothing changed, nothing whatever appeared to happen and yet I experienced a feeling of elemental terror so great that I lost all sense of who, or what, or where I was. I was in the heart of chaos, and no power of mind or body was of use against it. 




   “The Gallery of His Dreams”
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First publication: Axolotl Press, Jul 1991

Having spent his life and his fortune documenting the American Civil War, pioneering photographer Mathew Brady is repeatedly visited by a woman of the future who asks him to photograph the horrors of the wars she knows, starting with Hiroshima.

 “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Brady said. He didn’t turn to see which portraits she had indicated. “I didn’t mean to offend you. These portraits show what war really is, and I think it’s something we need to remember lest we try it again.” 




   T2: Judgement Day
by James Cameron and William Wisher, Jr. (Cameron, director)
First release: 1 Jul 1991

Once more, the machines from 2029 send back a killer cyborg, this time a T-1000 to kill John Connor himself in 1995, but Connor of the future counters by sending one of the original Model 101s to save himself.

 Come with me if you want to live. 

—The T-800 to Sarah at the Pescadero State Hospital




   Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon (Stephen Herek, director)
First release: 19 Jul 1991

Two Evil Robots come from the future to kill Bill and Ted and destroy their babes, and after that happens, the Two Great Ones begin a journey that starts with Death and ends with Two Little Ones.

 Look, after we get away from this guy, we use the booth. We time travel back to before the concert and set up the things we need to get him now. 




  Dragonriders of Pern #11
All the Weyrs of Pern
by Anne McCaffrey
First publication: Sep 1991

After the time of the first books, Pern undergoes a technological revival engendered by the rediscovery of the Admin AI built by the original colonists. An ambitious plan to eliminate Thread forever (yeah, like that’s gonna happen) hinges on time travel and blowing up engines on the Red Star.

 Jaxom shrugged as he changed pages. “A dragon has to know exactly the time when he is going to, or he can come out of between at the same spot he’s inhabiting at that earlier time. Too close, and it is thought that both dragon and rider will die. Equally, it’s unwise to go any place you haven’t already been, so you shouldn’t go forward, because you wouldn’t know if you were there or not.” 




   Quantum Leap Comic Books
edited by George Broderick, Jr.
First publication: Sep 1991

Little known fact: The Quantum Leap comic books were actually written and drawn two decades before the birth of their creators, which is the only reason they have been given a special temporal dispensation overriding the law that forbids post-1969 comic books in this list. In the first issue, Sam desperately wants to save Martin Luther King Jr., but he realizes that’s not the reason he’s in Memphis.

 He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. 




   Back to the Future (Animated)
created by Bob Gale
First episode: 14 Sep 1991

After III, Doc Brown and Clara settle and raise a family in Hill Valley, though “settle” might be the wrong word when you once again have a working DeLorean.

 You do sorta look like that J. Michael Fox guy. 




   “Bad Timing”
by Molly Brown
First publication: Interzone, Dec 1991

When Alan’s coworker tells him that an old women’s magazine has a romance story called “The Love That Conquered Time” with Alan himself as the hero, he is dubious, but he reads the thing nonetheless.

 You’re the only reason, Claudia. I did it for you. I read a story that you wrote and I knew it was about me and that it was about you. I searched in the Archives and I found your picture and then I knew that I loved you and that I had always loved you and that I always would. 




   Murder Most Horrid
starring by Dawn French
First time travel: 5 Dec 1991

In this anthology series, Dawn French finds herself in one murder story after another, including one tale of a “Determined Woman” physicist who uses her time machine in an attempt to change the happenings of one particular murder.

 If you don’t get out of this house, I’m going to murder you! 



Romance Time Travel of 1991
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Stolen Brides 0.5: His Stolen Bride by Shelly Thacker




No Time Travel. Move along.
  In the Native State by Tom Stoppard, 20 Apr 1991 [parallel stories in different times ]

  Time’s Arrow or the Nature of the Offence by Martin Amis, Sep 1991 [surreal ]

 

16 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)