The Last Word in Time Travel Stories
Ace anthologists Mike Allen talks about his latest, CLOCKWORK PHOENIX THREE, and gives your truly the high compliment of having bought my work (as far as I can tell) as his first firm sale, and he calls mine the Final Word in time paradox stories.
Alas, I do not think workmanlike Murder in Metachronopolis (buy it here!) is the Last Word in Time Travel stories. Let me list a few off the top of my head I think more worth reading than mine own:
The Time Machine by HG Wells. An oldie but a goodie. If you have not read it, you are not really a science fiction fanboy. A nameless traveler finds the far future holding the evolutionary last step of the evolution and social evolution of England’s class-based society, taken to its logical but hideous result.
The Man who Folded Himself by David Gerrold An oldie to you young whippersnappers, but it captures some of the complexity of the origami of time. The story is about a man who finds a box, and in it is the time belt, and a manuscript. The manuscript describes all the complexities the previous versions of himself fell into, using and abusing the power of time.
Dinosaur Beach by Keith Laumer My favorite time travel story. I freely admit my own hard boiled time traveling detective is little more than an homage to Ravel, wisecracking agent of Nexx. Ravel is sent to sweep up the messes and paradoxes made by previous generation of time travelers, who in turn are trying to clean up what paradoxes and time snarls their predecessors left, and discovers his own messes are being swept up by agents of a time anterior to his own: and then everything goes to hell.
By His Bootstraps, a short story by Robert Heinlein. A man receives a crank call from himself, and then, when drunk tries to punch himself, falls through his own time gate, meets himself without knowing himself is himself, and decides to make a crank phone call to himself. Sort of like the Patty Duke Show, but with determinism.
All You Zombies, a short story by Robert Heinlein. See above and likewise. Sort of like the Patty Duke Show, but with s sex change operation.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, If you can time travel, why not use it frivolously? Why not use it to avoid an embarrassing conversation? What if that means avoiding falling in love with your destined beloved? What if you start running out of time? — this is an anime, not written SF, but it counts.
Cosmic Encounter by A.E. van Vogt. A pirate captain of the 1700’s discovers the universe was destroyed. Things get weirder from there.
Let me make a literary distinction here. A ‘time paradox’ story is different from a ‘time travel’ story. Time travel stories are usually just a machine or mechanism to get the hero where you want to put him, in King Arthur’s Court or on the Titanic, where he has adventures, using showing the benefit (or, more rarely, the detriment) of being a modern Connecticut Yankee with a boomstick shooting a dinosaur or something. The Time Travel is not really central to the story; it is merely like the cyclone of Dorothy Gale, something meant to land you in the middle of the adventure.
You cannot fight a gladiatorial duel with the accursed serpent-men of the Jurassic with the help of Sir Lancelot and Goliath of Gath and Horatio during the sinking of Atlantis without some sort of time travel: that is what these kind of tales are for.
Time Paradox stories are a different kettle of fish altogether. They are enjoyable because of the intellectual effort of tracing the Celtic scrollwork of the timeline folded and refolded on itself. Oddly enough, BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE makes more use of the possibilities of Time Travel, in its final scene, than does any number of episode of Doctor Who.
The Doctor never solves a problem – by – time travel. He never goes back and hide the key to his handcuffs in the cell where he will be imprisoned one hundred years from now, or, even better, finding the mother of the Master his archfoe and tricking her into marrying a different man, not the Master’s father. He travels to where the problem – is – by time travel.
Likewise, BACK TO THE FUTURE, the first movie, is a time travel story; whereas BACK TO THE FUTURE II, the sequel, is a time paradox story, where you have to keep track of which version of Marty McFly on the screen is which. (BACK TO THE FUTURE III is a steampunk Western in my opinion, but that is a discussion for another day.)
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
