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The Internet Time Travel Database

Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

Periodicals

Time and Hagakure

by Steven Utley
“Time and Hagakure” by Steven Utley, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Winter 1977.

Alternities, Inc.

Slowly By, Lorena

by John M. Ford
“Slowly By, Lorena” by John M. Ford, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, November 1980.

The River of Time

by David Brin
Daniel Brand, a science fiction writer, walks us through the new world where he lives that started when a large number of people seemingly froze in place.
— Michael Main
Physicians listened to heartbeats that dragged on, lonely and deep, for over a minute per. They worried over eyes that refused to blink, yet remained somehow moist. They despaired over encephalograms whose spikes could be counted in single neuron flashes, adding up to a complex pattern that was . . . normal!
“Co-Existence” by David Brin, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, May 1982.

Hauntings

by Kim Antieau
“Hauntings” by Kim Antieau, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February 1985.

Sailing to Byzantium

by Robert Silverberg
Charles Phillips is a 20th-century New Yorker in a future world of immortal leisurites who reconstruct cities from the past.
— Michael Main
He knew very little about himself, but he knew that he was not one of them. That he knew. He knew that his name was Charles Phillips and that before he had come to live among these people he had lived in the year 1984, when there had been such things as computers and television sets and baseball and jet planes, and the world was full of cities, not merely five but thousands of them, New York and London and Johannesburg and Parks and Liverpool and Bangkok and San Francisco and Buenos Ares and a multitude of others, all at the same time.
“Sailing to Byzantium” by Robert Silverberg, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February 1985.

The Pure Product

by John Kessel
A cynical sociopath from the future goes on a crime spree (sometimes with random blood, sometimes with trite tripping on his future drugs) across 20th-century North America.
— Michael Main
“I said, have you got something going,” she repeated, still with the accent—the accent of my own time.
“The Pure Product” by John Kessel, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 1986.

Aymara

by Lucius Shepard
“Aymara” by Lucius Shepard, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, August 1986.

Ripples in the Dirac Sea

by Geoffrey A. Landis
A physics guy invents a time machine that can go only backward and must always return the traveler to the exact same present from which he left.
— Michael Main
  1. Travel is possible only into the past.
  2. The object transported will return to exactly the time and place of departure.
  3. It is not possible to bring objects from the past to the present.
  4. Actions in the past cannot change the present.
“Ripples in the Dirac Sea” by Geoffrey A. Landis, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October 1988.

Everything But Honor

by George Alec Effinger
“Everything But Honor” by George Alec Effinger, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February 1989.

Time’s Arrow

by Jack McDevitt
“Hard Landings” by Jack McDevitt, Critical Mass, Fall 1989.

The Hemingway Hoax

by Joe Haldeman
Literature professor John Baird and conman Sylvester Castlemaine hatch a plan to get rich forging Hemingway’s lost stories, but before long, Baird is confronted by an apparent guardian of the many timelines in the form of Hemingway himself.
— Michael Main
I’m from the future and the past and other temporalities that you can’t comprehend. But all you need to know is that yiou must not write this Hemingway story. If you do, I or someone like me will have to kill you.
“The Hemingway Hoax” by Joe Haldeman, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1990.

The Moment Universe Stories 2

The Miracle of Ivar Avenue

by John Kessel
In 1949 Los Angeles, Detective Lee Kinlaw has writer/director Preston Sturges down in the morgue. The only problem is that Sturges is still alive and well in Hollywood.
— Michael Main
It’s a transmogrifier. A device that can change anyone into anyone else. I can change General MacArthur into President Truman, Shirley Temple into Marilyn Monroe.
“The Miracle of Ivar Avenue” by John Kessel, in Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Antholgy , edited by John Kessel et al., January 1996.

Standing Room Only

by Karen Joy Fowler
On Good Friday in 1865, Anna Surratt pines for one of her mother’s boarders—a certain John Wilkes Booth—not knowing anything of Booth’s plans for the evening, her mother and brother’s possible role in those plans, or the reason for the legion of odd tourists packing the streets in the nation’s capital around Ford’s Theatre.
— Michael Main
“It didn’t seem a good show,” Anna said to Mrs. Streichman. “A comedy and not very funny.”

Mrs. Streichman twisted into the space next to her. “That was just a rehearsal. The reviews are incredible. And you wouldn’t believe the waiting list. Years. Centuries! I’ll never have tickets again.” She took a deep, calming breath. “At least you’re here, dear. That’s something I couldn’t have expected. That makes it very real. [. . .]”

“Standing Room Only” by Karen Joy Fowler, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 1997.

Scherzo with Tyrannosaur

by Michael Swanwick
The director of Hilltop Research Station extinguishes various fires while hosting a donor dinner in the Cretaceous and planning predatory behavior of his own to keep the donor funds flowing, all while ensuring that the mysterious beings known only as the Unchanging remain in the dark about a quagmire of time travel violations.
— Michael Main
It would bring our sponsors down upon us like so many angry hornets. The Unchanging would yank time travel out of human hands—retroactively.
“Scherzo with Tyrannosaur” by Michael Swanwick, Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 1999.

The Hat Thing

by Matthew Hughes
A nameless man tells another how to spot time travelers.
— Michael Main
Sure. Researchers. Tourists. Criminals altering their present by manipulating the past. Religious pilgrims. Collectors. Who knows what motivates people in a million years from now?
“The Hat Thing” by Matthew Hughes, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 2004.

Pug

by Theodora Goss
In the time of Napoleon, a sickly English girl discovers a dog in her garden, and the dog leads her through a door to other times and places.
— Michael Main
(Imagine our relief to learn of Waterloo.)
“Pug” by Theodora Goss, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2011.

Videoville

by Christopher East
In late 1986, geek Tim Stanek (he prefers the term “nerd”) and his high-school buddy Louis are approached one night by an unheard-of sort of person: a sensitive and inclusive football jock who asks them to come with him on a mission that needs their particular kind of resourcefulness.
— Michael Main
AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, NFLX
“Videoville” by Christopher East, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2014.

Meeting the Man from the Future

by Jane Williams
We meet by chance one autumn evening
“Meeting the Man from the Future” by Jane Williams, Asimov’s Science Fiction, January/February 2020.

Not This Tide

by Sheila Finch
Through the eyes of young Rosemary (in 1944 London during the time of buzz bombs and V-2 rockets) and old Rosemary (now called Mary in 2035 Oslo), we see the picture of her whole life from her imaginary friend during the war to her physicist grandson at Princeton.
— Michael Main
“Not This Tide” by Sheila Finch, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, January/February 2020.

Unlooping

by Marie Vibbert
My life, a black vinyl record
“Unlooping” by Marie Vibbert, Asimov’s Science Fiction January/February 2020.

Dream Atlas

by Michael Swanwick
Eleanor, a dream scientist, is visited by her future self in a vivid dream
— Michael Main
Right now, all that matters is that within a month of your waking from this encounter, you’ll be able to duplicate thought projection through short durations of dream-time.
“Dream Atlas” by Michael Swanwick, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2021.

Re: Bubble 476

by A. T. Greenblatt
“Re: Bubble 476” by A. T. Greenblatt, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2021.

Time Traveler at the Grocery Store circa 1992

by Kristian Macaron
Twentieth-century grocery store aisles provide a vision of a world of dust that's coming.
— Michael Main
Some days it’s hard to believe that there’s not something wrong with the lettuce.
“Time Traveler at the Grocery Store circa 1992” by Kristian Macaron, Asimov’s Science Fiction, March/April 2021.

Secret Agent Moe Berg #6

Billie the Kid

by Rick Wilber
In an alternate history leading up to a 1945 atomic bomb in southern California, young Billie “the Kid” Davis grows up in the mid-20th century, playing shortstop better than any of the boys, flying B-25s with her Dad, and eventually—with Moe Berg and the woman-with-many-names—taking on that bomb.
— Michael Main
This is your moment, Billie. Coming up right now. Save the worlds, Billie. Change everything. You can do it.
“Billie the Kid” by Rick Wilber, Asimov’s Science Fiction, September/October 2021.

The Dust of Giant Radioactive Lizards

by Jason Sanford
Forty years after NASA explorer Tessa Raij attempted to step through a dimensional portal and was instead relegated to an inexplicable state of isolation in a radioactivce crater, a dead girl—resembling her grandmother as a teen—shows up at her feet.
— Michael Main
Anything entering her horizon no longer experienced the passage of time.
“The Dust of Giant Radioactive Lizards” by Jason Sanford, Asimov’s Science Fiction, September/October 2021.
as of 6:40 a.m. MDT, 2 May 2024
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