Ancestral Voices

by Nat Schachner

Time traveler Emmet Pennypacker kills one ancient Hun without realizing who will disappear from the racist world of 1935.

— Michael Main

The year of grace 1935! A dull year, a comfortable year! Nothing much happened. The depression was over; people worked steadily at their jobs and forgot that they had every starved; Roosevelt was still President of the United States; Hitler was firmly ensconced in Germany; France talked of security; Japan continued to defend itself against China by swallowing a few more provinces; Russia was about to commence on the third Five Year Plan, to be completed in two years; and, oh, yes—Cuba was still in revolution.

“Ancestral Voices” by Nat Schachner, Astounding, December 1933.

Time Patrol 1

Time Patrol

by Poul Anderson

In the first of a long series of hallowed stories, former military engineer (and noncomformist) Manse Everard is recruited by the Time Patrol to prevent time travelers from making major changes to history. (Don’t worry, history bounces back from the small stuff.)

— Michael Main

If you went back to, I would guess, 1946, and worked to prevent your parents’ marriage in 1947, you would still have existed in that year; you would not go out of existence just because you had influenced events. The same would apply even if you had only been in 1946 one microsecond before shooting the man who would otherwise have become your father.

“Time Patrol” by Poul Anderson, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1955.

The End of Eternity

by Isaac Asimov

Andrew Harlan, Technician in the everwhen of Eternity, falls in love and starts a chain of events that could lead to the end of everything.

— Michael Main

He had boarded the kettle in the 575th Century, the base of operations assigned to him two years earlier. At the time the 575th had been the farthest upwhen he had ever traveled. Now he was moving upwhen to the 2456th Century.

The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov (Doubleday, August 1955).

Time Patrol 2

Brave to Be a King

by Poul Anderson

Patrolman Keith Denison uses some sketchy tactics (sketchy to the Patrol, that is) to track down his partner Keith Denison, who’s disappeared in the time of the Persian King Cyrus the Great,

— Michael Main

In the case of a missing man, you were not required to search for him just because a record somewhere said you had done so. But how else would you stand a chance of finding him? You might possibly go back and thereby change events so that you did find him after all—in which case the report you filed would “always” have recorded your success, and you alone would know the “former” truth.

“Brave to Be a King” by Poul Anderson, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1959.

The Twilight Zone (r1s02e13)

Back There

by Rod Serling, directed by David Orrick McDearmon

An engineer in the 1960s slips back to the night of Lincoln’s assassination.

— Michael Main

I’ve got a devil of a lot more than a premonition. Lincole will be assassinated unless somebody tries to prevent it!

The Twilight Zone (v1s02e13), “Back There” by Rod Serling, directed by David Orrick McDearmon (CBS-TV, 13 January 1961).

Si Morley 1

Time and Again

by Jack Finney

Si goes back to 19th century New York to solve a crime and (of course) fall in love.

This is Janet’s favorite time-travel novel, in which Finney elaborates on themes that were set in earlier stories such as “Double Take.”

— Michael Main

There’s a project. A U.S. government project I guess you’d have to call it. Secret, naturally; as what isn’t in government these days? In my opinion, and that of a handful of others, it’s more important than all the nuclear, space-exploration, satellite, and rocket programs put together, though a hell of a lot smaller. I tell you right off that I can’t even hint what the project is about. And believe me, you’d never guess.

Time and Again by Jack Finney (Simon and Shuster, 1970).

Cloche vaine

English release: Empty ring Literal: Vain bell

by Francine Pelletier

At the end of her long successful writing career, a woman is still haunted by her sister’s death four decades earlier.

— Michael Main

We had talked about SF literature, books on the theme of going back in time. This was related to the activities of the day. During the convention, one of the guest scientists had stated that time travel was impossible.

[ex=bare]“Cloche vaine” | Vain bell[/ex] by Francine Pelletier, in Solaris 109, Spring 1994.

From Time to Time

by Jack Finney

Finney’s sequel to Time and Again initially finds Si Morley living a happy life in the 19th century with his 19th century family, while The Project in the future never even got started because he prevented the inventor’s parents from ever meeting. But vague memories linger in some of the Project member’s minds, and Morley can’t stay put.

— Michael Main

They’re back there in the past, trampling around, changing things, aren’t they? They don’t know it. They’re just living their happy lives, but changing small events. Mostly trivial, with no important effects. But every once in a while the effect of some small changed event moves on down to the—

From Time to Time by Jack Finney (Simon and Shuster, February 1995).

Miri and Molly 2

Magic in the Mix

by Annie Barrows

After their first adventure united Miri and Molly as twins in the 21st century, the pair discover more about the magic of time travel via doorways and other openings in their house. Unfortunately, their twin brothers also go traveling, getting into hot water in 1864 Virginia.

— Michael Main

Molly, that’s totally crazy. You can’t stop yourself from existing because you do exist, you have to exist.

Magic in the Mix by Annie Barrows (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, December 2007).

Men in Black 3

by Etan Cohen, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

When Boris the Animal escapes from lunar prison and returns to 1969 to kill Agent K and expose Earth to attack, Agent J must follow to save Agent K and all of Earth!

Tim and I saw this on Fathers Day Eve in 2012.

— Michael Main

This is now my new favorite moment in human history.

Men in Black 3 by Etan Cohen, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (premiered at an unknown movie theater, Berlin, 14 May 2012).

Todd Family 1

Life after Life

by Kate Atkinson

In one instantiation of her life, Ursula Todd dies just moments after her birth in 1910. Fortunately (for the sake of the novel), time seems to be cyclic, so she and the rest of the world get many chances at life. At times, she partially recalls her other lives, resulting in many consequences to history and her personal development.

— Michael Main

So much hot air rising above the tables in the Café Heck or the Osteria Bavaria, like smoke from the ovens. It was difficult to believe from this perspective that Hitler was going to lay waste to the world in a few years’ time.

“Time isn’t circular,” she said to Dr. Kellet. “It’s like a palimpsest.”
“Oh, dear,” he said. “That sounds very vexing.”
“And memories are sometimes in the future.”

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday, March 2013).

The Here and Now

by Ann Brashares

Teenager Prenna James and her mother are two of the survivors of a future plague who return to the early 21st century to live out a quiet life under strict non-interference rules.

— Michael Main

“And then I’ll be a proper early-twenty-first-century girl?” I ask. I feel like crying. I don’t want to be set.”

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares (Delacorte Press, April 2014) [print · e-book].

The Flash, Season 1

written and directed by multiple people

Time travel is implied right from the first episode of the CW’s rendition of The Flash where a newspaper from the future is seen in the closing scene. The rest of the first season builds a fine time-travel arc that includes a nefarious time traveler from the far future, a classic grandfather paradox with a twist (sadly not examined), a do-over day for the Flash (which Harrison Wells calls “temporal reversion”), and a final episode that sees the Flash travel back to his childhood (as well as a hint that Rip Hunter himself will soon appear on the CW scene).

— Michael Main

Wells: Yes, it’s possible, but problematic. Assuming you could create the conditions necessary to take that journey, that journey would then be fraught with potential pitfalls: the Novikov Principle of Self-Consistency, for example.

Joe: Wait—the what, now?

Barry: If you travel back in time to change something, then you end up being the causal factor of that event.

Cisco: Like. . . Terminator.

Joe: Ah!

Wells: Or is time plastic? Is it mutable, whereby any changes in the continuum could create an alternate timeline?

Cisco: Back to the Future.

Joe: Ah, saw that one, too.

The Flash, season 1 written and directed by multiple people (The CW, USA, 7 October 2014) to 19 May 2015).

12 Monkeys, Season 1

written by Terry Matalas, Travis Fickett, et al., directed by multiple people

Same pandemic backstory as the movie, similar names for the characters, no Bruce Willis, and a mishmash of time-travel tropes along with tuneless minor-key chords in place of actual tension and slowly spoken clichéd dialogue in place of actual plot. Random discussions of fate brush shoulders with an admixture of possible time travel models from narrative time (when a wound sprouts on old JC’s shoulder while watching young JC get shot), to skeleton timelines (JC thinks that his timeline will vanish if he succeeds), to a fascination with a single static timeline (you’ll see it in Chechnya) and time itself has an agenda. Primarily, we’d say that the story follows narrative time from Cole’s point of view.

By the end of the first season, one principal character has seemingly been trapped in the 2043, and Cole is stuck in 2015, having just gone against fate in a major way, but with a third principal character poised to spread the virus via a jet plane.

P.S. Whatever you do, whether in narrative time or elsewhen, don’t bring up this adaptation as dinnertime conversation with Terry Gilliam (but do watch it if you can set aside angst over a lack of a consistent model and just go with Cole’s flow).

— Michael Main

About four years from now, most of the human race will be wiped out by a plague, a virus. We know it’s because of a man named Leland Frost. I have to find him.

—from “Splinter” [s01e01]

12 Monkeys, Season 1 written by Terry Matalas, Travis Fickett, et al., directed by multiple people (SyFy, USA, 16 January 2015 to 10 April 2015).

The Flash, Season 2

by multiple writers and directors

After Barry aborts his mission to the past in Season 1 in order to prevent his own present from being erased, he finds that his travel has caused even bigger problems! Yep, a rift has been a-opened to a parallel world with an alternate Flash and an evil speedster and—it would seem—more time travelin’ and another attempt to save his mom and dad!

— Michael Main

No, that’s not how it works. In our timeline, Barry’s mother’s already dead, and her death is a fixed point. And nothing can change that.

The Flash, season 2 by multiple writers and directors (The CW, USA, 6 October 2015) to 24 May 2016).

Arthur (s20e01a)

Buster’s Second Chance

by Ken Scarborough and Cilbur Rocha, directed by Greg Bailey

According to Brain, the past cannot be changed, but Buster still tries to do so when he’s thrown back to preschool by a time vortex.

— Tony Carr

Buster: What’s the square root of 49? [Buster thinks] I don’t know. I don’t know!. . . I’m baaaaack!

Arthur (s20e01a), “Buster’s Second Chance” by Ken Scarborough and Cilbur Rocha, directed by Greg Bailey (PBS-TV, USA, 10 October 2016).

Million Eyes 0.02

Rachel Can See

by C. R. Berry

Teenager Rachel is sent to the Pinewood facility because she remembers events that never happened and people who died but are still inviting her to dinner.

— Michael Main

She frowned. “I’m not crazy.”

“I’m not saying you are,” Dr. Flynn said. “But there is a problem with your memory and there are people at Pinewood who may be able to find out wht it is.”

“Rachel Can See” by C. R. Berry, in Metamorphose: V2, edited by Tammy Davies (Metamorphose Literary, November 2016).

See You Yesterday

by Fredrica Bailey and Stefon Bristol, directed by Stefon Bristol

Up in the ITTDB Citadel, our first attraction is naturally to the time travel aspects of any movie, even when the result is an incomprehensible time wreck resulting from a pair of teenage geniuses. That’s what’s on the surface here, but it also seems to be a metaphor for the even bigger train wreck of the racist society in the 21st-century United States.

— Michael Main

You’re missing the big picture here: If time travel were possible, it would be the greatest ethical and philosophical conundrum of the modern age.

See You Yesterday by Fredrica Bailey and Stefon Bristol, directed by Stefon Bristol (Tribeca Film Festival, New York City, 3 May 2019).

The Future of Another Timeline

by Annalee Newitz

Tess is a geologist (because, of course, geologists control the time travel of the giant ancient machines) and a member of the Daughters of Harriet (Senator Harriet Tubman, that is, from 19th-century Mississippi). On the surface, the Daughters are time travel scholars, but in reality, Tess and her fellow Daughters are fighting a pitched changewar for women’s rights against the oppressors known as the Comstockers. One more thing: While she’s at it,Tess also hopes to also save the souls of her teenaged self and her underground feminist punk friends in the 1990s, with a particular focus on their vigilante killing spree and young Beth’s abortion.

— Michael Main

All five Machines had limitations, but the hardest to surmount was what travelers call the Long Four Years. Wormholes only opened for people who remained within twenty kilometers of a Machine for at least 1,680 days.

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz (Tor, September 2019).

Throwback 1

Throwback

by Peter Lerangis

When 13-year-old Corey Fletcher first finds himself transported back in time, he doesn’t realize how it happened or that he is one of the rare travelers who can actually change the timeline, rescue his Papou, and maybe even save his grandma from 9/11.

— Michael Main

So . . . some people inherit diabetess, some inherit curly hair, and I inherited time travel?

Throwback by Peter Lerangis (HarperCollins, October 2019) [print · e-book].

Annie and the Wolves

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Historical research Ruth McClintock and local high school student Reece have a journal written by Annie Oakley, from which they conclude that Annie was a time traveler to traumatic moments in her own life—a power that Ruth seems to share.

— Michael Main

Reece, it isn’t just clarvoyance or neurosis, either.
She’d tell him in person, the thing they should have come out and admitted from the start.
It’s time travel.

“Annie and the Wolves” by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Soho, February 2021).

Giving Up the Ghost

by Aeryn Rudel

An assassin jumps back into her 17-year-old body where she takes care of her mission and has a little time left over.

— Michael Main

My target is a few blocks from here, which is why the Department of Temporal Enforcement chose me for the assignment. Proximity is important. The less you move around, the less likely the time stream gets fucked up.

“Giving Up the Ghost” by Aeryn Rudel, in Flashpoint Science Fiction, 26 June 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.

Captain Nova

English release: Captain Nova

by Lotte Tabbers and Maurice Trouwborst, directed by Maurice Trouwborst

Captain Nova Kester travels back from a devastated future to warn an energy mogel about the impending climate cataclysm, but only young Nas takes her seriously. That happens when time travel causes you to revert to 12 years old.

— Michael Main

Luister, jongedame: De mensen denken al eeuwen dat ze leven in het einde der tijden. Het zou handig ziln als je jezelf ietsje minderbelangrijk maakt.

Listen, young lady: People have thought for centuries that the end of time is drawing near. It would help everyone if you showed just a little less. . . self-importance.

English

Captain Nova by Lotte Tabbers and Maurice Trouwborst, directed by Maurice Trouwborst (Cinekid Film Festival, 13 October 2021).

This Time Tomorrow

by Emma Straub

After turning forty in a snit because of her career decisions, her unexciting boyfriend, and her dying father, Alice Stern wakes up on her 16th birthday in her teen body.

— Michael Main

“I know it’s your birthday,” Leonard said. “You’ve made me watch Sixteen Candles enough times to ensure that I wouldn’t let this one slide.”

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Riverhead Books, May 2022.