The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1997



  
 Timeline Wars #1
Patton’s Spaceship
aka Crux of Battle
by John Barnes
First publication: Jan 1997

After the hyperviolent killing of his family, private eye Mark Strang morphs into a self-taught military operative, fighting in a 1960s alternate, Nazi Berkeley against those-who-would-control-all-timelines.

I classify the Timeline Wars as alternate history (or timelines) more so than time travel, but within those timelines, Mark does travel to different epochs.

 The current president was a Nazi; his opponent in the 1960 election had been Strom Thurmond, and the paper seemed to be in hysterics about Thurmond the “sore loser” having the termerity to criticize the government that had won the election. Their reference to him as an “ultra-liberal crazy” came very close to making me laugh out loud . . . I suppose context is everything. 




   Retroactive
by M. Hamilton-Wright, R. Strauss and P. Badger (Louis Morneau, director)
First release: 1 Jan 1997

Kylie keeps going back to the same time in order to stop a psycho killer who has almost as many lives as a Terminator.

 This is about you takin’ hold of your life, codependent no more. 




   Future War
by David Hue and Dom Magwilli (Anthony Doublin, director)
First release: 28 Jan 1997

There’s only one scenario better than having a human slave escaping from the cyborgs of the future and being tracked across present-day Earth by dinosaurs from the past: having all that plus being lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

 From the future traveled a master race of Cyborgs. They made abductions from Earth’s past. The dinosaurs were trained as trackers. The humans were bred as slaves. Now a runaway slave escapes to a place his people call heaven . . . we know it as Earth. 






   The Company Stories
by Kage Baker and Kathleen Bartholomew
First story: Asimov’s, Mar 1997

I’ve read five of Kage Baker’s highly acclaimed stories about a group of entrepreneurial time travelers from the 24th century, the first of which was “Noble Mold” in Mar 1977. Of those, my favorite was “The Likely Lad” about young Alec Checkerfield, abandoned by his blue-blood parents to be raised by the hired help; he longs for adventure on the high seas, which he does obtain—but to be honest, I didn’t think it was via time travel. (Perhaps none of the five Checkerfield stories have time travel, even though isfdb indicates that they’re set in the Company Universe; I shall have to read “The Likely Lad” again!).

In 2012, the first of the Company stories co-authored with Kathleen Bartholomew appeared.

 For a while I lived in this little town by the sea. Boy, it was a soft job. Santa Barbara had become civilized by then: no more Indian rebellions, no more pirates storming up the beach, nearly all the grizzly bears gone. Once in a while some bureaucrat from Mexico City would raise hell with us, but by and large the days of the old Missions were declining into forlorn shades, waiting for the Yankees to come. 






   Files of the Time Rangers
by Richard Bowes
First story: Bending the Landscape: Fantasy, Mar 1997

I’ve read several of the Time Rangers’ stories, including “Straight to My Lover”s Heart’, in which a ranger named Raz (aka Cupid) takes two time-traveling children under his wings—not literal wings, although they could well have been, given the stories’ backdrop of ancient meddling gods.
  1. In the House of the Man in the Moon (Mar 1997) in Bending the Landscape
  2. Diana in the Spring (Aug 1998) F&SF
  3. From the Files of the Time Rangers (6 Sep 2000) Sci Fiction
  4. Straight to My Lover’s Heart (Summer 2001) Black Gate
  5. The Quicksilver Kid (17 Jan 2001) Sci Fiction
  6. The Ferryman’s Wife (May 2001 ) F&SF
  7. Days Red and Green (14 Nov 2001) Sci Fiction
  8. The Mask of the Rex (May 2002) F&SF
  9. Godfather Death (23 Oct 2002) Sci Fiction
  10. From the Files of the Time Rangers (2005) fix-up novel

 Raz’s specialty is outcasts of Time. Runaways. Fugitives. Ones who can’t go home on holidays, because home hasn’t been built yet. Or it’s a place that's long gone or never was. 




   Crime Traveller
created by Anthony Horowitz
First episode: 1 Mar 1997

Unconventional detective Jeff Slade becomes even more unconventional when cute nerd Holly Turner reveals the limited time machine left to her by her lost-in-time father.

 If something has happened, it will happen. 




   Alien Voices Presents:
The Time Machine
adapted by Nat Sagaloff
First publication: two casettes, 1 Apr 1997

Tim had several of the Alien Voices dramatizations which featured the voices of Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and John de Lancie (Q) in classics such as Wells’s The Time Machine. The traveller, called John, was voiced by Nimoy.

 The Traveller: What we call civilization is little more than the history of war interrupted by uncertain moments of peace. Surely mankind aspires to something greater than that.
Filby: Yes, but what does this have to do with geometry, John?’
The Traveller: Everything, Filby, everything.  


   The Loose Ends Stories
by Paul Levinson
First story: Analog, May 1997

Time traveler and history meddler Jeff Harris aims for the 1980s to prevent the Challenger explosion, but instead finds himself in the time of JFK, meets the love of his life, meets other time travelers, toys with the idea of assassinating Nixon and Andropov, and eventually does alter Challenger’s history with unintended consequences for the Soviet Union.
  1. Loose Ends (May 1997) Analog
  2. Little Differences (Jun 1998)    Analog
  3. Late Lessons (Oct 1999) Analog

 Do you think that, if someone had a mind to do it—if someone really wanted to and had the connections—that someone back in 1982 to 1984 could have forced Andropov from office—could have replaced him with someone not so dictatorial? 




  Timeline Wars #2
Washington’s Dirigible
by John Barnes
First publication: May 1997

In the continuing battle to save the timelines, Mark Strang heads to skies of Colonial America and 18th-century Britain.

 She might have said more except that at that moment the sky darkened above us; a passenger dirigible was coming in. I wondered how Chrys was reacting to all this; I knew her home civilization was spacefaring,but after some roaming around in the timelines you realize that’s a bit like knowing that a civilization uses counterpoint in music or the arch a lot in architecture—it isn&rsquyo;t the fact that they use it, but what they do with it, that really matters. 




   When Time Expires
by David Bourla (Bourla, director)
First release: 10 May 1997

Discredited interplanetary time traveler Travis Beck has been relegated to a routine calibration task in a sleepy desert town (where it rains a lot). But excitement arises in the form of a pretty local waitress, Travis’s ex-partner Luke Skywalker, and a team of assassins who have Travis in their crosshairs.

 The Ministry says if I work as an investifator for a couple of years, keep a low profile, not get in any trouble, then they’ll consider me for real work again. 




   “Palindromic”
by Peter Crowther
First publication: First Contact, Jul 1997

I wouldn’t have used the word palindromic to describe the happenings of this story: Aliens arrive in 1964, and their sense of time is backward from ours. It’s not palindromic because they experience the events in backward order: If I spell out the word time, they will hear e-m-i-t. It would be cool, however, to have a real palindromic story where some sequence of events in reverse is the same as that sequence experienced forward, like the expression emit time.

P.S. I just stumbled across another time travel story that is an actual palindrome! Click the
Related: link above!

 He seemed to be trying hard to find the right word. “They’re palindromic.” 




   Contact
adapted by James V. Hart and Michael Goldberg (Robert Zemeckis, director)
First release: 11 Jul 1997

Jodie Foster creates a convincing Ellie in this big screen release of Sagan’s novel.

 You want to classify prime numbers now? 




   Redux Riding Hood
by Dan O’Shannon (Steve Moore, director)
First release: 5 Aug 1997

Five years after the fact, Wolf is still haunted by the debacle that followed after his slip of the tongue (“All the better to eat you with”) gave the game away to Red, even though his wife Doris begs him to forget about it and move on with his life.

 It’s a time machine. Don’t you see? Now I can go back and have another shot at Little Red Riding Hood. 




   Lurid Tales: The Castle Queen
by Randall Fontana (Ellen Cabot, director)
First release: 26 Aug 1997

Economics student Tom Dunsmore has no clue what he’ll write his paper on. One potential topic is the reign of Charles I, but the video arcade/house-of-ill-repute down the street beckons. Fortunately, the also has an advanced chair that takes him back to a 17th century England and a castle full of sex-starved sisters who would do anything—absolutely anything—to keep their land out of the hands of the the Stuart king himself.

 So it’s some sort of new V.R. rig, is that it? 




   Safety Not Guaranteed Classified Ad
by John Silveira
First publication: Backwoods Home Magazine, Sep/Oct 1997

 Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me.                     This is not a joke. 




   The Sticky Fingers of Time
by Hilary Brougher (Brougher, director)
First release: 9 Sep 1997

After watching an H-bomb test in 1952, frustrated writer Tucker Harding finds herself in 1997 where she runs into frustrated, suicidal writer Drew, and then both the writers have a lot of slow-paced angst when editor/friend Isaac explains that Tucker will be killed, causing her stuff to permeate time and infuse lots of other time travelers.

 Think of nonlinear time as a pie. We can eat the pieces in any order, but you can’t eat the same slice twice. And baby, I’ve eaten a lot of pie. 




The bottom-right corners of each book provided a little flip-animation of a morphing character.

   The Animorphs Books
aka The Changelings
by K.A. Applegate
First time travel: Oct 1997

Five kids and their alien friend Ax can change into any animal that they touch, which is a good thing given that they’re the only ones standing between the Yeerks and the conquest of all mankind.

Tim liked the Animorphs even more than their earlier cousin, the Goosebumps books, and I agree. But I asked him recently why the books needed to introduce time travel. Weren’t there enough fantastical elements already? But he pointed out that without time travel, Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias and Ax couldn’t turn into dinosaurs.
  1. The Forgotten (Oct 1997) Animorphs 11
  2. The Andalite Chronicles (Dec 1997) a companion prequel
  3. In the Time of the Dinosaurs (Jun 1998) Megamorphs 2
  4. Elfangor’s Secret (Apr 1999) Megamorphs 3

 “We were blown through time, Jake,” Cassie said. “We aren’t where we want to be, and we aren’t when we want to be.” 




  Timeline Wars #3
Caesar’s Bicycle
by John Barnes
First publication: Oct 1997

Mark Strang heads back to a classic Rome that, because of the evil Closers, isn’t quite our version.

 The bicylce had wooden spoked wheels, but the tires were pretty obviously rubber. The “chain” was a knotted rope, which ran through large wooden pin gears, and it didn’t look like they’d developed the coaster brake yet, which may have explained why they helmet had a number of prominent dents. 




   “A Memory of the
Nineteen-Nineties”
by Teller
First publication: The Atlantic Monthly, Nov 1997

Max Beerbohm, an author in the 1890s and early twentieth century, told a tale of Enoch Soames who made a deal with the devil to visit the Reading Room in the British Museum on 3 June 1997. Famed magician Teller recounts what happened at ten past two on the designated day, a day that Teller has been waiting and planning for for thirty-four and a half years.

 In other words, anyone in the Round Reading Room of the British Museum at ten past two on June 3, 1997, would be able to verify Beerbohm’s memoir, and see an authentic, guaranteed, proven ghost. 




Sabrina and her aunts in the 60s: Far out!

   Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
created by Nell Scovell
First time travel: 7 Nov 1997

The first time travel was part of a four-part crossover of time-travel episodes in Boy Meets World (’40s), You Wish (’50s), and Teen Angel (’70s).
  1. “Inna Gadda Sabrina (7 Nov 1997)”    to the 1960s
  2. “Love in Bloom” (11 Feb 2000) Daniel Boone to the present
  3. “Time after Time” (15 Mar 2002) to when Zelda was in love

 Peace, love and no bathing. 

—Sabrina’s description of the 60’s




Cory and Shawn in the 40s: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys

   Boy Meets World
created by Michael Jacobs and April Kelly
First time travel: 7 Nov 1997

The early episodes had charm, but the one spout of time travel (“No Guts, No Cory”, courtesy of Salem from Sabrina) to World War II was trite.

 Cory—we’re going down to elist. 




Sabrina as E.T. in the closing credits

   You Wish
created by Michael Jacobs
First time travel: 7 Nov 1997

A genie is freed after two millennia to live with a single ’90s mom and her two teens. One of the 12 episodes (“Genie without a Cause” on 11/7/97) takes the family back to the ’50s as part of the Sabrina time-travel night; a later episode (“All in the Family Room” on 5/29/98) had one of the teens run away through time to a pirate ship.



Adult Marcia heads back to the 70s, now in living color!

   Teen Angel
created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss
First time travel: 7 Nov 1997

A teenager’s dead best friend comes back as an angel, but the best thing about the show was that I could continue my crush on Marcia Brady, at least for the first half of the short series which included time travel (courtesy of Sabrina’s Salem) to Marcia’s home time of the ’70s (in “One Dog Night” on 11/7/97). Sadly, the later bit of time travel was Marcialess (“Back to DePolo” on 1/30/98 in which everyone takes a turn at eating the death hamburger that killed teen angel in the first place).

 I miss the 70s. Back then, I was’t sitting at home without a date on a Friday night. 




   Men in Black: The Series
by Duane Capizzi, Jeff Kline and Richard Raynis
First time travel: 20 Dec 1997

I’ve yet to see a modern tv cartoon with animation up to my childhood fare, but the stories of this adaptation of the alien-fighters (based on the Malibu comic, which was based on the movie) are sometimes watchable, including some episodes where the Men time traveled even before Men in Black III.

 Never put off until tomorrow what you can do yesterday. 

—from “The Way Out West Syndrome”



Romance Time Travel of 1997
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Son of the Morning by Linda Howard

  Lennox 2: Touch of Enchantment by Theresa Medeiros

  Wanted across Time by Eugenia Riley

  Stolen Brides 2: His Forbidden Touch by Shelly Thacker




No Time Travel. Move along.
  Foundation’s Fear by Gregory Benford, Mar 1997 [simulacrums ]

  Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery by Mike Myers, 2 May 1997 [long sleep ]

  Time Under Fire by Jeff Fahey, 12 Nov 1997 [alternate timelines ]

 

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)