# Your 5 Favorite Time Travels Stories



## BookStop (Mar 9, 2007)

For me:

The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill by Steven Brust
Time Safari by David Drake
The Love Letter by Jack Finney
The Terminator by James Cameron


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## Ian Whates (Mar 9, 2007)

Hmm... I'm going to restrict this to books/novels rather than stories, or it could get really complicated and impossible to choose... but for me it would probably be something like:

*THE BIG TIME* (1958) – FRITZ LEIBER
*THE DOOMSDAY BOOK* (1992) – CONNIE WILLIS 
*THE END OF ETERNITY* (1955) – ISAAC ASIMOV
*THE TIME MACHINE* (1895) – H.G.WELLS 
*GUARDIANS OF TIME* (1960) – POUL ANDERSON
If I were to include short stories, Ray Bradbury's classic short from 1952 "The Sound of Thunder" would have to feature somewhere near the top... and then there's... Oh heck, there are just too many good ones.


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## Dave (Mar 9, 2007)

For some reason I've found many of the best Time Travel stories to be out of print. Strange that, because by their very nature they cannot age.

The best Time Travel book is:
1.*The Man Who Folded Himself* by _David Gerrold_

My next four places I'm not so sure about. I haven't read some of those already quoted, and I have been trying, for some time, in vain, to get hold of *Up The Line* by _Robert Silverberg_ which is supposed to be excellent, and several others. Sticking just to the books I know:

2.*The Forever War* by _Joe Haldeman_
3.*The Time Traveller's Wife* by _Audrey Niffenegger_
4.*Timeline* by _Michael Crichton_
5.*Slaughter-House-Five* by _Kurt Vonnegut_

These deserve an honourable mention:
*The Technicolour Time Machine* by _Harry Harrison_
*The Sound of Thunder* by _Ray Bradbury_
*The Flight of the Horse, There's a Wolf in my Time Machine & Death in a Cage* by _Larry Niven_
*The Time Machine* by _HG Wells_
*The Secret Shelter* by _Sandi LeFaucheur_

And these are also on my future reading list:
*By His Bootstraps, The Number of the Beast & The Door into Summer* by _Robert A Heinlein_
*The Time Ships* by _Stephen Baxter_
*Bid Time Return* by _Richard Matheson_
*Timescape* by _Gregory Benford_


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## chrispenycate (Mar 9, 2007)

Has to include "All you zombies" by Heinlein
                    "Timescape", Gregory Benford (well, nobody actually _travels_ in time, but information does, so…
                     "Timelike infinity", Steven Baxter
                     "The Big Time" um Fritz Leiber? (senility is setting in)
And, to make up the five without using those from others, "Time Patrol" from Poul Anderson, though, since it's over fourty years since I read it, I might have got it mixed up with another book. Anyway, the problems of trying to work out what has changed history and get it put right, reverse causality, in an unashamed adventure format have stayed with me.


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## Ian Whates (Mar 9, 2007)

Dave said:


> And these are also on my future reading list:
> 
> *Timescape* by _Gregory Benford_


 

Yes, _Timescape_ is excellent, although, strictly speaking, not time travel -- it involves tenuous communication across time rather than actual physical movement. 

Two other very good books that I considered including in my list but rejected on the basis that they don't _really _qualify as time travel are _Tao Zero -_ *Poul Anderson *(1970) -- passengers and crew onboard a ship which is accelerating out of control end up outliving the human race -- and _Replay* - *_*Ken Grimwood* (1980) -- in which a middle-aged man dies, only to wake up as himself as a teenager and is able to relive his life again, and again, and again... Groundhog Day on a larger scale... 

And I didn't even have room on the list for:

*THE DOOR INTO SUMMER *(1956) – _ROBERT HEINLEIN_
*THE **LINCOLN** HUNTERS *(1958) – _WILSON TUCKER_
*THE ANUBIS GATES* (1983) – _TIM POWERS_
*THE TIME SHIPS *(1995) – _STEPHEN BAXTER_

All of which are certainly worth a mention... Too many, too many, (sigh)


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## williamjm (Mar 9, 2007)

Tim Powers - "The Anubis Gates"
Jack Finney - "Time and Again"
Stephen Fry - "Making History"


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## Dr. Atomic (Mar 10, 2007)

Funny thing is, I don't generally like time travel stories. Don't know why... they just sort of turn me off. However, I came up with five without too much effort, so maybe I like 'em more than I thought.

In no particular order:
_Door Into Summer_, Robert Heinlein
_Forever War_, Joe Haldeman
"Hobson's Choice," Alfred Bester (!)
_Timescape_, Gregory Benford (I'm counting it, so there!)
"A Sound of Thunder," Ray Bradbury


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## Neal Asher (Mar 10, 2007)

I think the list would have to contain Silverberg's *Hawksbill Station*, the Julian May books, John Varley's *Millennium* (turned into the film which was pretty good too) and how about Ray Bradbury's short story *A Sound of Thunder*? I'd mention another one called *Cowl,* but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ... oops, done it already.


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## j d worthington (Mar 11, 2007)

All right, I'll admit, I simply can't do this one. Too many come to mind, and they're all either on about the same plane with me, or too darned close (for one reason or another) to pick 5 out of them. So I'll just be honest about that up front, and give my list of favorite stories of this sort, without being too much longer...

*The Big Time* (in fact, the entire Changewar series), by Fritz Leiber, Jr.
"The Shadow Out of Time", by H. P. Lovecraft
"Vintage Season", by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
*The Weapon Shops of Isher*, by A. E. van Vogt
*The Time Machine*, by H. G. Wells
*The Cornelius Tetralogy* (a.k.a. _The Cornelius Chronicles_) (especially _The English Assassin_ and _The Condition of Muzak_) -- which is a single story, by the way; *Breakfast in the Ruins*; "Flux", by Michael Moorcock
*Three to Dorsai*, by Gordon R. Dickson -- again, a single story, though three novels; a subset of the Childe cycle: _Necromancer_, _Tactics of Mistake_, and _Dorsai!_, with additional material, done as a single volume back in 1975
"A Sound of Thunder" and "The Kilimanjaro Device", by Ray Bradbury
"The Ugly Little Boy", by Isaac Asimov
"-- All You Zombies --", "By His Bootstraps", *Time Enough for Love*, *The Door Into Summer*, and, oddly, *The Number of the Beast* by Robert A. Heinlein
"Sidewise in Time", by Murray Leinster
*Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children's Crusade*, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

There are a lot of others, but these are definitely among my favorites...


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## Ian Whates (Mar 11, 2007)

Hmmm... have to admit, j.d., I'd completely overlooked Van Vogt's _The Weapon Shops of Isher_ -- fabulous story and of course it involves time travel; in fact, someone oscilating through time...

and Neal, likewise with Julian May's _Saga of the Exiles_ -- I remember waiting on each volume of that series as they were issued...

Okay, I admit, it's just about impossible to come up with a definitive 'top five' -- not unless you're allowed to change your mind on a near daily basis.  

By the way, have you noticed how many of us keep mentioning Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder?"


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## j d worthington (Mar 11, 2007)

Well, it is one of the "touchstone" time-travel paradox stories, known even by a huge number of literate people who don't read much sf; and it put in near-perfect form one of the primary paradoxes of this type of story....


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## Dr. Atomic (Mar 11, 2007)

And, it was an _awesome_ movie...




I'm _kidding_, of course.


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## j d worthington (Mar 11, 2007)

Dr. Atomic said:


> And, it was an _awesome_ movie...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
*smack!*


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## Thadlerian (Mar 12, 2007)

J. G. Ballard's Garden of Time has always been a favourite of mine.


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## lon gallamour (Apr 25, 2007)

Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket  by James Tiptree Jr

The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov

Thrice Upon a Time by James P. Hogan

really only those three.


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## Allegra (Apr 25, 2007)

*Slaughterhouse-Five* by Kurt Vonnegut
*Timequake* by Kurt Vonnegut
*The Restaurant at the End of the Universe* by Douglas Adams
*Time Traveller's Wife* by Audrey Niffenegger
*The Doomsday Book* by COnnie Willis


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## Coops (Apr 27, 2007)

Best time travel novel:

*Replay* by Ken Grimwood (1986)

Not just time travel books, but one of my favorite books period.


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