i hate time travel stories

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It's not impossible to make a good time travel movie, especially when the time machine is just used as a tool to set up a straightforward adventure, like in The Terminator or Back To The Future . But it seems like the more time travel is inserted into the story, the more the writers have to bend over backward to keep the plot from devolving into the kind of jargon-heavy nonsense you see in the later Terminator sequels. Here's why ...

WARNING : Contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.

5 It Almost Always Breaks The Established Rules

Science is hard, and I'm pretty sure time travel is impossible, so I'll give these movies leeway about how they choose to construct their mechanics. ("Damn, the Time Inverter is almost out of Time Pebbles!") But even then, they rarely stick to the generous rules they set for themselves. For instance, Avengers: Endgame introduces time travel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe because it's literally the only way to solve the problem introduced in the previous movie (half of everything is dead). The problem, of course, is that in theory, time travel can perfectly solve any problem, ever. Forget about Thanos, why not go back and kill Hitler while we're at it? Or go back a century and warn everyone about global warming?

This is why the movie states explicitly that any changes to the past don't affect the future; they only create new timelines. This is the reason given for why killing Thanos as a baby wouldn't help them. Which is fine, but then the film slaps on a happy ending in which Captain America travels back in time and lives out a normal life, turning up at the end of the movie having aged accordingly. This makes no sense no matter how you slice it.

So did Steve create another timeline in which he never became Captain America, never did anything heroic, never got frozen in ice and woke up in the present? A timeline in which his friend Bucky is still brainwashed and Sam "Falcon" Wilson is still some guy running in a park? And HYDRA was allowed to just keep doing its thing? He just blithely enjoyed his retirement, knowing that all of those horrors were some other universe's problem to solve? Or did he age as a civilian within the same timeline where he was Captain America, meaning he still stood by while a ton of other bad shit happened? There's no pretty answer here.

That's always the problem: These movies want to have it both ways. In The Butterfly Effect (which is most notable for losing the Best Thriller award in the 2004 Teen Choice Awards to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake), Ashton Kutcher's character has the power to travel between different stages in his life and make changes that affect the plot. The effects are only noticeable to him, except when the movie suddenly needs him to prove his abilities to someone to get out of danger. He travels back to his childhood and creates Jesus scars on both his hands. He then goes back to the present, where one person somehow has the memory from when the scars weren't present, at which point the hamfisted religious imagery takes over.

Something similar happens in Looper, where it's stated that any physical damage to a person's younger self is always present in their older bodies ... until it's time for a dramatic scene that shows someone's younger self being mutilated and their older self losing limbs in real time, the person screaming as their fingers vanish in front of them (rather than their memory calmly adjusting to having lost them years ago). Time travel offers almost limitless possibilities, but somehow writers almost always wind up painting themselves into a corner.

Related: 6 Time Travel Realities Doc Brown Didn't Warn Us About

4 They Have To Manufacture Unnecessary Conflict

So your time travel movie has given the heroes the godlike power to solve any problem. This means that finding ways to give them some kind of a challenge often requires all sorts of distracting contrivances. This is why the aforementioned Looper takes place in a world in which technology is so advanced that it's impossible to get away with murder. Potential murderers get around this by sending their would-be victims back in time to be killed by their younger selves instead of li-ter-a-lly anything else.

But by far the most ridiculous time travel trope is when the heroes go back to solve a problem ... but go back the latest possible moment, so that there is still an inexplicable ticking clock on their task. In Endgame , during Nebula and War Machine's outing to get the Power Stone, she sends them to 2014. This introduces a fun opportunity to call back to the opening of Guardians Of The Galaxy , but it's also the exact moment in time when Thanos could find them and thus be reintroduced as the antagonist. This is something Nebula doesn't point out until after they're already there. Dropping in only few hours earlier would have avoided the entire movie, and now that I think about it, it's hard to think of a time travel plot where that isn't true.

In general, though, the heroes always have to forget what exactly time travel can accomplish (that is, literally anything). Edge Of Tomorrow makes Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt suddenly forget that Tom Cruise can reset the day with all his memories intact, forcing them to attempt to escape enemies in a high-speed chase. Blunt killing Cruise (which she does earlier to get them out of a similar situation) or having him kill himself would be the most logical thing to do, but no. The chase results in an accident which leads to a blood transfusion, and thus Cruise loses the ability to reset the day. Now if he dies, he won't come back, and the third act gains stakes purely because the time-traveling heroes forgot that their power has no logical limits.

This seems to always be worse in movies that aren't specifically about time travel. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban also introduces a powerful time travel device that's only used twice and then discarded for the rest of the series. Superman famously has Superman reverse time to save Lois Lane, an incredibly useful ability that never gets used again. It's literally a "Get Out Of The Apocalypse Free" card, but the only power Clark Kent doesn't have is the ability to remember it.

Related: The Time Travel In Avengers: Endgame Just Got More Confusing

3 It Raises Important Questions That Are Almost Never Answered

Every time you watch a time travel movie, you're guaranteed to go "Wait, hold on" at least once. And this is usually because the movie has brought forth questions that the writers do not intend to answer in any way. For instance, take the mechanics of the Citizen Kane of Jean-Claude Van Damme's career, Timecop , which allows travel only between the past and the present, because the future hasn't happened yet. You can fiddle with the past to create changes in the future. But ... once you're in the past, doesn't the present become your future, one that is yet to happen? So how are you then able to return there, Jean-Claude?

Then you have questions that potentially change everything. Something like "This movie is saying that time unfolds in a closed loop, and the implication of this is that ... none of the characters have free will?" That's a great question for movies that explore it, such as 12 Monkeys , but not so much for one where we're rooting for plucky underdogs who are on a quest to make a real change in the world. Before T erminator: Genisys , the series constantly had us asking this question. Every sequel annoyingly had both sides (the humans and Skynet) try to affect events to their advantage, despite time existing in a loop and Rise Of The Machines pretty much stating that it can't be done. This resulted in an unintentionally meta loop of one movie ending with the humans celebrating a victory, which the next entry would nullify right at the opening.

The Prisoner Of Azkaban is also guilty of introducing this implication to Harry Potter . If everything that happens was predestined, they don't have free will, do they? If everything they plan on doing has already happened, what happens if they decide to sit the heroics out at the last minute? Does the Universe then gain control and force them to confront their destiny like they're a collection of British marionettes? Does J.K. Rowling only answer questions that no one was asking?

It's not like this is nitpicking. If time travel is the only reason the heroes were able to do what they did, but the mechanics of it imply that they couldn't have done anything else, then what was the point of your story in the first place?

Related: The 5 Most Ridiculous Repercussions Of Time Travel In Movies

2 It Always Winds Up Contradicting Other Movies In The Franchise

For over half a century, Star Trek has existed in multiple incarnations that have played with time travel so inconsistently that it's sucked all meaning from word "continuity." It never decides whether everything is predestined ( The Original Series , The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine ), or if it's not ( The Original Series , First Contact , Voyager , Enterprise , The Animated Series ), or if it sort of is, except changes spawn a new timeline independent of the original (the 2009 reboot, The Next Generation ).

And you might be able to give Star Trek a pass because it's a sprawling franchise made up of hundreds of episodes and multiple casts. But when a series is, like, five movies long, you'd expect at least someone to say, "Hey, let's try not to crap all over the thing that happened two hours ago, OK?"

The Terminator franchise is famous for having entries that blatantly contradict each other. And it happens with almost everything that time travel touches. The date for Judgment Day is always being moved around, despite the events occurring within a closed loop. And Genisys introduced alternate timelines for the sake of a reboot -- something that flies directly in the face of the concept that I just mentioned.

This enormous contradiction that essentially renders the events of previous entries pointless also shows up in Men In Black 3 . J does some time travellin' and learns that K knew his father and had always planned for him to join the MiB since he was a kid. It's presented as something that had always been true, as opposed to a result of changes within the timeline. Except that's 100% NOT what happened. The reason J joined the MIB was that he impressed K by keeping up with a cephalopod on foot. You can't fool us, movie. We literally watched that shit happen.

Related: 4 Reasons Timecop Is A Modern Masterpiece

1 It Weakens The Impact Of Big Moments

There's always an air of skepticism that surrounds deaths in movies that feature time travel. If someone we don't want to die kicks it, there's the option for the remaining characters to jump back and prevent it. The deaths are not believable, and it's because we've seen them reversed at the last minute in movies such as Deadpool 2 , Prince Of Persia , and X-Men: Days Of Future Past .

It gets worse with movies that want to both have and eat their proverbial cake by introducing alternate timelines to an already-beloved series when rebooting it ( Terminator , Star Trek , X-Men ), allowing the writers to pick and choose what they want to bring along to the reboot. It's an attempt to placate fans of the previous entries by not having to erase their events, but we can't really care about a character when there's other versions of them across a possibly infinite number of realities.

Following Endgame , this is likely where the MCU is headed, starting with the return of (alternate versions of) Gamora and Loki, both fan favorites who were supposed to be for-realsies dead after Infinity War . But even though they're not the versions of them we've come to know and love, Marvel can -- and will -- try to have it both ways. They get to milk the emotion from the original deaths -- emotion caused by the knowledge that those characters won't be around anymore -- while still having those characters in movies to attract audiences, minting even more billions in the process. And that is what people are talking about when they refer to the "magic of cinema."

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Columns > Published on February 3rd, 2017

Time Out: Don't Write Time Travel (Unless You Do It Right)

Time travel. It’s such a popular, big idea. Everyone wants to put their stamp on time travel, take their swing at it. See how I used two metaphors there, one for jocks who like baseball and one for nerds who like stamp collecting?

While I appreciate the excitement and enthusiasm for time travel tales, I think we could take a break, rethink some of what time travel really is, and then come back with better, more interesting stories.

What do I mean?

Problem the first: Infinite Possibilities, 5 Realities

I’m going to ask you to accept a principle: Time travel, being a big unknown, could present itself in any number of ways.

Is that acceptable? Seem pretty reasonable?

Why, then, do we only get about 5 flavors of time travel? Why are there six times as many flavors of ice cream, a substance created from Earthly materials, and we only have 5 versions of this hypothetical thing that doesn’t actually exist?

Oh, by the way, you'll notice I mostly talk about movies here. I heard sci-fi great Connie Willis (more on her later!) talk writing, and she used movie examples, saying, "I use movies to talk about story because it's more likely we've seen the same movies." If it's good enough for Connie Willis, it's good enough for me.

What are the 5 Flavors Of Time Travel?

Flavor 1: Character travels through time and must attempt to have as little impact as possible in order to maintain the integrity of the future

The character inevitably screws up and has to fix things. This is boring because having a character whose primary goal is to do nothing is a pretty bad setup. Also, we all know this character is headed for an inevitable screwup, so the first part of the story is a guaranteed waste of time.

Flavor 2: Character travels through time and is charged with some action that will either maintain or “fix” the future

Terminator. This one is okay, but the big flaw is that these stories end up explaining themselves a lot. Why not travel even further back? What impacts will all your character’s other actions have?

Flavor 3: Character travels through time and is not specifically charged with a task but has the opportunity for a do-over or to make improvements

Groundhog Day . This has high potential for universal appeal as we’d all like a do-over, but it’s hard to shake the stink of wish fulfillment as being the driver of this story.

Flavor 4: Character travels through time only to discover that events are inevitable

The issue here is that this story type is highly dependent on the shock of the ending, and the ol’ “time can’t be changed” being an ending many of us are familiar with, that shock is difficult to manufacture. It leaves viewers with a story that they’ve puzzled out long before the ending, and they have to watch the characters come to the same realization in painfully slow fashion. Also, it leaves your characters with no real agency.

Flavor 5: Relative Time

Rip Van Winkle, for example, didn’t actually time travel so much as perceive time as never having passed. Encino Man , same deal. This stinks of time travel somehow, but ultimately, if Rip was a time traveler, then we all are. If our perception of time’s passage is the only measure, and I assume we all perceive time differently, just as we do colors and flavors, then we’re all time travelers to a degree.

And yes, I made you think about Encino Man.

By my math, those five flavors account for Back to the Future, Looper, Donnie Darko, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Time Cop, Army of Darkness, Edge of Tomorrow, Hot Tub Time Machine , and just about any number of time travel stories. Timecrimes, Primer, The Butterfly Effect. Flight of the Navigator, Deja Vu . We could go on and on, and the fun would be me slipping in a couple fake titles ( Time’s a Tickin’, Fools Of Us All ), but let’s drop it.

There’s nothing new under the sun. We all know this. That’s why Kurt Vonnegut was able to summarize every story ever with a couple of single-line graphs . I’m not crapping on your time travel story because it falls into one of these categories. What I’m saying is, if it DOES fall into one of these, you’d better offer something pretty good on the periphery. Oh, and avoid the mistakes from the next section.

We Get Micro: Commonly-Ignored Issues In Time Travel

Here are some things that piss me off, and they happen ALL THE TIME in time travel stories. All The Time is another great fake movie title. Don’t steal that one. Mine.

Why Is Time Travel Cloning?

Typical scenario: A guy travels back in time, looks in his own window and sees himself in the house.

How does this work? If that IS me, then there are now two of me, correct? If that’s NOT me, then I’ve not just traveled in time, but to an identical dimension of sorts. Which means I haven’t traveled back in time so much as I’ve traveled across dimensions. My time machine didn’t so much move me along a timeline as it split my timeline into two.

This is something we take for granted in time travel. How does this happen, and why does it happen so often? Why do we think our characters are so intriguing that the best idea we've got is to have TWO of them?

Why Is Time Travel Space Travel?

This is an idea I totally stole from Atomic Robo comics:

If you were to jump in a time machine that took you 3 hours into the past, but you stayed in the same spot, you would arrive 3 hours in the past and the Earth would be about 200,000 miles away from you. Hope you brought a space suit and some snacks.

Your position in space would need to be accounted for very, very carefully in order to time travel and end up in the same spot where you left. And very, very rarely is this accounted for in time travel.

Time Travel Almost Always Involves Stupid, Arbitrary Rules

You can’t time travel with clothes or guns, but we can send organic and synthetic beings into the past?

How does that work? In what system are we able to send an entire human back in time and yet we’re somehow unable to send back a pair of sweatpants?

The obvious answer is because it’s 1984 and we cast Arnold Schwarzenegger in our time travel movie, and if he’s not nude we’ve wasted a tremendous amount of time and money.

There’s rules about how far back you can go, why you can’t just go back again, why there aren’t time travelers popping up all over the goddamn place.

The time machine is kind of treated the way cell phones are treated in modern horror movies. You HAVE to address why they only work when it’s convenient, and these reasons are often boring and a matter of checking the box. We're all sitting around waiting to hear some character explain the stupid reasons that make the plot work.

The Struggle Is So Often About How To Get Back

You made some crazy futuristic gizmo to travel in time. And now you’re in the old west and don’t have any nuclear material? Oh, shit!

When the story of time travel is mostly about “We time traveled, how do we undo it?” I’m gonna get bored. We did this exciting thing, and now we want to undo it? BORING. 

The Jokes Are Too Often “Ha! That’s the 80’s for ya!”

Back to the Future was probably the last one to do this well. We could laugh at the idea that Marty McFly was the original inventor (or the original thief) of rock music.

But it gets old. Oh my god, can you believe people dressed like that in the 50’s?

Something like Hot Tub Time Machine is totally guilty of this one, but even Mad Men plays this card at times. Oh, isn’t it funny that we used to drive drunk and let neighbors smack our kids around. What a different time it was!

The fact that things were different at one time is not, in itself, a joke, people. Or maybe it is a joke, just not a very good one.

The Mechanism Of Time Travel Gets Too Much Play

Frankly, I don’t care how you’re doing it. It’s like a body swap movie. The whole point is you swap bodies with someone else, which is a silly premise. Pissing in the same fountain, opening a fortune cookie, these ideas provide a reason for waking up in another body, but the reason is stupider than having no reason at all. Likewise, making some gadget that takes you through time is stupider than having this just sort of...happen.

When Time Travel Works

Here’s the key to a time travel story: It can’t be about time travel.

Let me be more specific here.

Time travel works when it’s about something besides time travel. When I’m not meant to look at it and go “Whoa, time travel! What a concept!”

A time travel story is all about suspension of disbelief. For me, suspension of disbelief only works when there’s a purpose, a payoff. I don’t really enjoy stories about dragons where the reason for the dragons in the story is: DRAGONS!

The way to surprise and interest a reader is to use time travel to evoke something seemingly unrelated to time travel. To use time travel as a tool to pull genuine emotions out of a reader.

I can totally buy the premise of time travel, but what helps it work a bit better is when you’ve got a good reason for the time travel. When the story is not so much about constant time traveling as it is about something else. When time travel is the tool to tell the story, to unlock something, not the story in and of itself.

For example:

Connie Willis

Personal sci-fi hero Connie Willis (see, I told you she’d come up again) tells time travel stories, but they’re a little different.

In Blackout , we’ve perfected time travel, and the past becomes the playground of historians. Which I like because if there was one group of folks who would want to travel to the past, it’d be history nerds.

Time travel is proven to be safe because we’re totally sure that there’s nothing you can do to screw up time. It’s inevitable. Historians can’t go back and change the future. They can just go back and experience it firsthand to better understand our world.

Until, holy crap, maybe we were wrong.

Here’s what’s great (other than the whole book and everything about Connie Willis): Willis’ book comes at the common tropes head-on. The characters in the book, like we do as readers, take it as a forgone conclusion that time travel works a certain way. Until it doesn’t. At which point the story is about the idea of being wrong about time travel while also keeping things high-interest with the backdrop of The Blitz in London.

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A typical customer gets into a machine that can literally take her whenever she’d like to go. Do you want to know what the first stop usually is? Take a guess. Don’t guess. You already know: the unhappiest day of her life.

Explaining Charles Yu’s How To Live Safely In A Science Fiction Universe is almost impossible. I’m not sure I completely understand how time travel works in the book. And that’s okay because time travel is used here to talk about something else entirely. Using time travel, setting up an entire universe to tell the story of an absentee father, is a long way to go, and the effort pays off.

How To Live Safely In A Science Fiction Universe has to be the biggest slap-together of emotion and sci-fi, and it’s so charming and geeky that it manages to take readers somewhere brand new.

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Joe Haldeman

Haldeman's Forever War  uses time travel of the Rip Van Winkle variety. Soldiers fighting in a super faraway war are, in essence, plucked out of time. When they return home, home is unrecognizable. Everyone they cared about died decades before, and everyone else has moved on despite the fact that soldiers are returning directly from the battlefield.

The point here is pretty obviously to explain Haldeman’s experience and views on the Vietnam War. He and his fellows went far away, were involved in a conflict very few people understood, and returned to a world that thought of them as barbarians and had moved on without them.

It’s a beautiful, painful use of not only time travel, but science fiction to show us something about our reality. By stripping away the biases, emotions and ideas of our reality, Haldeman gives us a the chance to see reality from a completely different perspective.

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Octavia E. Butler

Kindred earns points right away for not fucking around with the how of the time travel. Instead, it uses those energies to focus on the purpose of the time travel. Also, the book is circa 1974. While it engages in one of the above tropes, maintaining the future, the reason certain time travel tropes are overdone today is because writers like Butler made them so intriguing.

To summarize it quickly, Kindred’s main character, a black woman, finds herself transported back to antebellum Maryland. Through a short series of events, she figures out the rub: she’s gotta preserve the life of a young, white slaveholder because he is one of her ancestors.

Not only does a single difficult choice have to be made, but a series of them. This character doesn’t have the luxury of making one difficult choice but instead has to make the choice over and over.

Kindred makes good use of time travel, creating a situation that gives us a character with modern sensibilities and ideas experiencing, and actively participating in, the shittiness of slavery. The book is so readable and pitch perfect that you'll be pulled through even the tough spots where shit gets very real.

On the surface, the story is about the old saw of preserving the future. But when you dig just a little bit, the story and time travel serve to remind us that the past is very real and more closely related to the present than we think. 

By the way, I NEVER do this, never get into the commerce in the middle of a column, but  Kindred  is three fucking dollars on Kindle. C'mon. 

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Douglas Adams

Why does it work for Douglas Adams to do time travel? Because it’s in the name of a goof.

The book The Restaurant At The End of the Universe is set up with the premise that, hey, if we have the ability to travel in time, why not witness the end of the universe? And, as is the case with most of Adams’ stuff, the book comes to the logical conclusion that if there’s an end of the universe to watch, someone’s going to figure out a way to make a buck off it.

Adams’ and the work of others ( Bill and Ted , John Swartzwelder, Dr. McNinja , Futurama ) use time travel mostly in the service of joke telling. Which works because you’re acknowledging the inherent goofiness of the idea, and because if there’s one thing an overdone idea is still good for, it’s as a setup to a great punchline. 

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About the author

Peter Derk lives, writes, and works in Colorado. Buy him a drink and he'll talk books all day.  Buy him two and he'll be happy to tell you about the horrors of being responsible for a public restroom.

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Ten Reasons I HATE Time Travel

This is not from my new book, “ I Hate Your Time Machine “, although it’s certainly inspired by my painstaking (and painful) month examining some of the worst science fiction/fantasy tropes in the Multiverse.

No, this is its own special, personal brand of hatred.

13. Time travel makes things unpredictable. And not necessarily the interesting kind of unpredictable. If one’s going to stay true to at least some of the possibilities of temporal journeying, one has to realize that every act of chrononautology makes the world different.

11. Weird things happen when you monkey with time. For example, I bet most of you come from a Universe where “12” comes after “13”. But you’re wrong. Somebody stepped on a butterfly while doing a quick jaunt to the Triassic, and now numbers are strange.

12. We’d like to think that authors will use time-travel in an interesting, logical way, one which leaves the reader interested; but too often, it just seems to lead to peculiar changes which aren’t necessarily explained in any way the reader understands. BANG! You’re now an otter. There. Was that fun?

10. It is illegal to accidentally end up in a timeline that isn’t run by cats. If this happens to you, turn yourself in immediately.

9. Okay, so you can change the past. That’s great. That’s just great . So you’ve fixed something, made some mistake better? Wonderful. So tell me, genius: how do you know if you’ve ever done anything right? How does any of us know? What if it’s always just been us screwing up, and then – because we’re lucky enough to have time travel – we go back and fix it, which is not a big deal, since it’s not like we had to make good choices or guesses, we just had go travel backwards until we cleaned up the mess?

8. Nope, sorry, there’s nothing here. Why bother? I’m just gonna take a nap and let Future Me travel backwards and fix it.

7. And don’t even get me STARTED on what happens when you go FORWARDS in time. WAIT, IT’S TOO LATE, I’VE ALREADY GONE FORWARD SINCE I STARTED WRITING THIS, IT’S LIKE TEN MINUTES LATER, what did you do ?

6. Seriously, the future ? I mean, there you are, trying to get through all the stuff you DIDN’T do in the past because you knew you’d do it in the future by travelling TO the past, when all of a sudden, who’s knocking on your door and bothering you? YOU are, of course.

5. Really, though, it’s most likely that you CANNOT CHANGE THE PAST. Because that would change the future. (Unless, again, we’re running into “futility” – you MUST change the past in order for the present to work – AND Destiny – “You MUST HAVE changed the past, because otherwise we wouldn’t HAVE this future.” In which case, why are you telling a story if the point of the story is that the whole story is pointless? Unless you’re a Dadaist, in which case, I expect some top-quality surrealism; but all I ever get are plucky teens Doing The Difficult Thing at the Very Last Possible Second and Saving The Day. Blech.)

4. Rocks fall FROM THE FUTURE and everybody dies. IN THE PAST. Which means there’s NO FUTURE. And therefore NO ROCKS. So there was NO POINT to THIS ENTIRE POINT, and I HATE THAT.

12. Twelve? TWELVE? Twelve is here suddenly? WHAT THE HELL ? Why? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?

2. Honestly, all I want is, not necessarily something with good physics (I’m not a physicist) or even flawless history (is there such a thing?) – just something where the time travel makes some sort of sense and isn’t just thrown into the mix like when people put cocktail onions into perfectly-good vodka which wasn’t doing them any harm whatsoever.

• …you were all just eaten by Dinosaurs, and I take it back: time travel is awesome .

~ Jeff Mach

My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over  @darklordjournal .

I write books. You should read them!

My new book, “I Hate Your Time Machine”, is now available as a Kindle pre-order! It would really help me out if you went and bought a copy !

Categories alternative history Jeff's Writing microfiction science fiction time travel

Jeff Mach is an author, playwright, event creator, and certified Villain. You can always pick up his bestselling first novel, "There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN" —or, indeed, his increasingly large selection of other peculiar books . If you'd like to talk more to Jeff, or if you're simply a Monstrous Creature yourself , stop by @darklordjournal on Twitter, or The Dark Lord Journal on Facebook.

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• time paradox

Charles Whitfield New Member

Time travel without plot holes.

Discussion in ' Setting Development ' started by Charles Whitfield , Apr 19, 2015 .

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Is it possible to do time-travel without plot holes? I've avoided time travel in my setting for this very reason, I don't like plot holes, I try my best to workout the story, and answer all the proper questions. I also don't like going back in time and changing history that has already been set within that universe. Your readers(or viewers) have spent a certain amount of time reading/viewing and understanding the stories of your characters, only to go back in time, and change it.  

Vandor76 Senior Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); I can imagine only one way to use time travel without plot holes : there is only one past and it can't be changed. If you go back and try to change it, you become part of the events that formed the past as it is. Welcome to the forum  

plothog Contributor Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Vandor76 said: ↑ I can imagine only one way to use time travel without plot holes : there is only one past and it can't be changed. If you go back and try to change it, you become part of the events that formed the past as it is. Welcome to the forum Click to expand...

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); I understand the concept, but I don't like parallel universes that happen because of time travel.  

Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Time travelling has a tendency to be very paradox-prone, and I'm not sure if there's really any way to get around that (unless the traveller can neither interact with nor be seen by the past world to which they travelled). On the bright side, though, this also means that people expect (and probably accept) time travelling to feel a little wonky.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Another theory I can think of was that once the universe's timeline was in a crazy state of flux. Time kept being rewritten every time someone traveled back and causing the point in history at which time travel was invented to change, until eventually a stable iteration of the universe occurs where time travel is never invented and the only time traveler left in the timeline is the one person who time traveled from the penultimate iteration of the timeline. As Komposten says, most people who want to read or watch time travel fiction aren't expecting to find something without plot holes, so if you have a fun plot based on a certain theory then go for it. Still it's fun to think about the pros and cons of the different methods of writing time travel.  

BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); I think there are fewer issues with travelling FORWARD in time, right? So you could do time-travel that way, maybe. Or you could travel back in time as an observer-only, or a sort of ghost. I think that would catch most of the traditional holes?  

Lancie Senior Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); I suppose it depends whether you go backwards or forwards, and whether your time traveler ends up in an average place with average people and their aim is to get back, or whether they've been thrown into (for example) the theater where Abraham Lincoln is about to get assassinated and feel they need to step in. It would also depend whether the time traveler has gone to an era hundreds of years away or if they've gone back through their own lifetime. I think as long as you set your own limits and 'rules', and stick to them, you should be alright. As Komposten said, people would probably be more forgiving of the wonkiness.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); The way I thought about it was the time travels could make a virtual snap shot of the time period and interact with the world in a virtual state, so no matter what they do, it isn't permanent.  

minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); I hate time travel as a device in fiction. It generates paradoxes and plot holes that are virtually unresolvable. You could simply ignore these, but that would raise a pile of questions in your readers' minds that you don't answer. Or you can settle for the many-parallel-universes idea, but you already said you don't like that. I think the only context in which time travel can work "sensibly" is in comedy. Back To The Future, Austin Powers, things like that. The Terminator made it work, sort of, but only by making it highly restricted: it's a one-way trip and you go through naked. No bouncing around the timeline on a whim. I've never written a time travel story and I bet I never will. Too much baggage, and the baggage is full of crap.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); So would it be like a virtual reality historical simulator?  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Somewhat, like the time traveler can choose the time/location they wanted to go in, and the machine creates the virtual world based on that input.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); That's an interesting take on it, but I wouldn't associate it with time travel. I'm not sure what you'd call that- an observation journey?  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); I hate time travel as a device in fiction. It generates paradoxes and plot holes that are virtually unresolvable. You could simply ignore these, but that would raise a pile of questions in your readers' minds that you don't answer. Or you can settle for the many-parallel-universes idea, but you already said you don't like that. I think the only context in which time travel can work "sensibly" is in comedy. Back To The Future, Austin Powers, things like that. The Terminator made it work, sort of, but only by making it highly restricted: it's a one-way trip and you go through naked. No bouncing around the timeline on a whim. I've never written a time travel story and I bet I never will. Too much baggage, and the baggage is full of crap. Click to expand...

Aled James Taylor Contributor Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); I wrote a time travel short story a while back, that I think has no plot holes (correct me if I'm wrong). https://www.writingforums.org/threads/tick-t-tock.127321/  

tonguetied Contributor Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); BayView said: ↑ I think there are fewer issues with travelling FORWARD in time, right? So you could do time-travel that way, maybe. Or you could travel back in time as an observer-only, or a sort of ghost. I think that would catch most of the traditional holes? Click to expand...

Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); A plot-hole and a paradox are different. Time-travel stories generally suffer from a paradox.  

Gawler Senior Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); plothog said: ↑ That can cause problems too. Often time travel stories which use this method seem as holey as any other. If something you did while time travelling enabled you to be born in the first place to time travel then how did the whole situation come about in the first place? Surely to start off with you wouldn't have traveled back in time, so you wouldn't have created the events to allow yourself to travel back in time so the whole story shouldn't exist. Click to expand...

stevesh Banned Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Since there's no way to know what happens if you go back in time, I thought Stephen King's take in 11/22/63 was interesting. His character could go back in time (always to the same time in the same place), but if he wanted to make changes in the past (in this case, to stop the Kennedy assassination), the changes would be negated if he returned to his own time, and the changes that resulted in his original time were unpredictable.  

Frankovitch Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); The only way to (possibly) avoid paradox, is by assuming that time doesn't have to be completely linear to begin with, but could have one or two loops already built in. Thus, whatever happens in the past is actively what makes the present what it is. Not despite of, but because of.  

ToeKneeBlack Banned

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); If the time traveller is going back to a time and place where they existed, but their past self wasn't aware of their future time-travelling self, they could leave helpful items and clues for their past self, explaining any conveniences in the past.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Vandor76 said: ↑ One thing worth to mention : the OP asked about ways to write a time-travel story without plot holes / changing the past, not about time travel without paradoxes. Click to expand...

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); plothog said: ↑ I can imagine that there is a debate that could be had about whether the various sorts of time travel paradoxes are plot holes. Some readers/viewers definitely view them as such, albeit they may consider them among the more acceptable class of plot holes because they allow for the creation of such interesting plots. Click to expand...

kburns421 Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_d029d1c5c9b42e3130e6bc530d3873cc'); }); Charles Whitfield said: ↑ Is it possible to do time-travel without plot holes? I've avoided time travel in my setting for this very reason, I don't like plot holes, I try my best to workout the story, and answer all the proper questions. Click to expand...

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Classic Time Travel Paradoxes (And How To Avoid Them)

[Movie still from  Time Machine , Warner Bros. and Dreamworks]

Editor's Note: We're bringing back one of our most loved posts because hey, time travel is always a relevant topic of discussion. Originally published 11/30/12.

Author's Note: I assume that some day, this article will serve as an invaluable guide and warning for our time traveling ancestors-to-be (who will of course be unable to read books and learn these lessons for themselves, either because [a] all the books will have been burned, or [b] kids will have stopped reading books entirely, because grumble grumble, god damn kids, when I was your age, video games, blah blah, detriment to society, buncha hooligans, kids these days, no respect, etc). In the meantime, just enjoy it for all of its delightfully entertaining/convoluted/paradoxical pleasures.

As anyone who’s anyone who’s read any time travel story ever could easily tell you, time travel is a tricky subject. Temporal paradoxes might seem simple and straightforward at the start (no they don’t), but they always devolve quite quickly (linear time-wise) into some sort of trippy, philosophically complicated, timey-wimey conundrum that makes even the most convoluted middle school relationship make sense by comparison. Come to think of it, maybe the reason that all those cool kids in middle school suffer from impossibly complicated and melodramatic romances to begin with is because they’re all too “cool” to read time travel stories in the first place, which would obviously teach them the benefits of temporally linear dating, if nothing else. 

I’m looking at you, River Song.

For the most part, any paradox related to time travel can generally be resolved or avoided by the Novikov self-consistency principle, which essentially asserts that for any scenario in which a paradox might arise, the probability of that event actually occurring is zero — or, to quote from LOST, “whatever happened, happened,” meaning that no matter what anyone does, they can’t actually create a paradox, because the laws of quantum physics will self-correct to avoid such a situation. Still, I’m wary of such a loose explanation for things, and so below, I’ve compiled a list of a few of the more popular time travel paradoxes — and what to do to avoid them. 

ONTOLOGICAL PARADOX : Also known as the “Bootstraps Paradox,” an ontological paradox arises when a person or object is sent through time and recovered by another person, whose actions then lead to the original person or object back to the time from when it came in the first place, thus creating an endless loop with no discernible point of origin. Thus, the original person or object is essentially “pulling itself up by its own bootstraps,” hence the nickname (thanks in no small part to the Robert Heinlein story “By His Bootstraps”).

Example : The Terminator films are a prime and popular example of the Ontological Paradox. In the future, a Terminator is sent back in time to kill the mother of resistance leader John Connor before he is born. While the original T-800 is ultimately destroyed, the leftover pieces are found by scientists who use the technological to…develop and create Skynet, and the Terminator-series robots. Skynet would have never been created if Skynet hadn’t taken over the world and then sent a Terminator back in time to get destroyed and ultimately lead to the creation of Skynet. Trippy, right?

There's also the fact that Future John Connor sends his buddy Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother from the T-800, only Kyle ends up totally bangin' John's mom (dude high five! I mean, not cool, man) and impregnates her with his buddy John Connor. So to top it all off, if John hadn't sent his friend back in time, his friend would never have had sex with John's mom, and John would never have been born (meaning that Kyle Reese is either the best or worst friend, ever).

How to Avoid : No one’s really sure if a real-life ontological paradox would lead to some massive hemorrhaging of spacetime, or if the closed loop is kind of automatically self-corrected since it all works itself out evenly in the end anyway. Still, better to avoid these kind of complicated situations, and the best way to do that would simply be to stop taking candy from strangers — “candy” in this case being mysterious or alien artifacts with questionable origins, possibly given to you by mysterious people who may or may not come from the future. See? Maybe all those warnings that your Mom gave you when you were a little kid still mean something today. Or maybe all along she was just trying to prevent you from sending your friends back in time to sleep with her. Or perhaps encourage it…

PREDESTINATION PARADOX : The predestination paradox is similar to the ontological paradox in that the Cause leads to an Effect which then leads back to the initial Cause. The basic tenant of the predestination paradox is similar to that of a self-fulfilling prophecy: the motivation for the time traveler to travel in time is ultimately realized to have been the time traveler’s fault, due to his or her decision to time travel in the first place, or else otherwise unavoidable. Stories involving predestination paradoxes often involve a heavy sense of irony — the time traveler might go back in time in order to change something, for example, but his or her actions inadvertently lead to the exact situation that inspired the time traveler to have gone back and changed things. Thus, nothing ultimately changes. Determinism is a bleak friend. 

Example : In Twelve Monkeys, James Cole is sent back in time to prevent a mysterious disaster involving the “Army of the Twelve Monkeys.” His wild rantings in the past about the terrible future from which he came are overheard by Jeffrey Goines, a mental patient who is remembered in the future as the leader of Army of the Twelve Monkeys. Ultimately, Cole’s efforts to prevent his future from happening inspire the actions that lead to his future coming to be. And in a cruel twist of irony, James Cole’s childhood memory of a man in a airport being shot and falling into the arms of a beautiful blonde — the memory that haunts him for the rest of his life — turns out that the guy who was shot was actually him, in the future, dooming young James Cole to grow up and repeat the cycle all over again.

How to Avoid : This one’s tricky, because philosophically, it’s all about free will (or lack thereof). So in fact, by trying to teach you to how to avoid falling victim to the tenants of the predestination paradox, I’m probably going to inspire you to go back in time and create the French film La jetée, which in turn inspires Terry Gilliam to make Twelve Monkeys, which in turn inspires me to use it as an example in this article, et cetera et cetera. Basically we’re all screwed, unless we avoid time travel and time travelers all together. Even a many worlds theory/alternate timeline thing can’t prevent this, because your actions wouldn’t even create a divergent timeline — they would just result in your present situation. So, sorry dude, nothing you can do is going to change anything. Again, unless you don’t do anything at all, although that still doesn’t guarantee anything. 

GRANDFATHER PARADOX : This one perfectly demonstrates the aforementioned Novikov self-consistency principle. The basic idea is that, no matter how hard you try, you can’t go back in time and kill your grandfather, because if you did, your mother or father would never have been born, which means that you would never have been born, which means you couldn’t have gone back in time and killed your grandfather, which means that you didn’t go back in time and kill your grandfather, because you can’t go back in time and kill your grandfather, because if you did, you wouldn’t be born, which you obviously have already been born because if you were never born then you couldn’t have gone back in time and tried (and failed) to kill your grandfather in the first place.

That’s just a simple and straightforward summary though. You know, in Layman’s terms.

Basically, the Grandfather paradox conveys the idea of a self-correcting universe and/or fixed points in time. Even if you were able to go back in time and, I don’t know, shoot your Grandpa in the head before he ever meets your Grandma (jeez, you must really hate that guy, huh?), your Grandfather would turn out to be an early sperm donor or something, who would still manage even posthumously to impregnate your Grandmother, because you would have to exist in order to have shot him in the head in the first place. So you might be able to fudge a few temporal details here and there, but no matter what you do, the end result stays the same.

Example : Let’s just say that when you're LOST on a magical tropical island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean (ish?) and you end up skipping through time and decide to try to kill that evil guy while he’s still a kid and/or stop a nuclear bomb you've so affectionately nicknamed “The Jughead” from exploding and causing all kinds of electromagnetic problems and inconsistencies on your already-mystical island home, the best that’s going to happen is you get some kind of weird Hindu sideways limbo reality that works as a parallel narrative to the entire last season of your television show. Oh, and that little kid you shot still turns out to be pretty evil, and it’s all your fault.

How to Avoid : Uhh, don’t try to kill your grandfather in the past before the birth of your father? Take that as a metaphor all you’d like.

HITLER'S MURDER PARADOX : This is similar to the Grandfather Paradox, in that the time traveller goes back in time to change something significant that has already happened. Unlike the Grandfather Paradox (which we assume would self-correct despite our best efforts), the change that one wishes to affect in the Hitler’s Murder Paradox is one that is more technically feasible — as in not intrinsically paradoxical — but still ultimately problematic.

The name comes from the idea that one could theoretically go back in time and kill Adolf Hitler before the Holocaust happened, thus preventing the systematic annihilation of some six million Jews and other minorities. Which, ya know, all sounds good and well, except that it tends to lead to some kind of downward spiraling domino effect with plenty of other consequences that the well-intentioned time traveler probably didn’t consider, and which ultimately might lead to a worse situation than that which the time traveler had hoped to prevent.

Example : This kind of stuff is rampant in comic books, especially X-Men, but the best example of it was the early 90s Age of Apocalypse storyline, in which Professor Xavier’s schizophrenic mutant son, Legion, decides to make daddy proud by helping his dream of mutant-human co-existence come true. Legion concludes that the best way to do this is to go back in time and kill Magneto before he becomes, ya know, Magneto. The only problem is, Magneto and Xavier were like totally BFF back then, so Xavier ends up taking the bullet for Magneto and dies (so yes, Legion does technically end up killing his own father, but that’s not the point).

As a result of there being no Charles Xavier, the psycho evil Darwinist uber-mutant Apocalypse ends up taking over the world before Magneto’s team of X-Men (named in honor of his deceased friend) are able to stop him, which leads to all kinds of crazy situations like evil Hank McCoy aka Dark Beast, who works alongside the evil versions of Cyclops and Havok, or a Sabretooth who is actually a pretty likeable superhero and a member of the X-Men. Oh, also, Magneto and Rogue totally have the sex, and humans are being systematically slaughtered in concentration camps by Apocalypse and his cronies. So basically, in his attempt to kill a perceived “Hitler” in the form of Magneto, Legion caused a real and even more twisted Holocaust to happen. WHOOPS.

How to Avoid : In addition to the whole alternate-reality-that-is-ironically-worse-than-the-world-as-it-used-to-be problem, there’s also the moral compromise of killing an innocent child, even though you know that child is going to grow up to become pretty much the worst (greatest?) mass murderer in history. The best way to avoid it is simply and sadly to accept that you cannot change the past and shouldn’t even try. That is, unless you’re smart enough to have eliminated any possibility of negative domino effect resulting out of your actions.

For example, if you went back in time and eliminated M. Night Shyamalan shortly before the release of Signs, there would be nothing but positive results; the world would mourn the tragic and mysterious loss of a gifted young filmmaker taken before his time, we would all be so blinded by the shock of his death that we’d be able to ignore how bad the aliens looked in that movie (and the fact that seeing them at all was completely unnecessary), and the rest of us wouldn’t have been forced to endure such awful schlock as The Happening or Lady in the Water. See? That way everyone wins!

BUTTERFLY EFFECT : Similar to the cascading domino effect of the Hitler’s Murder Paradox, but on a different level. Whereas killing Hitler would obviously be a landmark event with quite a significant historical impact, something like, say, accidentally stepping on a bug in the past probably wouldn’t have as big of an effect, right?

Have you even been paying attention? Of course it will! That’s the whole point of a time travel paradox! Just like the way that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can affect a weather system in Texas, one tiny change in the past can lead to all kinds of Rube Goldbergian complications that can subtly — or seriously — affect the present. The term “Butterfly Effect” is actually derived from “A Sound of Thunder,” a short story by Ray Bradbury, in which a character accidentally steps on a butterfly in prehistoric times and causes catastrophic changes in the future from which he came.

Example : In Orpheus With Clay Feet by Philip K. Dick, the main character, Jesse Slade, enlists in the services of a time travel tourism agency, who set him up with a trip that allows him to go back in time and act as a muse for some significant historical figure. Slade chooses to go back and inspire his favorite science fiction writer Jack Dowland (which was also Dick’s pen name). Unfortunately, in his efforts to inspire Dowland’s monumental science fiction work, Slade directly reveals to Dowland that he is a time traveler hoping to inspire his work. Dowland takes this as an insulting ruse, and as a result, never becomes the great science fiction writer that he is meant to be. He does, however, publish a single science short story, under the pen name Philip K. Dick: a story called Orpheus With Clay Feet, about a time traveler that goes back in time to inspire his favorite science fiction writer, a man named Jack Dowland.

How to Avoid : Watch your step

Like What You Just Read? We Suggest The Following Blog Posts.

Privacy Overview

Do you believe in time travel? I’m a skeptic myself — but if these people’s stories about time travel are to be believed, then I am apparently wrong. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll have to eat my words. In all honesty, that might not be so bad — because the tradeoff for being wrong in that case would be that time travel is real . That would be pretty rad if it were true.

Technically speaking time travel does exist right now — just not in the sci fi kind of way you’re probably thinking. According to a TED-Ed video by Colin Stuart, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev actually traveled 0.02 seconds into his own future due to time dilation during the time he spent on the International Space Station. For the curious, Krikalev has spent a total of 803 days, nine hours, and 39 minutes in space over the course of his career.

That said, though, many are convinced that time dilation isn’t the only kind of time travel that’s possible; some folks do also believe in time travel as depicted by everything from H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine to Back to the Future . It’s difficult to find stories online that are actual accounts from real people — many of them are either urban legends ( hi there, Philadelphia Experiment ) or stories that center around people that I’ve been unable to verify actually exist — but if you dig hard enough, sincere accounts can be found.

Are the stories true? Are they false? Are they examples of people who believe with all their heart that they’re true, even if they might not actually be? You be the judge. These seven tales are all excellent yarns, at any rate.

The Moberly–Jourdain Incident

In 1901, two Englishwomen, Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain , took a vacation to France. While they were there, they visited the Palace of Versailles (because, y’know, that’s what one does when one visits France ). And while they were at Versailles, they visited what’s known as the Petit Trianon — a little chateau on the palace grounds that Louis XVI gave to Marie Antoinette as a private space for her to hang out and do whatever it was that a teenaged queen did when she was relaxing back then.

But while they were there, they claimed, they saw some… odd occurrences. They said they spotted people wearing anachronistic clothing, heard mysterious voices, and saw buildings and other structures that were no longer present — and, indeed, hadn’t existed since the late 1700s. Finally, they said, they caught sight of Marie Antoinette herself , drawing in a sketchbook.

They claimed to have fallen into a “time slip” and been briefly transported back more than 100 years before being jolted back to the present by a tour guide.

Did they really travel back in time? Probably not; various explanations include everything from a folie a deux (basically a joint delusion) to a simple misinterpretation of what they actually saw. But for what it’s worth, in 1911 — roughly 10 years after what they said they had experienced occurred — the two women published a book about the whole thing under the names Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont simply called An Adventure. These days, it’s available as The Ghosts of Trianon ; check it out, if you like.

The Mystery Of John Titor

John Titor is perhaps the most famous person who claims he’s time traveled; trouble is, no one has heard from him for almost 17 years. Also, he claimed he came from the future.

The story is long and involved, but the short version is this: In a thread begun in the fall of 2000 about time travel paradoxes on the online forum the Time Travel Institute — now known as Curious Cosmos — a user responded to a comment about how a time machine could theoretically be built with the following message:

“Wow! Paul is right on the money. I was just about to give up hope on anyone knowing who Tipler or Kerr was on this worldline.

“By the way, #2 is the correct answer and the basics for time travel start at CERN in about a year and end in 2034 with the first ‘time machine’ built by GE. Too bad we can’t post pictures or I’d show it to you.”

The implication, of course, was that the user, who was going by the name TimeTravel_0, came from a point in the future during which such a machine had already been invented.

Over the course of many messages spanning from that first thread all the way through the early spring of 2001, the user, who became known as John Titor, told his story. He said that he had been sent back to 1975 in order to bring an IBM 5100 computer to his own time; he was just stopping in 2000 for a brief rest on his way back home. The computer, he said, was needed to debug “various legacy computer programs in 2036” in order to combat a known problem similar to Y2K called the Year 2038 Problem . (John didn’t refer to it as such, but he said that UNIX was going to have an issue in 2038 — which is what we thought was going to happen back when the calendar ticked over from 1999 to 2000.)

Opinions are divided on whether John Titor was real ; some folks think he was the only real example of time travel we’ve ever seen, while others think it’s one of the most enduring hoaxes we’ve ever seen. I fall on the side of hoax, but that’s just me.

Project Pegasus And The Chrononauts

In 2011, Andrew D. Basiago and William Stillings stepped forward, claiming that they were former “chrononauts” who had worked with an alleged DARPA program called Project Pegasus. Project Pegasus, they said, had been developed in the 1970s; in 1980, they were taking a “Mars training class” at a community college in California (the college presumably functioning as a cover for the alleged program) when they were picked to go to Mars. The mode of transport? Teleportation.

It gets better, too. Basiago and Stillings also said that the then- 19-year-old Barack Obama , whom they claimed was going by the name “Barry Soetero” at the time, was also one of the students chosen to go to Mars. They said the teleportation occurred via something called a “jump room.”

The White House has denied that Obama has ever been to Mars . “Only if you count watching Marvin the Martian,” Tommy Vietor, then the spokesman for the National Security Council, told Wired’s Danger Room in 2012.

Victor Goddard’s Airfield Time Slip

Like Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, senior Royal Air Force commander Sir Robert Victor Goddard — widely known as Victor Goddard — claimed to have experienced a time slip.

In 1935, Goddard flew over what had been the RAF station Drem in Scotland on his way from Edinburgh to Andover, England. The Drem station was no longer in use; after demobilization efforts following WWI, it had mostly been left to its own devices. And, indeed, that’s what Goddard said he saw as he flew over it: A largely abandoned airfield.

On his return trip, though, things got… weird. He followed the same route he had on the way there, but during the flight, he got waylaid by a storm. As he struggled to regain control of his plane, however, he spotted the Drem airfield through a break in the clouds — and when he got closer to it, the bad weather suddenly dissipated. But the airfield… wasn’t abandoned this time. It was busy, with several planes on the runway and mechanics scurrying about.

Within seconds, though, the storm reappeared, and Goddard had to fight to keep his plane aloft again. He made it home just fine, and went on to live another 50 years — but the incident stuck with him; indeed, in 1975, he wrote a book called Flight Towards Reality which included discussion of the whole thing.

Here’s the really weird bit: In 1939, the Drem airfield was brought back to life. Did Goddard see a peek into the airfield's future via a time slip back in 1935? Who knows.

Space Barbie

I’ll be honest: I’m not totally sure what to do with thisone — but I’ll present it to you here, and then you can decide for yourself what you think about it. Here it is:

Valeria Lukyanova has made a name for herself as a “human Barbie doll” (who also has kind of scary opinions about some things ) — but a 2012 short documentary for Vice’s My Life Online series also posits that she believes she’s a time traveling space alien whose purpose on Earth is to aid us in moving “from the role of the ‘human consumer’ to the role of ‘human demi-god.’”

What I can’t quite figure out is whether this whole time traveling space alien thing is, like a piece of performance art created specifically for this Vice doc, or whether it’s what she actually thinks. I don’t believe she’s referenced it in many (or maybe even any) other interviews she’s given; the items I’ve found discussing Lukyanova and time travel specifically all point back to this video.

But, well… do with it all as you will. That’s the documentary up there; give it a watch and see what you think.

The Hipster Time Traveler

In the early 2010s, a photograph depicting the 1941 reopening of the South Fork Bridge in Gold Bridge, British Columbia in Canada went viral for seemingly depicting a man that looked… just a bit too modern to have been photographed in 1941. He looks, in fact, like a time traveling hipster : Graphic t-shirt, textured sweater, sunglasses, the works. The photo hadn’t been manipulated; the original can be seen here . So what the heck was going on?

Well, Snopes has plenty of reasonable explanations for the man’s appearance; each item he’s wearing, for example, could very easily have been acquired in 1941. Others have also backed up those facts. But the bottom line is that it’s never been definitively debunked, so the idea that this photograph could depict a man from our time who had traveled back to 1941 persists. What do you think?

Father Ernetti’s Chronovisor

According to two at least two books — Catholic priest Father Francois Brune’s 2002 book Le nouveau mystère du Vatican (in English, The Vatican’s New Mystery ) and Peter Krassa’s 2000 book Father Ernetti's Chronovisor : The Creation and Disappearance of the World's First Time Machine — Father Pellegrino Ernetti, who was a Catholic priest like Brune, invented a machine called a “chronovisor” that allowed him to view the past. Ernetti was real; however, the existence of the machine, or even whether he actually claimed to have invented it, has never been proven. Alas, he died in 1994, so we can’t ask him, either. I mean, if we were ever able to find his chronovisor, maybe we could… but at that point, wouldn’t we already have the information we need?

(I’m extremely skeptical of this story, by the way, but both Brune’s and Krassa’s books swear up, down, left, and right that it’s true, so…you be the judge.)

Although I'm fairly certain that these accounts and stories are either misinterpreted information or straight-up falsehoods, they're still entertaining to read about; after all, if you had access to a time machine, wouldn't you at least want to take it for a spin? Here's hoping that one day, science takes the idea from theory to reality. It's a big ol' universe out there.

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5 shows that did time travel right (and 5 that didn't).

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Do Star Trek's Uniforms Change for Different Environments?

Ncis' rocky carroll is right about hawai'i spinoff cancellation & actor's return, suits: l.a.’s first reactions confirm the spinoff is bringing back one of suits’ greatest strengths.

To quote a well-versed Doctor on the subject, “Time is like a big ball of wibbly wobbly time-y wimey…stuff.” Time can be fluid or rigidly fixed, and attempts to meddle in it have mixed results. This can also be said of shows that have time travel episodes or plotlines; it’s a tricky story to tell correctly. Many shows flounder when it comes to time travel stories.

RELATED:  8 Times Doctor Who Ignored Its Own Canon

Other shows have managed to write solid, consistent stories. Here are 5 shows that pulled off time travel stories, and 5 that didn't.

Did it Right: Fringe

This FOX show covered pretty much every story that science fiction has to tell. From parallel universes to shapeshifters, the show tackled a variety of tropes and stories.

Fringe  introduced time travel via the Observers, a group of bald men in suits who appear at important historical events It's eventually revealed that the Observers are a genetically engineered species from the future, and are looking to recolonize and subjugate humanity. The show's final season dealt with the Fringe team undoing the Observers meddling and returning back to their original timeline. It was a cohesive story that resulted in a heart-wrenchingly beautiful finale.

Did it Wrong: Time After Time

Not even Cyndi Lauper could save this 2017 ABC show, which aired 5 episodes. The show starred writer H.G. Wells (Freddie Stroma), who had built the infamous time machine featured in his book. Said time machine is then stolen by Jack the Ripper, who transports into 2017 New York to continue his murderous rampage.

The series was muddled with poor pacing, as well as little use of the actual time machine. While a good concept, the show relied too much on the idea of historical figures using a time machine. Little effort was put into building up the characters and the world, and instead assumed audiences would be on board. Time travel should feel like an adventure and, instead, it felt like a long car ride with people you didn't like all that much.

Did it Right: Timeless

NBC’s two season drama had a set of solid rules in place that made time travel believable and fun (even if the finale was forced to break some of those rules in the name of wrapping up the story).

RELATED:  Everything You Need To Know About Timeless Season 3 Cancellation

Timeless  featured Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer), a history professor who worked with Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan (Matt Lanter) and scientist Rufus Carlin (Malcolm Barrett) to fight off terrorists who had stolen a time machine, as well as a secret organization known as Rittenhouse. The trio would use a 3 person “life boat” time machine to chase after these individuals and try and stop them from ruining the timeline. The show featured amazing stories from American history and obscure historical figures. The show was as informational as it was entertaining to watch, and fans of the show will certainly miss the antics of the Time Team.

Did it Wrong: The Flash

The Flash wasted no time showcasing the fact that he can vibrate so quickly that he can literally time travel. Doing so has had...less than positive outcomes. The main problem has been that the concept of time travel has been inconsistent. Villains like Reverse Flash can time travel with seemingly little negative effect, while Barry's attempts end in disaster.

RELATED:  The Flash's Time Travel Has Stopped Making Sense

Season 5 of the show has ramped up the ridiculousness by having Nora (Barry and Iris West's future daughter) living with them in the present day in an attempt to save her father. Barry created the Flashpoint timeline by doing the exact same thing to save his mother, which had devastating effects on his friends and family. Apparently, Team Flash still hasn't learned their lesson on time travel.

Did it Right: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Characters from  Agents  of S.H.I.E.L.D . have fought off Inhumans, aliens, evil terrorists, and killer robots. It seemed like they couldn't go further in their ability to save the world.

Well, they could. Season 5 picked up immediately from the end of season 4, with the team abducted by a mysterious group and thrust into the future. In this future, Earth has been destroyed. Humanities survivors are slaves on a large space facility operated by the Kree. The team was forced to fight the Kree, save this future humanity, and find a way to their own timeline to stop it from ever happening. Themes like predestination and free will played back and forth, with each decision the team made inadvertently bringing them one step closer to causing the end of the world. It was a tense, thrilling season of television that set up the stakes like never before.

Did it Wrong: Legends of Tomorrow

Over time, so many side characters were introduced on  Flash and  Arrow that it made sense to put them all on one spin-off show. Thus,  Legends of Tomorrow was born. Featuring heroes and villains alike, the Legends travel through time to protect the timeline.

RELATED: Legends of Tomorrow Season 3's Ending Completely Changes The Show

While the show has a large following, it has gained a large share of detractors as well. Many take aim at the alarming frequency in how time travel rules are made and broken. Early on, the team is told that even the slightest change in the timeline can have huge consequences and that you only get one opportunity to fix things. Yet season 4 features John Constantine (Matt Ryan) rewriting the timeline however he likes, and the team is given opportunity after opportunity to fix it. While it's natural for shows to bend or break rules, shows like  Legends  lose their credibility when they do so. If the rules of time travel aren't considered sacred, then nothing else is.

Did it Right: Outlander

Outlander is the best show that no one is watching. The Starz production features WW2 nurse Claire (Caitriona Balfe), who while on holiday in Scotland comes across magical standing stones that transport her back to 1783. While there, she joins a group of rebel Scottish Highlanders, falls in love with the impeccably handsome Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) and attempts to figure out how to get back home.

It's rare that we get a time travel story that has its roots in fantasy, which is part of what makes this series a welcome addition. Outlander lives and breathes in the different time periods and locations the show takes us on. American audiences can learn a great deal about British history from the 1700s that doesn't necessarily have to do with the Revolutionary War, and the way Outlander  treats issues of race and gender throughout different time periods is masterfully done. The show is smart, sexy, and manages to make time travel feel magical.

Did it Wrong: Lost

Lost  got to work right away piling question after question on its audience. With years of anticipation building up, it should be expected that the series finale fell short for many people. The finale revealed that while the events of the show HAPPENED, but that they were also part of a dream. Yeah, we still don't really understand.

Time travel manifested itself in a number of ways. Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) was seemingly able to travel using his memories. The island itself served as a vehicle for time travel, bringing its inhabitants to various time periods. However, the revelation that the island was a sort of limbo made many fans question how much of it even happened. The time travel episodes were well received at the time, but have not aged well given these questions.

Did it Right: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek  is no stranger to time travel stories. The Next Generation  encounters time travel in the form of aliens, ships, technology, and a demigod known as Q (John de Lancie). Each time, science and rationale give a clear reason for time travel existing and time travels effects feel consistent.

To many, the best use is in the series finale "All Good Things...". Picard finds himself traveling through the past, present, and future as part of the continuing trial of humanity brought forth by Q in the pilot episode. The show demonstrated how far the crew had come, as well as what awaits them in their future. The story was so well received that it earned the show an Emmy and the Hugo Award.

Did it Wrong: Life on Mars (US)

If someone were to teach a masterclass on how to not adapt a BBC show, Life on Mars would be taught on day one. The show features Detective Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) who gets into a car crash in 2008 and awakens in 1973. A man out of time, Sam uses his future knowledge of police procedure to solve crime while also trying to find a way back home.

The US show took several liberties from its BBC counterpart.  This included a completely changed  St. Elsewhere -esque ending. Sam was not living in 1973, nor was he a detective, but he was an astronaut. The AI had malfunctioned on his journey to Mars. Everyone he had imagined in the simulation represented his fellow crewmembers. It was a disappointment to fans, and there are more than a few who wished they could go back in time to change it.

NEXT:  Star Trek Theory: Discovery’s Red Angel Is Next Generation's Space God

Why I "hate" time-travel stories.

Forums › Fiction › General Writing Discussions › Why I "hate" time-travel stories.

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe they (who they are) are right. But that’s not important right now. Here’s why I hate (see  annoyed)  by Time-travel stories.

I’m just sayin’, man. It’s stupid.

*Forum Signature here*

Wow. XD That’s both impressive and incredibly annoying.

One of my favorite Pinterest pins:

( The Flash has embedded in me a… strong dislike for time travel. XD)

Speculative fiction author. Mythology nerd. Worldbuilding enthusiast. Singer. Fan of classic literature.

That’s probably an accurate timeline, though I haven’t seen much of the show.

The moral of the story:  Stop messin’ with the cotton-pickin’ stinkin’ space-time continuum!

I don’t like time travels stories either. They are normally really confusing. I did read one that I liked recently though. It was called All of Our Yesterdays. It was about a girl who’s best friend turned evil and created a time machine, so she has to go back in time and kill him while he is protected by her younger self, who doesn’t know what is going on. The time travel sciency part didn’t make that much sense, but I thought the concept was really cool.

The cake is a lie. acaylor.com

I don’t mind time travel within certain boundaries. These cases are okay.

A: It doesn’t mess with the timeline, the time travel always had happened, and you can’t change a thing.

B: It creates alternate timelines so you can’t get back to where you were.

This means not travelling into the future and coming back from it. Because travelling back in time erases that future, making it meaningless.

There was a time travel story I quite enjoyed, that involved the MC being pulled into the future to save everyone from his childhood acquaintance who had taken over the world. It all went quite well, until he went back to his own time, and made a choice that complete erased the story making it pointless.

ENFP - Introspective extrovert

Exploring reality, yearning for adventure.

hmm can’t say i agree, I don’t personally write time travel but I love reading it.

https://www.pinterest.com/parkerlillian2003/ https://www.facebook.com/lillian.parker.182940

I don’t mind time travel if it’s done well and truly has it thought out. One of the things that bugs me is people are always warned that you can’t change the past, you can only learn from it, and if you mess with the past it could have serious repercussions and either they’ll go back and change things even when they were told they couldn’t, or they’ll do things that should have had affect on the future and don’t.

And it all depends too on how the author treats that person. When he time travels, has his body moved out of the present and into the past, or does he now have two bodies, in a way, and could meet his younger self on the street? Or when he’s in the past does he go to his younger body? Does he go back to being a ‘character’ in life or is he an extra person, an observer?

Mostly all the picky things mean that it has to be really, really well done for me to like it. I enjoyed the second Griffin Sharpe book, The Future Door, mainly because it the time machine was a tea-pot. Also the Nick of Time books, which combine time travel, Nazis, and pirates. Hello, how more awesome can you get?

I'm short, I like words, and I love people. No, I didn't draw my profile pic.

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40 Best Time Travel Books To Read Right Now (2024)

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Travel back in time with the best time travel books, including engrossing thrillers, romance, contemporary lit, and mind-bending sci-fi.

Table of Contents

Best Time Travel Books

Books about time travel promise to not only transport you across time periods and space – Doctor Who-style – but also tesser you into new dimensions and around the world. Most readers already know about classics like The Time Traveler’s Wife , A Christmas Carol , and The Time Machine .

For romance time travel, grab In A Holidaze or One Last Stop . For contemporary and new time travel books, Haig’s The Midnight Library and Serle’s In Five Years captivated our hearts and minds.

Recursion re-kindled our love for science fiction, and Ruby Red transported us to 18th-century London. Books like Displacement promise intuitive and raw commentary about generational trauma and racism in graphic novel form.

Below, find the best time travel novels across genres for adults and teens, including history, romance, classics, sci-fi, YA, and thrilling fiction. Get ready to travel in the blink of an eye, and be sure to let us know your favorites in the comments. Let’s get started!

Contemporary & Literary Fiction

If you enjoy contemporary and literary fiction filled with strong main characters, these are some of the best books in the time travel genre. Uncover new releases as well as books on the bestseller lists. Of course, we’ll share a few lesser-known gems too.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

Would your life change if you had one seemingly real dream or premonition? What if some key facts were missing but you had no idea? Can we change the future?

One of the best books about time travel and friendship, don’t skip In Five Years . In fact, we read this New York City-based novel in half a day. Have the tissue box ready.

Dannie nails an important job interview and is hoping to get engaged. Of course, this is all a part of her perfect 5-year plan. Dannie has arranged every minute of her life ever since her brother died in a drunk driving accident.

On the night of Dannie’s “scheduled” engagement, she falls asleep only to have a vision of herself 5 years into the future in the arms of another man. Did she just time travel or could this be a dream? When Dannie arrives back in 2020, her life goes back to normal. …That is until she meets the man from her dream.

We were expecting In Five Years to be a time travel romance story; however, this is a different type of love and one of the best books about strong friendships .

Read In Five Years : Amazon | Goodreads

Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Translated by Geoffrey Trousselot | We just love Japanese literature . One of the most debated time travel books among our readers – you’ll either love it or hate it – Before the coffee gets cold takes place at a cafe in Tokyo, Japan.

Along with coffee, this 140-year-old, back-alley cafe lets visitors travel back in time. Four visitors at the cafe are hoping to time travel to see someone for the last (or first) time. The way each patron views the cafe says a lot about them. The details and repetition are everything.

True to the title, visits may only last as long as it takes for the coffee to grow cold. If they don’t finish their coffee in time, there are ghostly consequences.

Before the coffee gets cold asks, who would you want to see one last time, and what issues you would confront?

Along with the many rules of time travel, these visitors are warned that the present will not change. Would you still travel back knowing this? Can something, anything, still change – even within you?

The story has a drop of humor with a beautiful message. We shed a tear or two. Discover even more terrific and thought-provoking Japanese fantasy novels here .

Read Before the coffee gets cold : Amazon | Goodreads

If you are looking for the most inspiring take on time travel in books, Haig’s The Midnight Library is it. This is one of those profound stories that make you think more deeply . TWs for pet death (early on) and suicide ideation.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Imagine if you could see your other possible lives and fix your regrets. Would that path be better? Would these changes make you happier?

Set in Bedford, England, and at a library , Nora answers these questions as she intentionally overdoses on pills. Caught in the Midnight Library – a purgatory of sorts – Nora explores books filled with the ways her life could have turned out. She tries on these alternative lives, pursuing different dreams, marrying different people, and realizing that some parts of her root life were not as they seemed on the surface.

Find hope and simplicity in one of the most authentic and heaviest time travel novels on this list. Haig addresses mental health through a new lens that is both beautiful and moving.

With a team full of avid readers and librarians, discover our top selections featuring more books about books .

Read The Midnight Library : Amazon | Goodreads

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver

Some of the best time travel books are those with alternate realities, including The Two Lives of Lydia Bird . There are content warnings for prescription pill addiction and more.

Set in England, Lydia and Freddie are planning their marriage when the unthinkable happens. Freddie dies in a car accident on the way to Lydia’s birthday dinner. In a matter of seconds, Lydia’s world falls apart. She isn’t sure how she will survive. When Lydia starts taking magical pink sleeping pills, she enters an alternate universe where Freddie is alive and well.

Caught between her dream world and real life, Lydia must decide if she will give in to her addiction – living in a temporary fantasy world – or give it up completely.

While the repetitive and predictable plot drags a bit – slightly hurting the pacing – the overall story shows emotional growth and the nature of healing after loss. And, as Lydia soon learns via her dreams, no love is perfect. Maybe her future was destined to be different anyway, which is reminiscent of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library .

Read The Two Lives of Lydia Bird Jose Silver : Amazon | Goodreads

The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August by Claire North

If you are looking for more suspenseful books about time travel and like Groundhog Day , check out The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. However, this is not just one day on repeat; instead, this is a lifetime.

Harry August is repeatedly reborn into the same life, retaining his memories each time. No matter what Harry does or says, when he lands on his deathbed, he always returns back to his childhood, again and again. On the verge of his eleventh death, though, a girl changes the course of his life. He must use his accumulated wisdom to prevent catastrophe.

Read The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August : Amazon | Goodreads

An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim

When it comes to time travel books, An Ocean of Minutes is one of the most original takes about time travel’s effects on alternate history.

Polly and Frank are deeply in love in 1981 when a pandemic devastates the planet. By the end of 1981, time travel (invented in this alternate reality in 1993) has been made available.

Because of this invention, individuals can sign on to work for the TimeRaiser corporation in order to escape or save their loved ones in the present. Due to a flaw in the technology, though, they can only transport people for 12 years. This prevents them from stopping the pandemic by just 6 months.

When Frank gets ill, Polly signs up, both agreeing they will meet back up in 1993. Now alone in the future, Polly has to learn to navigate a world she has less than zero preparation for. In this world, she is a time refugee, bonded to TimeRaiser without a physical cent to her name.

Lim uses the time travel mechanic to cleverly explore the subject of immigration, forcing the reader to follow Polly blindly into a world they should know, but don’t. This is what makes An Ocean of Minutes one of the most unique time travel novels on this reading list.

Read An Ocean of Minutes : Amazon | Goodreads

Time Travel In Science Fiction

For fantasy and sci-fi lovers, take a quantum leap into fictional worlds, quantum physics, possible futures, black holes, and endless possibilities. See if you can tell the difference between the real world and new dimensions.

Recursion by Blake Crouch

Recursion is one of our all-time favorite time travel books to gift to dads who love sci-fi. Can you tell what we gave our dad for Christmas one year?

In Recursion, no one actually physically time travels – well, sort of. Instead, memories become the time-traveling reality.

Detective Barry Sutton is investigating False Memory Syndrome. Neuroscientist Helena Smith might have the answers he needs. The disease drives people crazy – and to their deaths – by causing them to remember entire lives that aren’t theirs. Or are they!?

All goes to heck when the government gets its hands on this mind-blowing technology. Can Barry and Helena stop this endless loop?

Recursion is also a (2019) Goodreads Best Book for Science Fiction.

Read Recursion : Amazon | Goodreads

This Is How You Lose The War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar 

A Goodreads runner-up for one of the best science fiction novels (of 2019) – and one of the shortest time travel novels on this list – This Is How You Lose The Time War follows two warring time-traveling agents falling in love through a letter exchange.

Red and Blue have nothing in common except that they travel across time and space and are alone. Their growing and forbidden love is punishable by death and their agencies might be onto them.

In a somewhat beautiful yet bizarre story, we watch as Red and Blue slowly fall for each other and confess their love. They engage in playful banter and nicknames. Every shade of red and blue reminds them of each other.

The first half of the novel is a bit abstract. You might wonder what the heck you’ve gotten yourself into. However, once you get your feet planted firmly on the ground of the plot, the story picks up and starts making more sense.

We can’t promise you’ll love or even understand This Is How You Lose The Time War – we aren’t sure we do. However, this is truly one of the most unique sci-fi and LGBTQ+ time travel romance books on this reading list – written by two authors. Also, maybe crack out the dictionary…

Explore even more of the best LGBTQ+ fantasy books to read next.

Read This Is How You Lose The War : Amazon | Goodreads

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

A debut novel, All Our Wrong Todays is both a humorous and entertaining time travel book that speaks to how we become who we are.

In 2016, technology perfected the world for Tom Barren. However, we all know that perfection doesn’t equate to happiness. Barren has lost his girlfriend, and he just happens to own a time machine… Now, Barren has to decide if he wants to keep his new, manipulated future or if he just wants to go back home to his depressing but normal life.

Read All Our Wrong Todays : Amazon | Goodreads

Here And Now And Then by Mike Chen

Imagine getting trapped in time and starting over. That’s exactly what happens to IT worker, Kin Stewart, in one of the bestselling science fiction time travel books, Here And Now And Then .

Stewart has two lives since he is a displaced time-traveling agent stuck in San Francisco in the 1990s. He has a family that knows nothing about his past; or, should we say future. When a rescue team arrives to take him back, Stewart has to decide what he is willing to risk for his new family.

Here And Now And Then is a time travel book filled with emotional depth surrounding themes of bonds, identity, and sacrifice. Find even more books set in San Francisco, California (and more!).

Read Here And Now And Then : Amazon | Goodreads

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is one of the most unusual books about time travel out there.

Our protagonist Charles Yu lives in a world where time travel exists and is readily available to the average person. And yes, he is named after the author, and yes, it is as meta as it sounds; and yes, this is just the beginning of this speculative fiction time travel book.

Charles Yu’s day job is spent repairing time machines for Time Warner Time. But in his free time, he tries to help the people who use time travel to do so safely and to counsel them if things have gone wrong.

It’s no surprise that Charles’ entire life revolves around time travel since his father invented the technology many years ago. And then he disappeared. In fact, Charles is also trying to find out just what happened to his dad, and where – or when – he’s gone.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe won’t be for everyone, but it’s one of the best time travel books if you want delightfully meta, fantastically non-linear, and very very weird.

Read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe : Amazon | Goodreads

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

For beautiful, lyrical time travel novels about found family and love, The Vanished Birds is a must-read.

Nia Imani exists outside of time and space. She travels in and out of the world through a pocket of time with her space crew. They emerge to trade or sell goods every eight months. But eight months for them is 15 years for everyone else.

She has lived this way for hundreds of years. Though she has her crew, and there are people she shares connections with sporadically throughout their lives, she is lonely. And although she barely ages, she watches friends and lovers grow old and die.

One such person is Kaeda, who meets Nia for the first time when he is 7. The next time he sees her, he has aged 15 years, while she is only months older. She continues to come every 15 years of his life, always looking the same.

Then one day a mysterious, mute boy falls from the sky into Nia’s life. His name is Ahro, and there’s something extra special about him. Something that could revolutionize space travel forever. And now there might be people after Ahro who won’t love him the way Nia does.

If you love a character-driven book with exquisite prose – and a few time warps – this is one of the best time travel books for you.

Read The Vanished Birds : Amazon | Goodreads

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Night Watch is one of the most fun and thrilling books about time travel. It’s also a bit ridiculous and very very British.

Why can’t policing just be simple? All Sam Vimes wanted to do was capture and arrest a dangerous murderer. But thanks to those damned wizards and their experiments, he and the killer have both been accidentally thrown back in time thirty years.

And to top it off, the man who would have become a mentor to young Sam Vimes in the past has been killed in the process! How’s Vimes going to get this all sorted out?

The City Watch he’s spent years improving is just a bunch of semi-competent volunteers at this point. He’s got no money, no clothes, and no friends. But at least he’s making enemies fast. Can he catch the killer, stop history from not repeating itself, and get home to his family? Oh, and the city’s about to dissolve into civil war. Typical.

Night Watch is perfect if you prefer your time travel books to be fantasy-based.

P.S. There may be mild spoilers for previous books in the Discworld series, but this can be read as a standalone. And if you only ever read one Discworld novel, this is one of the best there is – and so far the only one of the Discworld books with time travel!

Read Night Watch : Amazon | Goodreads

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

The Future of Another Timeline is one of the few time travel books to explore history through a feminist lens.

In 1992, Beth – a high school senior – and her friends Heather, Lizzy, and Soojin attend a riot grrl concert with Heather’s boyfriend Scott. But afterward, one of Scott’s not-so-funny sexist jokes gets out of hand and Lizzy accidentally kills him. Now they’re on the run, and the bodies just keep piling up.

Meanwhile, in 2022, Tess is part of a group of women and non-binary people working together to change history. They have the use of five time devices which only allow them to travel backward and back to the present day – but never forwards.

Beth and Tess come from two wildly different times (1992, and 2022, respectively). But, while Beth is busy making history, Tess is quite literally trying to change it. However, both of them want the same thing: a better world. When their worlds collide, will they be able to save each other – and the world?

The Future of Another Timeline is a time travel fiction celebration of feminism and queerness with lots of sci-fi and punk rock thrown in. This is one of the best time travel novels for those who enjoy stellar women making history .

Read The Future of Another Timeline : Amazon | Goodreads

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

The Kingdoms is wildly imaginative and sure to enchant fans of time travel books, alternative history stories, and tales about parallel universes.

In 1898 Joe Tournier steps off a train and suddenly can’t remember anything that comes before that moment. The world he now finds himself in is as foreign to him as it is to us: an alternate history/reality where the UK lost the Battle of Trafalgar and is now a French colony.

In this world, the British are kept as slaves. Napoleon is a popular name for pets, and tartan is outlawed. Since Joe arrives on a train from Glasgow speaking English and wearing tartan, there is some speculation he might be from The Saints, a terrorist group based in Edinburgh fighting for freedom.

But all Joe remembers is the fading image of a woman and the name Madeline. Although he is identified by his owner and brought “home,” Joe is determined to find this Madeline. And his resolve is only strengthened when he receives a postcard signed ‘– M’ and dated 90 years in the past.

Discover even more books about Scottish culture, history, and everyday life.

Read The Kingdoms : Amazon | Goodreads

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The Light Brigade is one of the best time travel stories for anyone who loves character-driven tales or books about war and conflict.

As war wages on Mars, the military has devised the perfect soldier to fight on the frontlines: being made of light. The Light Brigade, as they’re called back home, is made up of soldiers who have undergone a procedure that breaks them down into atoms capable of traveling at the speed of light. They are the perfect soldiers, but broken people.

The book follows one such soldier, Dietz, an eager new recruit who is experiencing battle out of sync with everyone else. Because of this, she – and we – see a different reality of the war than the one presented by the Corporate Corps. As Dietz becomes more and more unstuck in time, she becomes more and more unsure of her own sanity and the role she is playing in this war.

Read The Light Brigade : Amazon | Goodreads

The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way

You Look Like Death Volume 1 | Now a popular (and excellent) Netflix TV show, The Umbrella Academy is one of the best time travel books of all time.

One day, forty-seven children are suddenly and inexplicably born to women who were not previously pregnant. Eccentric millionaire Reginald Hargreeves goes around the world buying as many of the surviving children as he possibly can. He is able to get seven.

These children, it turns out, all have superpowers (except, it seems, for the unremarkable Number Seven aka Vanya). They become the crime-fighting group: The Umbrella Academy.

Fast forward several years, and Number Five, whose special power is that he can travel in time a few seconds or minutes per go, has mysteriously appeared after Hargreeves dies. And now he brings warning of an apocalypse – one which he insists none of his siblings will survive.

The Umbrella Academy series currently has three volumes, all packed with tales of time travel, parallel worlds, family drama, and lots of epic battles. We’ve absolutely loved this time travel book series so far; we can’t wait to see what Gerard Way does with future installments.

Discover even more great books with music, musicians, and bands.

Read The Umbrella Academy : Amazon | Goodreads

Historical Fiction

Travel back in time to witness wars and history. See what happens if you try to rewrite the future. Many of these historical fiction books with time travel promise to teach you more.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

We have a plethora of Agatha Christie fans amongst our Uncorked Readers , and Turton’s The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evenlyn Hardcastle is inspired by Christie.

Similar to Levithan’s Every Day , each day, Aiden wakes up in a different body from the guests of the Blackheath Manor. Trapped in a time loop, Aiden must solve Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder to escape. In the process, he navigates the tangled web of secrets, lies, and interconnected lives of the guests. Can he identify the killer and break the cycle?

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is an award-winning historical thriller and one of the best time travel novels if you enjoy Downton Abbey and Groundhog’s Day . Discover even more great books set at hotels, mansions, and more.

Read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle : Amazon | Goodreads

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Travel back in time to Scotland in one of the most well-known time travel book series (and now TV series) of all time. Outlander is a part of pop culture. A New York Times bestseller and one of the top 10 most loved books according to The Great America Read, get ready to enter Scotland in 1743.

Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, walks through an ancient circle of stones and is transported into a world of love, death, and war. This is a place of political intrigue, clan conflicts, and romantic entanglements. Claire must navigate the unfamiliar landscape while grappling with her feelings for the dashing Jamie Fraser.

Encounter even more cult-classic books from the ’90s like A Game Of Thrones , which is perfect for fantasy map lovers .

Read Outlander : Amazon | Goodreads

11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King

Written by bestselling author, Stephen King, 11/22/63 is one of the best award-winning time travel books for historical fiction lovers. Set in 1963 when President Kennedy is shot, 11/22/63 begs the question: what if you could go back in time and change history?

Enter Jake Epping in Lisbon Falls, Maine.  Epping asks his students to write about a time that altered the course of their lives. Inspired by one of those haunting essays, Epping enlists to prevent Kennedy’s assassination.  How is this time travel possible? With the discovery of a time portal in a local diner’s storeroom…

11/22/63 is one of the most thrilling and realistic books about time travel, according to both critics and readers.

Read 11/22/63 : Amazon | Goodreads

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

If you are looking for historical fiction novels about time travel that address slavery and racism, be sure to check out Butler’s Kindred. This is also one of the best books published in the 1970s .

One minute Dana is celebrating her birthday in modern-day California. The next, she finds herself in the Antebellum South on a Pre-Civil War Maryland plantation. Dana is expected to save the plantation owner’s son from drowning. Each time Dana finds herself back in this time period as well as the slave quarters, her stays grow longer and longer as well as more dangerous.

Examine the haunting legacy and trauma of slavery across time. For younger readers, there is also a graphic novel adaptation . Discover more books that will transport you to the South .

Read Kindred : Amazon | Goodreads

What The Wind Knows by Amy Harmon

A bestseller and Goodreads top choice book, if you devour historical Irish fiction, What The Wind Knows will transport you to Ireland in the 1920s.

Anne Gallagher heads to Ireland to spread her grandfather’s ashes. Devastated, her grief pulls her into another time. Ireland is on the verge of entering a war, and Anne embraces a case of mistaken identity. She finds herself pulled into Ireland’s fight for Independence at the risk of losing her future life. She also falls for another main character and doctor, Thomas Smith.

What The Wind Knows is one of the best time travel novels that both romance and fantasy readers can appreciate. Witness connections that transcend time.

Read What The Wind Knows : Amazon | Goodreads

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Known for being one of the best time travel books for thriller lovers, The Shining Girls also has the reputation as the spookiest novel on this reading list.

Kirby Mazrachi is the last shining girl – a girl with a future and so much potential. Harper Curtis is a murderer from the past meant to kill Mazrachi. However, Kirby is not about to easily go out without a fight, leading her on one violent quantum leap through multiple decades.

As Kirby races against time to track down a serial killer and unravel the mysteries of the House, encounter themes of resilience, fate, and the shining spirit that can transcend even the darkest forces.

Read The Shining Girls : Amazon | Goodreads

Time Travel Romance Books

We love a good time-travel romance novel, but we also understand how hard it can be to hold onto love when time is so unstable. From queer love stories set on trains to holiday celebrations, fall in love across time with these books.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

From bestselling author, Casey McQuiston of Red, White, & Royal Blue – one of our favorite LGBTQ+ books for new adults – don’t miss the most-talked-about book (from 2021), One Last Stop.

Twenty-three-year-old August is quite the cynic and living in New York City. Up until now, August has jumped schools and towns as often as you change a pair of socks. August has also never been in a serious relationship and wants to find “her person.” August’s life suddenly changes, though, when she meets a beautiful and mysterious woman on the train.

Jane looks a little…out of date… and for good reason; she’s from the 1970s and trapped in the train’s energy. August wants nothing more than to help Jane leave the train, but does that mean leaving her too?

A feel-good, older coming-of-age story, laugh out loud and be utterly dazzled as you follow love across time and space. You’ll cozy (and drink) up in the parties and community surrounding August. One Last Stop is one of the all-time best LGBTQ+ time travel books – and perfect if you enjoy books that take place on trains .

Read One Last Stop : Amazon | Goodreads

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler’s Wife is one the top time travel romance novels – and not just because the story features a librarian . We are so biased.

Henry and Clare have loved each other pretty much forever. Unfortunately, Henry has Chrono-Displacement Disorder, sporadically misplacing him in time. Of course, this time-traveling dilemma makes Clare’s and Henry’s marriage and future together pretty darn interesting.

Grab some Kleenex as they attempt to live normal lives and survive impending devastation. The Time Traveler’s Wife has also been made into a romantic movie classic . Watch even more fantasy movies with romance .

Read The Time Traveler’s Wife : Amazon | Goodreads

In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren

If you are looking for a sweet and sexy holiday rom-com set in Utah, grab In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren.

Mae leaves her family and friend’s Christmas vacation home after drunkenly making out with an old childhood friend. Blame the spiked eggnog. Unfortunately, Mae’s secretly in love with her best friend’s brother, Andrew. On the ride to the airport, Mae wishes for happiness just as a truck hits her parent’s car. 

Mae lands in a time-travel loop where her dreams start coming true.  Is it too good to last?   What happens when she isn’t happy once again? Is she trapped?

For holiday books about time travel, this one is sure to put you in the Christmas spirit if you enjoy movies like Holidates  or  Groundhog’s Day . It’s light with a happy ending – typical of this author duo. We also recommend In A Holidaze if you are looking for Christmas family gathering books – a big request we see here at TUL.

P.S. Did you know that Christina Lauren is a pen name for a writing duo, Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings? Christina Lauren also wrote The Unhoneymooners , which was also hilariously enjoyable and set on an island .

Read In A Holidaze : Amazon | Goodreads

A Knight In Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux

For cozy time travel romance books and a feminist tale set abroad, try A Knight In Shining Armor .

Dougless Montgomery is weeping on top of a tombstone when Nicholas Stafford, Earl of Thornwyck, appears. Although this armor-clad hunk allegedly died in 1564, he stands before her about to embark on a journey to clear his name. Convicted of treason, Montgomery vows to help her soon-to-be lover find his accuser and set the record straight.

Read A Knight In Shining Armor : Amazon | Goodreads

The Night Mark by Tiffany Reisz

Set in South Carolina, if you love lighthouses and beach vibes, you’ll find something enjoyable in the time travel romance, The Night Mark .

After Faye’s husband dies, she cannot move on and recover. Accepting a photographer job in SC, Faye becomes obsessed with the local lighthouse’s myth, The Lady of the Light.

Back in 1921, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter mysteriously drowned. Faye is drawn into a love story that isn’t hers and becomes entangled in a passionate and forbidden love affair.

Read The Night Mark : Amazon | Goodreads

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

Anyone who likes their time travel books to have a magical love story should pick up The Seven Year Slip for their next read. It’s one of our favorite magical realism novels .

When Clementine’s aunt dies, she inherits her fancy New York apartment on the Upper East Side. Although Clementine would really rather have her aunt back and can’t imagine living in her home, she eventually forces herself to move in and inhabit her aunt’s space.

And not long after, she wakes up to discover a strange man in her living room… except it’s not her living room, it’s her aunt’s… from seven years ago. Clementine’s aunt always said her apartment held a touch of magic; sometimes it created time slips that brought two people together when they were at a crossroads.

But what happens when you start to fall for someone stuck seven years in the past? Clementine knows there’s no future together, but she also can’t let go of this link to her aunt.

Like her previous speculative fiction romance, The Dead Romantics , Ashely Poston’s unique time travel tale is full of heartache and grief. However, it will also make you swoon. Basically, this one is a must if you are a fan of time travel romance books.

Read The Seven Year Slip : Amazon | Goodreads

Classic Books

No time travel reading list would be complete without the classics. Below, uncover just a few great time travel novels that started it all.

The End of Eternity by Issac Asimov

The End of Eternity is said to be one of Asimov’s science fiction masterpieces. This is also one of the most spellbinding books about time travel – although some criticize the story for its loopholes.

Harlan is a member of the elite future known as an Eternal. He lives and works in Eternity, which like any good time travel novel, is located separately from time and space.

Harlan makes small changes in the timeline in order to better history. Of course, altering the course of the world is dangerous and comes with repercussions, especially when Harlan falls in love.

Read The End of Eternity : Amazon | Goodreads

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

It goes without saying that Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is one of the most famous and best time travel books for classic lovers – and a literary canon-worthy Christmas novel.

Ebenezer Scrooge is a greedy, lonely, and cruel man who truly has no Christmas spirit. Haunted by the ghosts of the past, present, and future, Scrooge must find the ultimate redemption before it’s too late. Does he have a heart?

Find even more classic and contemporary ghost books , including a few unique takes on ghosts.

Read A Christmas Carol : Amazon | Goodreads

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five is a somewhat bizarre time travel book about finding meaning in our sometimes fractured and broken lives. It’s also one of the most popular books published in the ’60s .

Similar to The Time Traveler’s Wife, Billy Pilgrim is “unstuck” in time in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Drafted into World War II, Pilgrim serves as a Chaplain’s assistant until he is captured by the Germans. He survives the bombing at Dresden and ultimately becomes a married optometrist. Things get a little wild…

Suffering from PTSD, Billy claims that he is kidnapped by aliens in a different dimension. Like most time travel novels, the story is out of order and Billy travels to different parts of his life.

Aliens come in all shapes and sizes; have more alien encounters with this reading list .

Read Slaughterhouse-Five : Amazon | Goodreads

A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

First published in 1889, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is one of the most popular classic and satirical time travel novels that’s set close to our childhood home. Having grown up in CT close to the old Colt factory, this story makes us smile.

Hank Morgan supervises the gun factory and is knocked unconscious. Upon waking, he finds himself in Britain about to be executed by the Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table in Camelot.

Morgan uses his future knowledge to his advantage, making him a powerful and revered wizard, which unfortunately doesn’t quite save him as he hopes. Not to mention that Morgan tries to introduce modern-day conveniences and luxuries to a time period that isn’t quite ready for them.

Read A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court : Amazon | Goodreads

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

The Time Machine is one of the best frontrunner time travel books of all time. Published in 1895, the Time Traveler recalls his exhausting time travel adventures to incredulous believers. He even disappears in front of them.

Blended with fantasy and science fiction over the course of 800,000 years, the Time Traveler battles “bad guys.” He also loses his time machine, debatably falls in love, and meets the underground dwelling Morlocks.

Read The Time Machine : Amazon | Goodreads

Young Adults Books

For young adults and teens – plus adults who appreciate YA – read the best middle-grade and high school time travel books. We’ve included more time travel graphic novels and manga here too.

Displacement by Kiku Hughes

For historical YA graphic novels , Displacement is one of the must-read books about time travel that will teach young readers about generational trauma, racism, politics, and war.

Follow Kiku, who is displaced in time, back to the period of U.S. Japanese incarceration [internment] camps – essentially glorified prisons – during WW2. Kiku begins learning more about her deceased grandmother’s history, which mirrors the horrid actions under former President Donald Trump. How can Kiku help stop the past from repeating itself, and more so, how can we?

In a simplistic but powerful style of storytelling, Hughes’s emotional YA WW2 book is accessible to young readers. Displacement is also one of the shorter and quicker books with time travel on this list. Find even more LGBT+ graphic novels to read – one of our favorite genres.

Read Displacement : Amazon | Goodreads

The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Changing the past can be pretty tempting. We’ve even seen that The Flash cannot resist. However, altering the course of history can be dangerous…

The first of two YA time travel books, Nix is the daughter of a time traveler. Her dad can sail anywhere on his ship, The Temptation. Her dad has his own temptation, though: to travel back to Honolulu in 1868, the year before her mom dies in childbirth. Nix’s father threatens to possibly erase her life and destroy a relationship with her only friend.

Discover even more great books about maps. Or, travel via armchair with these ship books.

Read The Girl From Everywhere : Amazon | Goodreads

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

Translated by Anthea Bell | If you are looking for time travel in books and enjoy YA historical fiction, try Ruby Red , which is the first in the Ruby Red Trilogy.

Gwyneth Shepherd quickly learns that she can easily time travel, unlike her cousin who has been preparing her entire life for the feat. Gwyneth wants to know why such a secret was kept from her. There are so many lies. Gwyneth time travels with the handsome Gideon back and forth between modern-day and 18th-century London to uncover secrets from the past.

Back in our MLIS and library days, Ruby Red was one of our favorite YA time travel books to recommend since so few knew about the series. Just a small warning that this enemies-to-lovers trope is a tad sexist, though. Find books like Ruby Red on our books with red (and more colors) in the title reading list .

Read Ruby Red : Amazon | Goodreads

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

A little creepier for young adult time travel novels, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is all about time loops. We’ve only read the first in this eerie series that mixes manipulated vintage photography with a suspenseful and chilling story.

Jacob discovers a decaying orphanage on a mysterious island off the coast of Wales. Known as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, the building isn’t exactly abandoned… Jacob runs into peculiar children who might be more than just ghosts.

If you are looking for Kurt Vonnegut-esque time travel books for teenagers, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is for you. Find even more great adult and YA haunted house books to add to your reading list .

Read Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children : Amazon | Goodreads

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle

One of the most well-known books about time travel for families – made even more popular by Oprah and Mindy Kaling, A Wrinkle In Time , is the first book in The Time Quintet .

Although a time travel book series for elementary and middle-grade students – and also a 1963 Newbery Medal winner – adults will love the lessons and whimsical sci-fi quality of A Wrinkle In Time.

Meg Murray and her brother, Charles Wallace, go on an adventure in time to find and rescue their father. Their dad disappeared while working for the government on a mysterious tesseract project.

Watch this thrilling time travel adventure mixed with a coming-of-age story and a little girl power, too.

Read A Wrinkle in Time : Amazon | Goodreads

Orange by Ichigo Takano

Translated by Lasse Christian Christiansen and Amber Tamosaitis | This YA sci-fi romance manga is one of the most endearing time travel books you’ll ever read.

On the first day of 11th grade, Naho oversleeps for the first time ever. She also receives a letter that claims to be sent from herself 10 years in the future. The letter tells her both of the two big things that will happen to her that day as proof of sender: she will be late, and there will be a new kid in class named Naruse Kakeru from Tokyo who will sit next to her.

Naho is unsure if she trusts the letter, or whether or not she should heed its warnings – especially since it talks about past regrets and trying to undo them.

Orange is an adorable, but heartbreaking time travel manga that teaches us the meaning of friendship, love, regret, and so much more. If you’re looking for the best books about time travel for teens, Orange is the perfect option (and adults will love it too).

Read Orange : Amazon | Goodreads

If you devour the time travel genre, don’t miss these great movies…

If you enjoy books that take you back in time, you might also appreciate these top movies with time loops . Would you be able to fix past mistakes, fall in love, and you know, maybe not die this time? Find out if these protagonists succeed.

Travel Back In Time With These Reading Lists:

• Best ’90s Books
• Iconic ’80s Books
• Best WWII Historical Fiction

Christine Frascarelli

Dagney McKinney

45 Comments

Hi, nice list but just FYI you have one of the novels named incorrectly: it should be All Our Wrong Todays, not All Our Wrongs Today.

Thanks for letting us know! Every year, this list grows, and sometimes we miss a few mistakes.

The Things Are Bad Series by Paul L Giles is the funniest, most insightful time travel books I’ve ever read. It has everything!

Thanks so much for the review and rec!

Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain is an engrossing time travel book that I enjoyed immensely.

Our readers and contributors are big Diane Chamberlain fans. Thanks!

A huge time travel fan. A great list. Another time travel book recommendation: Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montemore. Wonderful story.

Thank you so much for the kind words and recommendation! We’ll have to check it out.

Great list, thanks. I also love seeing all the recommendations in the comments. I would add the Chronos Files series to your list. And, of course, the film ABOUT TIME, which is fantastic!

Thanks so much for the recommendations. We appreciate it!

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Mysterious Time Travelers With Convincing Stories

Nearly everyone has heard a completely ludicrous time travel story at least once in their life, like the internet-famous Backwoods Home magazine ad which read, " Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before." It was, of course, a hoax, as many similar stories are. But what about real time travelers? Do they exist?

That's something you have to decide for yourself, as no time travel stories can be conclusively proven. But there are some convincing stories of people who may have actually traveled through time and other mysterious figures . So strap in, because this list is going to take you through some of the most credible time travel stories.

Two Professors See Marie Antoinette At Versailles - In 1901

In 1901, two professors from St. Hugh's College in Oxford, England, went to visit the Palace of Versailles. Versailles was, of course, the French royal home until the monarchy was abolished in 1792. Marie Antoinette, one of the last royals to live there, was executed in 1793.

So on that day in 1901, when professors Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain were walking the grounds of the palace, it's pretty safe to say they did not expect to see Marie Antoinette in the flesh just chillin' on a stool outside the Petit Trianon - a private retreat built for Antoinette by her hubby Louis XVI. And yet, there she was, sitting and sketching and completely oblivious to the fact that two women were gaping at her and all the other people in 1780s period attire who had appeared just as suddenly as Antoinette.

Antoinette and everyone else disappeared when a tour guide approached Moberly and Jourdain. Together, they wrote a book, An Adventure , about their experience, and the story gained notoriety because of how grounded it seemed. These were two highly educated and well-respected women; they wouldn't just make up a story like that. So what was it, then? Did they actually travel through time? It's one of the most thoroughly reported, compelling, and famous time travel stories that can't be explained.

Pilot Sees A Futuristic Plane

Air Marshall Sir Robert Victor Goddard was sent to inspect an abandoned airfield in Edinburgh in 1935. It was dilapidated, of which he made note. He got back in his plane and took off, but heavy rain and low visibility prevented him from going too far. So, he turned around and headed back to the airfield to wait out the storm.

As he approached the landing strip, though, something very strange happened. The clouds cleared, the sun shone brightly, and he saw that the previously abandoned land was now bustling with mechanics in blue jumpsuits. There were four yellow planes on the tarmac, and one of them was a kind he had never seen before. Keep in mind, this guy was a military pilot. He was pretty familiar with all the different plane models available at the time.

Goddard was totally confused. Had he imagined it? Was he hallucinating? Was it a dream? It couldn't be real, certainly. But four years later, he was sent back to the airfield. Far from being abandoned, it was now in full use, complete with blue-jumpsuit-wearing mechanics and yellow planes. And sitting on the runway was the plane he couldn't identify in 1935: a Miles Magister. The Magister was first manufactured in 1938, three years after Goddard initially saw it.

Goddard's story is convincing because he wasn't even trying to travel through time - something unexplainable just happened to him. 

Journalist Experiences Air Raid 11 Years Before It Occurs

Journalist J. Bernard Hutton and photographer Joachim Brandt were sent by a German newspaper to do a story on the Hamburg shipyard in 1932 . It was an uneventful visit - until the bombs began raining down on them.

Hutton and Brandt realized they were caught in the middle of an air raid and high-tailed it out of there, but not before snapping some photographs. When they got back to the center of Hamburg, no one believed their story. They developed the photos they took, intending to prove to everyone that they weren't crazy. In fact, they proved the opposite: the photos showed no signs of an air raid.

Eleven years later, Hutton was living in London when he opened up a newspaper and probably nearly spit his coffee across his desk. There was a story about Operation Gomorrah , an air raid on Hamburg. The accompanying photos looked exactly like what he experienced in 1932.

The Green Children Of Woolpit

In the 12th Century, a young boy and girl were found alone in Woolpit, England . They didn't speak English (or any other identifiable language, for that matter) and their skin was green. That's right, green.

They were taken in by a local villager, and though the boy died soon after, the girl survived and eventually learned to speak English. Finally, she was able to tell someone where she came from. She said she had come from a twilight-covered place called St. Martin's Land and that she and her brother were taking care of their father's sheep one day when they found a cave. They went into the cave, and after walking for what felt like a very long time, they emerged in Woolpit. 

Maybe it's just a folk tale. Or maybe they came from the future. After all, their story does sound suspiciously like a time slip. Unfortunately for them, they were never able to get back to where - or when - they came from.

Charlotte Warburton Travels Through Time Without Even Realizing It

In 1968, Charlotte Warburton entered a cafe she had never seen before. Nothing seemed amiss, but when she tried to go back a few days later, it had vanished. Charlotte later learned that there was, in fact, a cafe in that spot - many years ago.

It had been replaced by a supermarket long before Charlotte claims to have walked in and visited it.

A Police Officer Travels To The 1950s From 1996

In 1996, a police officer and his wife were shopping in Liverpool . His wife went into a bookshop while he took off for a CD store down the street. As he walked away from the bookstore, he noticed that everything was suddenly quiet. Then, a van that looked like it was from the 1950s honked and swerved around him. Somehow, he was standing in the middle of the street, and stranger than that, everyone around him was dressed in '50s-style clothing.

Confused, he tried to go back to the bookstore, but it wasn't there. In its place was a women's clothing shop named Cripps. So he went into the clothing shop, but as soon as he did, it was a bookstore again. He was back in 1996, but couldn't figure out what happened to him - until he learned that Cripps hadn't existed since the 1950s.

The Man From Taured

In 1954, a man trying to get through customs at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan, had a bit of trouble with the customs agents. It wasn't because he "forgot" to declare something on his customs form, but because he claimed to be from a country that didn't exist - and he had a passport and stamps to prove it.

His passport was from a country named Taured , which he claimed was in between Spain and France. When customs officials pulled out a map and asked him if he meant Andorra, he became angry. He said that yes, the location was right, but Taured had existed for at least 1,000 years. He had never heard of Andorra.  

He was given a hotel room for the night while the police tried to figure out what was happening. Even though there were armed guards posted outside his room, the man had vanished by the next morning. His passport, which had been stored in the security office at the airport, was also gone. Officials never figured out the mystery of the man from Taured.

Jophar Vorin Claimed To Be From Laxaria

In 1850, a man named  Jophar Vorin was found in  Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Germany, and questioned. He spoke very broken German, which made his claims even more difficult to understand. He said he was from Laxaria, and spoke the languages Laxarian and Abramian. He said he was in search of his long-lost brother, but he was shipwrecked on the way to his destination.

Vorin didn't recognize any of the maps or globes that were presented to him. He claimed that the world as he knew it had five sections:  Sakria, Aflar, Aslar, Auslar, and Euplar. In the Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art ,  John Timbs reports Vorin was taken to Berlin to be questioned and studied. There's no doubt that Vorin existed; the question is, was he crazy? Or was he from a very distant future?

Four Friends Travel From 1979 To 1905

In 1979,  Geoff and Pauline Simpson and Len and Cynthia Gisby were traveling through France. When it became late, they decided to find a hotel for the night. They found a place not too far down the road they were traveling. It was an odd place; the doors to the rooms only had wooden latches, no locks. And the windows only had thick shutters, no glass. 

In the morning, they had breakfast at the hotel and encountered two gendarmes (armed French policemen) that were wearing old-looking uniforms, complete with capes. The whole experience at the hotel seemed strange, not least because their stay only cost 19 francs - other hotels in the area cost over 200 francs. Still, they happily went on their way, and on their return journey, tried to stop and stay at the hotel again. Except it had seemingly vanished into thin air. And the uniforms those gendarmes were wearing? They were from around 1905 .

A 20th Century Doctor Finds Himself In The 1800s

In 1935, Dr. EG Moon was leaving the residence of one of his patients in Kent, England when he realized his car was not where he had left it. Both the driveway and the road seemed a lot rougher than he remembered. Dr. Moon spotted a man walking by the house, and he realized that the man was wearing several capes and a top hat and carrying a long-barreled gun. He looked to Moon like he was from the 19th century, not the 20th.

Dr. Moon turned to go back to the house, but as he did, he saw that the driveway was paved again, and his car was once again parked in it. He turned back towards the road to look for the man, but he had vanished.

In 2000, A Mysterious Man Named John Titor Claimed To Come From The Year 2036

In November 2000, the Time Travel Institute forums saw a spike in unusual activity. Nestled among the usual conspiracy theories and far-fetched UFO sightings were a string of posts from a man who called himself John Titor . He claimed to be from the year 2036, saying the government sent him back in time to 1975 to retrieve an IBM computer, which they needed in order to debug some computer programs. He hopped off his time machine in 2000 for personal reasons, and since he was already there, he decided to warn everyone about how crappy the future was going to get.

He claimed that civil unrest would begin in the United States in 2004 and there would be a full-blown civil war by 2012. By 2015, he said, a quick World War III would have come and gone. Of course, none of these things have happened, so you're probably wondering: why did people believe this wingnut?

It's because his posts about time travel were so detailed, the description of its mechanics and his machine so thorough, that it seemed almost impossible that he wasn't telling the truth. 

Two Men From 1969 Drive Straight To The 1940s

In 1969, two men were having lunch in a Southwestern Louisiana town. Afterward, they got in their car and headed back to work along US Route 167, a highway that spans much of the state. In the distance, they saw an old car . As they got closer to it, they realized it was moving very slowly and they could see the year "1940" printed on its license plate. The two men pulled up alongside the car and peered in to see if everything was okay; they were greeted by the sight of a woman, done up in full 1940s regalia, and a small child, both of whom looked very confused and even, they thought, frightened.

They gestured to the woman, indicating that she should pull over and they would help her. As she began to pull onto the side of the road, the two men stopped a few yards in front of her. When they turned around to make sure she had parked safely, the whole car had vanished into thin air.

Preston Nichols And Al Bielek Claim They Were Part Of The Alleged 'Montauk Project'

At an Air Force base in Montauk, NY, at the eastern tip of Long Island,  Preston Nichols claims  some top-secret government time travel experiments took place. Nichols writes in The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time that, in the 1980s, he recovered repressed memories of working on the project. And his claims seem outlandish: they experimented on children; one child had psychic abilities; they created a time portal to 1943. But not just any moment in 1943: the portal opened up onto the USS Eldridge , the subject of another famous alleged government project, the Philadelphia Experiment. 

Proponents of the Philadelphia Experiment conspiracy theory purport that, at the height of World War II, the US conducted a series of tests to try and cloak its warships. They wanted their ships to be invisible and undetectable. In October 1943, they reportedly succeeded, but there was a side effect: the Eldridge traveled back ten minutes in time and the experience drove the crew mad. They were brainwashed afterward, their memories wiped of the whole incident. A film about these alleged events, The Philadelphia Experiment , was released in 1984. And wouldn't you know it, that film triggered some repressed memories in one Al Bielek.

Bielek began discussing these memories with the press, which brought him to the attention of Nichols. The two got in touch and together told a story that linked the Montauk Project and the Philadelphia Experiment. Bielek had traveled through the time portal from the USS Eldridge to Montauk. The scientists at Montauk pushed him back through to the Eldridge . 

It's easy to dismiss Nichols's and Bielek's claims as pure science fiction, but the tale is so compelling, so detailed and unbelievable, don't you almost want it to be true? 

• Graveyard Shift
• Time Travel

As they say in well-written scripts, "You mean... like time travel?" + also a few bizarre stories about real people who have claimed, despite every law of physics, they have traveled through time.

10 Great Time Travel Stories: Part I

April 6, 2016.

Time travel has intrigued people for as long as, well, time. There are no hard and fast rules, but for over a hundred years writers have given us their take on how it works. Time travel allows us to imagine what it would be like to experience other worlds and consider what we would do if we could influence history or see the future.

We’ve picked out ten great ten time travel books take us through our own time – from Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court published in 1889 to Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveler’s Wife published in 2003.

Here are the first five on our list; stay tuned next week for five more time warping classics!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain (1889)

social satire, humor

Twain’s special gift for satire makes this story hilarious, fantastical and to the point. His comparative study and social commentary exposes his dissatisfaction of the romantic ideal of King Arthur’s world and faith in the scientific and social progress of his own time.

Twain starts by sending Hank Morgan, a self-reliant New Englander and engineer, back in time to King Arthur’s Court. Things go bad quickly and he is sentenced to death by Merlin. When Hank uses his knowledge of the nineteenth-century to save himself, he convinces the people, the King, and himself , that he is a magician greater than Merlin. He begins to transform King Arthur’s world where he transforms into the Boss.

Book eBook Audiobook

Time Machine, H.G. Wells (1895)

science fiction, fantasy, Darwinism, socialism

A forerunner of the science fiction genre, this classic novel popularized the concept of time travel and introduced the term “time machine”. Written in 1895, it is couched in a Darwinian and Socialist parable about a time traveler who is sent into the year 802,701. The traveler finds himself in a society of two races, the Eloi, peaceful dwellers who live above ground and the Morlocks, ape-like creatures who live below ground. It is a cautionary tale taking on the themes of evolution, capitalism, and social class division.

A Sound of Thunder, Ray Bradbury (1952)

science fiction, fantasy

Time travel, safari hunting and the opportunity to take down a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That’s what Time Safari offers its customers when it sends them sixty million years into the past. But there are strict rules and real dangers to anyone who breaks them. All travelers must stay on the designated Path provided by Time Safari. Anyone stepping off of it could create a ripple in time that could alter the future, the concept known as the “butterfly effect”. Bradbury asks us to consider our actions and how they effect the world. (In The Stories of Ray Bradbury and A Sound of Thunder and other Stories .)

Book Audiobook

The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov (1955)

science fiction, romance

Considered his best by many, this short fiction novel places time travel outside of linear reality. The non-linear world, Eternity, is a location outside of time and place where an elite few, the Eternals, monitor and alter time’s cause and effect relationships. Andrew Harlan is an Eternal. On one of his assignments, he falls in love with a woman who lives in linear time only to find out she will not exist after the next change. He risks everything to bring her to Eternity with him, but his actions create a paradox that threatens the existence of Eternity. To fix the problem, he is given his next assignment. He must kill the woman he loves.

The Door into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein (1957)

This short fiction book is one of Heinlein’s lighter novels and uses time travel in a limited way. It begins in 1970. Dan Davis is the successful inventor of a household robot, an automated “cleaning lady” called Hired Girl . With the help of his fiancée, Belle and their friend Miles, his new company is thriving beyond his wildest dreams. But Belle and Miles betray him, steal his patents, and trick him into spending thirty years in suspended animation. They thought that was the end of Dan.

What they didn’t expect was that time travel exists in the year 2000. When Dan wakes up from thirty years of sleep, he is able to go back to 1970 where he recovers his research and then returns to the year 2000 with his reputation, invention and fiancée.

About the Author

IVY BRUNELLE is a Reference Librarian at PPL. She accidentally became a sci-fi geek in college. But if you asked her about it, she’d deny the whole thing, then silently slip through a portal of ancient standing stones.

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Why we hate hearing about other people’s vacations

Science confirms that vacation stories are terrible, but also that we love telling them.

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Listening to another person’s vacation stories is notoriously torturous. An immediate wave of regret washes over you as soon as the question “How was your trip?” escapes your lips. Why did you ask this? There was no need to bait a person fresh off their trip to Peru to tell you about a magical time which you were not part of.

The loathing of vacation stories is a curious phenomenon because of our obsession with travel; it’s what we daydream about and save our money to do, and our interest in it can make us more appealing to the opposite sex . Which is perhaps why sitting through a vacation story is so infuriating: It represents the worst way to experience something you aspire to do — by hearing how someone else did it.

Even though everyone knows the pain of sitting through a too-long-before-it-even-started travel story, everyone has also told one. We’ve all witnessed a person’s eyes glaze over while we go into details that were absolutely intriguing in our head, but evidently not out loud. So why are travel stories the thing we can’t stop telling, even though we hate to hear them?

Many invest in experiences because they can connect us to others

First, it’s important to understand why people value experiences. According to a 2014 study that investigated the link between experiential purchases and happiness, people gain greater satisfaction from experiential goods (seeing a movie, taking a vacation etc.), because they believe experiences, not possessions, are most reflective of who they are.

So when someone talks about their recent trip, they are actually talking about themselves, which is scientifically proven to be rewarding. According to a Harvard study , it causes neural activity in areas of the brain most associated with the pleasurable feelings linked to sex, cocaine, and good food. Researchers also found that it was irrelevant whether anyone was listening; talking about yourself is inherently enjoyable regardless of the audience or lack thereof.

Another reason people value experiences, according to the 2014 study, is because of their ability to facilitate relationships. Experiences were rated higher on the enjoyment scale because they “more readily, more broadly, and more deeply connect us to others.”

In one experiment, pairs of unacquainted participants were given 20 minutes to converse freely about purchases. Half were told to only talk about material purchases, like televisions or clothes, and the other half were told to talk about experiential purchases. Results proved that participants liked the conversation and their conversational partner better if they talked about experiences, not stuff.

But there is a tipping point where experiences become too unique and therefore unrelatable: take a safari in South Africa, for example. In the 2014 study “The Unforeseen Cost of Extraordinary Experience,” researchers state that extraordinary experiences may ultimately “reclaim more joy than they provide.” The study found that those who had an extraordinary experience ultimately wished they had an ordinary experience instead, so they would be able to relate to their peers.

Further, people never predicted correctly when asked if they thought others would be interested in their extraordinary experience — they always said “yes.” Reality proved the opposite.

A 2017 study found that storytellers often think people enjoy being told new information, but in reality, people are more likely to enjoy a story if they are familiar with the subject matter. In fact, storytellers who include too much unique information receive a “novelty penalty,” meaning people liked their stories less.

This research implies that we all have an inability to recognize when our experiences are too extraordinary for others to relate; hence, why you get stuck in conversations with your co-worker about her trip to the Blue Lagoon.

Vacation stories are a one-sided conversation

Relationship psychologist Lisa Marie Bobby says people are generally pretty self-absorbed, which is why it doesn’t register that no one wants to hear every single detail of their recent trip. “Growing up, my dad had a projector and he would make people who came over watch a 45-minute slideshow of our trip to Pittsburg,” she says. “It’s total self-absorption and narcissism.” To her, the telling of vacation stories is rooted in people’s misconception that because something is important to them, it means it is universally important.

She also said that in order for deeper intimacy to develop between people, there needs to be reciprocal sharing, which is hard when a conversation is about one person’s experience. “One person will say, ‘I just got back from Portugal and had an amazing experience,’ and another will mirror that by saying they went to London and had an amazing experience and there is a disconnect,” she says. Simply put, if one party can’t seamlessly hop in the conversation, it’s a bad conversation.

Taking an informal survey of my friends, reasons for not wanting to hear about others’ travel varied. One friend from Columbia, Missouri, said it was due to envy. Another friend from St. Louis said that hearing vacation stories is like “hearing about a dream” — it doesn’t affect you, and the stories usually aren’t that good anyway. Many said travel stories can often come off as a humblebrag or a way to get the attention of the opposite sex, and that any story told for either of those purposes is inherently annoying.

Travel psychologist Michael Brein says that sharing travel stories gives people an increased sense of self-confidence and a distinction among their peers. “It gives you the opportunity to share something you have earned, and people like to be seen by others as having accomplished something of value — something others don’t have the opportunity to experience.” In other words, they know others can’t relate, but that’s not the point of telling the story.

Brein added that who is telling the story matters, something my friends echoed.

A friend from New York says when he thinks of boring vacation stories, he imagines them being told in an office environment by a co-worker and that if he was hearing it from someone he was closer to, it might not be so boring.

Another friend from Brooklyn said if it was a close friend, she absolutely wants to hear every detail, but all travel stories from acquaintances sound the same to her. “No one ever has good stories or insights, but maybe they just don’t think to tell me [about them] because I’m also an acquaintance and they’re not invested in me knowing about their experiences anyway,” she said.

Far-off destinations pepper everyone’s bucket list, and listening to a vacation story can feel like a jab of mortality — a reminder that you haven’t accomplished what someone else found the time for. You stage excitement but, internally, a mix of jealousy and boredom overwhelm any sincere interest.

Yet we’ve all been guilty of inflicting this exact pain on another person, of letting our own self-absorption convince us our travel tales are somehow more interesting than someone else’s. So perhaps instead of complaining about people’s vacation stories, we should make a pact to focus on our own travels — and to stay quiet about them after.

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Opinion: Nightmare travel stories — we’ve all got them

A s you enjoy Thanksgiving leftovers and think about the 30 million people who traveled by plane or the 55 million who traveled by car over the holiday weekend, undoubtedly some of them will have “travel nightmare” stories to share. We all have them, it seems.

Most of my “travel nightmare” stories become funny over time, although the last one I’ll share today has never been funny. Let’s start, though, with some common ones.

Missed or canceled flights

I’ve missed my share of flights. In one case, I spent an extra day in Amsterdam because I was five minutes too late. The plane was still at the gate, but the doors were closed and they would not be reopened. Another time, my daughter and I missed flights in South Africa because, in our jet-lagged brains, we did not have the right time for boarding, but rather the departure time. Oops.

In February 1991, I flew to Romania on Yugloslav Airlines. We were asked not to leave the Belgrade airport during our 10-hour layover because of political unrest. Two months later, when I was ready to return home, Yugoslavia as a country was breaking apart and Yugoslav Airlines no longer existed.

Almost five years ago, I booked an international flight on one of those cheap airfare websites for my husband, myself and two teens. We got to Dallas for our connecting flight, only to find out the flight didn’t exist. It wasn’t delayed — the entire route had been removed from the airline’s schedule months before. That was confusing to everyone, including airline personnel.

Traveling with kids

The number of those adventures traveling with kids are as long as my arm. I traveled home from Romania (on Romanian Air) with two disabled toddlers, by myself. Those were some very long hours. I’ve made the mistake, more than once, sad to say, of not being adequately prepared with diapers, wipes, extra clothes, bottles or formula. Delayed flights or baby tummy troubles have led to some, um, interesting times in airplane bathrooms, trying to jury-rig a solution.

Speaking of tummy troubles, I might also mention the time I got my first case of giardia in Ethiopia, where there are less-than-adequate public restrooms. If you’ve never had giardia, I am so happy for you. It feels like death is coming for you by ripping your insides out. That same trip, our newly adopted 4-year-old threw up all over the JFK McDonald’s — and his clothes — on our way home.

The worst, though, was on another adoption trip. I was adopting in Russia in early 1998 and had to fly from Vladivostok, on the far eastern side of the country, to Moscow, in the west to get U.S. visas for our two newest children. The flight was nine hours, each way, with less than 24 hours in Moscow before flying back on a red-eye. The 21-month old started crying before we boarded the plane and did.not.stop. until after we landed. That was a nightmare. Nightmare . I had a teenager with me who was watching the other toddler while I literally spent eight-plus hours in the airplane bathroom. He cried, I cried. For hours. To make the whole situation worse, it was just a few months after an American couple was arrested in the U.S. after they had slapped and yelled at their newly adopted Russian children on their flight home. I was positive every single eye was on me on that plane.

That one is still only mildly amusing. However, it was another confirmation of the mantra “You can do anything for nine hours.” (Or a day, a week, a semester, or even a year.)

The not-funny travel story

The one travel nightmare that is not even slightly humorous was the time I had a second-trimester miscarriage. It was 1992 and I was 17 weeks pregnant when I traveled to Moscow for one week. I had been feeling the baby move and had heard her heartbeat several times. I felt that by 17 weeks, I was out of the danger zone.

I started bleeding in the airport, getting ready to go home.

During that interminable flight, the bleeding got worse and the cramping began. I was able to lie down in the back row of the plane, while emergency sanitary supplies were found. I cried my way back to the U.S.

The flight crew recommended I seek medical attention at the first stop in the U.S., but I just wanted to get home. I went straight from the Salt Lake City airport to the University of Utah Hospital, where I delivered a tiny, perfectly formed, perfectly still baby girl. We named her Aimée , French for beloved, and so she was.

All in all, I am grateful for modern travel capabilities. I just wish the Star Trek transporter was a reality.

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Tiny Love Stories: ‘The Schoolhouse Taught Me What Marriage Didn’t’

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

Fortunes Told

My wife died in 1991. Her best friend and I grew close in mourning. That blossomed into love. But was it a good match? And so soon, just months later? After a Chinese dinner, we opened our fortune cookies. Hers: “He likes to flirt, but toward you his intentions are honorable.” Mine: “You or a close friend will be married within a year.” Married 32 years now, she struggles with cognition, and has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. On a trip before that diagnosis, I stopped alone at a Thai diner. My fortune: “Embrace the change that is coming.” Love abides.— David B. Schock

Rebuilt Stronger

I dismissed the 1909 two-room schoolhouse when I first saw it. T-shirts were stuffed in the rafters. Rainwater pooled on linoleum floors. It smelled of cat urine and mice. But something brought me back there. Newly divorced, I too felt ragged and broken down. Maybe that’s why I decided to make an offer. Swearing off men, I dove into homeownership. It hasn’t always been easy but, 10 years later, we are both transformed: sturdy and proud. The schoolhouse taught me what marriage didn’t: to trust my instincts and take agency in my life. — Sarah Gundle

Keeping the Faith

It was surprising, given our opposing natures, that my dad’s unsolicited relationship advice was always spot on. He was the person to tell me to wait, that she’d come around. I kept the faith. Six months later, he was right. And now, two years into our relationship, she and I visit my parents. My mom takes joy in pointing out my dad’s and my girlfriend’s similarities — their frugality, loyalty and grit — to my chagrin. I guess faith is a good quality to have in abundance. — Julia Chin

Holding Tradition Close

The drip, drip, drip of a wet plastic bag takes me back to childhood chores. Mum would stand over me as I swished produce bags through bubbles in the kitchen sink. Her rough hands guided mine, teaching me like her mother, a child of Polish-Ukrainian immigrants, had taught her. We lost our language and last name, but this family tradition remained. I carried it with me to my homes in France, England, Australia. When cancer pinned mum to a chair, I poured my helplessness into washing her abandoned bags, pegging them on a string to dry, folding them into memories. — Kirsten Fogg

See more Tiny Love Stories at nytimes.com/modernlove . Submit yours at nytimes.com/tinylovestories .

Want more from Modern Love? Watch the TV series ; sign up for the newsletter ; or listen to the podcast on iTunes , Spotify or Google Play . We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “ Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption ” and “ Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less .”

Stories of Love to Nourish Your Soul

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My Husband Is Two Years Older Than My Son:  A woman’s 19-year marital age gap feels treacherous — and is the best thing that’s ever happened to her .

Please Stay, Baby. Please?: The grief of miscarriage is largely invisible. And with each loss, the longing multiplies .

My Bad-Times-Only Boyfriend: Why is a woman’s long-ago fling suddenly acting as if he’s her husband ?

A Family Dinner With My Wife and Girlfriend: Learning to love two women at once  — one living with Alzheimer’s — is a challenge and a blessing.

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