Time travel is a common trope in all genres, from fantasy to sci-fi books and everything in between. It is a great way to open up the narrative to multiple time frames and introduce some real brain teasers regarding loopholes and other problems.
The Time Machine – H.G.Wells
Starting off with a classic is always the best idea. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is a classic that has stood the test of time. This work, considered to be among the first of its kind, delves into the ideas of time travel and the weird and wonderful possibilities it contains. The book takes one of the earliest looks at the concept and is perhaps the foundation for all that came afterward. It is a must for any fans of time travel books.
In The Time Machine, our protagonist builds himself a mechanical machine that can jump around in time. Using just a few levers, he can propel himself through thousands of years. However, what he finds as he journeys to the distant future is not something anyone should look forward to. This is a bleak and early example of dystopian fiction.
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Butler is one of our generation’s all-time greats, not only in science fiction but also in literature in general. Her many varied and interesting works are wonderful looks into the various worlds and topics she broaches. In Kindred, we see a black woman and her husband unwillingly jumping through time. Kindred looks at how life has changed for people of color and the many hazards they faced in the past.
While initially exciting, traveling back through time may not be all it pans out to be. Looking at how societies have changed regarding equality, freedoms, safety, and lifestyle reveals just how dangerous time travel could really be. Butler gives us the perspective of a country that not that long ago was an often fatal environment for many.
The Ministry of Time – Kaliane Bradley
If time travel ever becomes a possibility, there is one thing you can be sure of. There would be a ministry that would quickly bureaucratize the whole situation and lock it behind so much red tape nobody would even bother with it anymore. This is the case in The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, as she takes a funny approach to just how mundane the time travel theory could be.
In this book, time travel is possible, and our central character is tasked with being the halfway house for people being taken out of their own time and into the new. She is tasked with taking care of an old sailor pulled from 1987. It is up to her to help him adjust to things like washing machines, Spotify, and the end of the British empire.
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
This time travel book looks at the classic battle between good and evil as a young girl and her friends search for her lost father. On the journey, she travels through many wild and weird places, using the wrinkle in time to jump through time and space to different dimensions.
The story looks at how good can overcome evil. This is a great book for young adults and children as it tackles many moral dilemmas and makes the reader question themselves. The book is a crazy trip through L’Engle’s mind as she takes us on this time travel adventure.
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
The bombing of Dresden was a horrendous act of the Second World War, reducing the city to nothing but rubble. In a semi-biographical manner, Vonnegut recounts his time there, praying for survival. It took him many years to produce this book and talk about his time as a prisoner of war in the city when it was firebombed to rubble.
The time travel in this book is due to the central character’s hectic manner of existence. He can jump backward and forward in his own timeline. The narrative hops from the past to the future in a completely unhinged fashion, playing out scenes on alien spaceships and moments of life from before the war. However, the central theme of being stuck in a city under fire really sticks with me.
The End of Eternity – Isaac Asimov
Asimov has plenty of books to choose from when looking at science fiction, but this, in particular, stands out when thinking about time travel. Paradoxes are always the subject of criticism and skepticism when it comes to time travel books. Still, Asimov doesn’t let that stop him from writing entirely about people messing with timelines. In The End of Eternity, Eternals are able to go back in time and make small tweaks and adjustments to history to ensure that the people of the present are living in comfort.
Of course, love complicates things for one of the Eternals who can travel through time and adjust. He falls for a woman and tries to hide her in time to preserve her when things are changed. This, obviously, causes an awful lot of problems and begins to break down the carefully balanced systems that maintain the ability to time travel. Asimov, in his typical manner, expands significantly on the theories and lore around time travel in this book, resulting in something much more epic than its short read time would usually permit.
The Time Ships – Stephen Baxter
This is actually considered the sequel to The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and has been recognized as such. It’s a continuation of the original story that focuses on the time traveler heading forward to the year previously visited to save one of the small creatures he becomes fond of in the grim future dystopia. However, as is often the case in time travel stories, simply by heading forward and backward in time in the first book, the entire future is now vastly different.
This book examines the problems of time travel and the ways it can warp and change the future. Stephen Baxter is considered a writer of hard science fiction, focusing heavily on the genre’s reality and science rather than its fantasy aspect. He considers how the various choices would affect the future and also the past from the first book, often resulting in catastrophe.
Technicolor Time Machine – Harry Harrison
Time travel doesn’t have to be the doom and gloom that the dystopias of Well and Baxter paint. There can be a comedic factor to the whole thing, too. In Technicolor Time Machine, a failing film director recruits the inventions of a mad scientist to try and shoot a film using the actual dates and locations of the planned story. This is never going to be a smooth ride, though, as the film is written about the Vikings.
The result is a complete mess of breaking down time machines, angry executives wondering where their money is, and violent Vikings causing havoc. This is a real page-turner as every situation pans out to be a disaster, and every decision is the wrong one.
Doomsday Book – Connie Willis
If time travel were possible, it would open up the world of historical studies immensely. With this fantastic time travel book, the premise is just this, but it isn’t an easy process. Our protagonist is planning a trip back to the Middle Ages, a time wrought with disease, war, and suspicion. However, she has an alibi for traveling as a solo woman and inoculation against the plague and other diseases.
Going back in time as an educated person immune to illness isn’t the tough part. The complex calculations and science behind sending her back are a different story altogether. When things start to go wrong in the present, they reflect back in time, making our protagonist’s time in the past much more complex. It’s up to her to survive in a time as hostile as the Middle Ages as they sort things out back in the future.
Before The Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
If you’re looking for a truly beautiful story that tackles the question of what you would do if you had the chance to go back and change one thing, then pick this book up. The simple premise allows people to head back in time, with limits, and experience one small thing that can hopefully enrich their lives, answer questions, or simply satisfy a need.
The coffee shop has been open for a hundred years and provides a unique experience. When the coffee is served, the customer can travel back to the time of their choosing. However, there are rules. Only one seat in the cafe can travel back in time, and only when the ghost that usually sits there goes for a toilet break. The traveler cannot leave their seat, and the only people they can meet are people who have visited the cafe previously. Nothing they do can change the future, and they must return before the coffee gets cold. With its careful rules, this simple premise sets up some beautiful stories of people looking to revisit old memories.
Published: Aug 24, 2024 10:23 am