Story about time travelers taking missing children

[TheDustyZebra]

I'm afraid I haven't got much information on this one. I got an idea for a story to write, and was working it in my brain from many angles, then realized that this one was starting to sound way too familiar. I suspect I've read a story with this plot, which would make it unnecessary to write it. (Not that it's really at all the direction I was thinking of anyway. It just sort of wandered in.)

The idea is that time travelers from the future are taking children from the past who were murdered, to repopulate the world after it was mostly wiped out by some sort of apocalypse -- virus or aliens or something. The kids would not affect history because they were missing already.

Anyone? Anyone? Danny?

 

[Parson]

I don't know any books precisely like this. I've read a couple of time travel yarns where grown ups who were about to die were zapped away. No children that I can recall. But so what if there is? How many "first contact" novels have been written? Yet, there is always a new angel to explore. Such a book as you are thinking about would intrigue me.

 

[BAYLOR]

I'm afraid I haven't got much information on this one. I got an idea for a story to write, and was working it in my brain from many angles, then realized that this one was starting to sound way too familiar. I suspect I've read a story with this plot, which would make it unnecessary to write it. (Not that it's really at all the direction I was thinking of anyway. It just sort of wandered in.)

The idea is that time travelers from the future are taking children from the past who were murdered, to repopulate the world after it was mostly wiped out by some sort of apocalypse -- virus or aliens or something. The kids would not affect history because they were missing already.

Anyone? Anyone? Danny?

It sounds a bit like the the 1989 film Millennium which was based off a John Varley story Air Raid

 

[2DaveWixon]

It sounds a bit like the the 1988 film Millennium

Which I believe was based on a John Varley story. And you're right, it's close; but it was not restricted to children, as I recall, but involved the rescue of the passengers on a doomed airliner.

 

[2DaveWixon]

There's also Cliff Simak's "Over the River and Through the Woods," but I believe that's the other side of that idea -- it involves two children being sent back in time by their parents, to prevent them being caught in a catastrophe that is threatening their future world.
Nonetheless, the story as described by Dusty is ringing a very faint bell for me...faint; but it's ringing. I'll think on it.

 

[BAYLOR]

Which I believe was based on a John Varley story. And you're right, it's close; but it was not restricted to children, as I recall.

Air Raid which I've never read.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Hmm. I've read some John Varley, and of course Simak, so anything's possible. And the airliner thing definitely sounds familiar, but I'm not sure if it's part of this thought or not.

 

[Danny McG]

I started reading this thread and immediately thought 'Air Raid' plotline so that's my contribution, already covered by other Chrons.

Then there's that guy in Hamelin with his pipes!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I found "Air Raid" on Baen, and I definitely hadn't read that. Then I found that he wrote a book from it, titled the same as the film, "Millennium", that I looked into on Amazon and may possibly have read. I can't decide from the bit they show there. I know I read The Golden Globe and Steel Beach, but I'm not sure about Millennium. I don't *think* I've seen the movie, although if it came here in 1989 I might have. But I'm pretty sure whatever it is I'm thinking about was far more recent.

Ah, well. The story was supposed to be a straight horror thing, not this, anyway.

 

[2DaveWixon]

How about this? Too-active Chronners are kidnapped by time travelers, who think that they're so far gone from the real world that their absences likely won't be noticed anyway...

 

[chrispenycate]

The time travellers are probably right. And they wouldn't have to go dressing mental defectives up in our clothes so there would be acceptable corpses, as the Varley story had to, either.

 

[Matteo]

Flexing my Google kung fu muscles, I found: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall - Nancy Kress (2012)

The year is 2035. After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors--the last of humanity--are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell. Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six--children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool. Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe, simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity--a future which might never unfold. Weaving three consecutive time lines to unravel both the mystery of the Earth's destruction and the key to its salvation, this taut adventure offers a topical message with a satisfying twist.

Is this it?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

The time travellers are probably right. And they wouldn't have to go dressing mental defectives up in our clothes so there would be acceptable corpses, as the Varley story had to, either.

If that means you're Chronning naked, please don't tell me.

Flexing my Google kung fu muscles, I found: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall - Nancy Kress (2012)

The year is 2035. After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors--the last of humanity--are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell. Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six--children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool. Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe, simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity--a future which might never unfold. Weaving three consecutive time lines to unravel both the mystery of the Earth's destruction and the key to its salvation, this taut adventure offers a topical message with a satisfying twist.

Is this it?

Thanks, but that doesn't sound like the droid I'm looking for.

 

[Matteo]

Really? Damn, I thought I'd nailed that one.

Maybe you read the synopsis, rather than the book?

Yeah, I know...I'm stretching - don't want to admit defeat ;-)

 

[NannyOgg]

If it's just the general idea of time travellers from the future taking people back to repopulate the earth after disaster, then, yes, 'Millennium' by John Varley is the one you're thinking of.

The future travellers are taking people from any disaster (air crashes, boats sinking, Amelia Earhart-type disappearances) where there are no surviving witnesses, and keeping them in suspension in the future, with the plan being to send them to a distant planet (this gets amended at the end of the book). The story is told in alternate first-person viewpoints by Bill, the investigator of one of the crashes in the 1980s, who's noticing anomalies, and Louise, the team leader of the time travellers. It was actually a very good book; the film didn't do it justice.

 

[Matteo]

Hmm...this may go on my list. Always liked the film as a bit of fun and watched it when it turned up on tv, but the book sounds a lot better.

 

[northernexposure]

Varley was great (his blog states that he has just finished another book) - but, the movie ? The robot was one of the worst ever.

 

[pambaddeley]

Yes I read Millennium some time ago. Interesting read.

Another story I've read which involves someone being rescued from a plane disaster (as sole survivor) and, in this case, sent to a distant world, is Louise Lawrence's Ben-Harran's Castle.