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books on time travel
JeffH
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey all, I'm interested in reading a sci-fi/fantasy book dealing with time travel, preferably with a serious and/or gritty tone. Thanks in advance 
JeffH on
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My personal recommendation is "To Say Nothing Of The Dog" by Connie Willis. It's not serious or gritty, but it's probably one of the best time travel novels written in the past 20 years. It helps if you already read "3 Men In A Boat" by Jerome K Jerome, but it's not required.
And A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury is required reading, IMO. It's not the best short story about time travel, but it's probably the most iconic and visceral.
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Basically I'm looking for something that is ideally in-depth and not dumbed down, but ultimately entertaining. Sorry if that's still general, hopefully listing my library helps a little. And thanks for the recs so far, I love Bradbury so I'll definitely check that out.
I can heartily second the Terry Pratchett recommendation, but it's not really much about time travel. Those novels are from Discworld, which is definitely not Planet Earth. Terry Pratchett is one of the most witty and humorous fantasy writers alive today. If you like Vonnegut, you'll probably like Pratchett, as Pratchett is very good at modern day satire. Most of his novels take place in a fictional fantasy world called Discworld (It's flat. It's on the back of 4 Elephants which stand on a cosmic space turtle.) Both of the novels are enjoyable on their own, but they might get you addicted to the Discworld series in general.
How do you feel about alternate history? Granted, it's not exactly time-travel but they've got similar ideas at the core.
Also: The Cat Who Walks thru Walls
I have read very little of it(man in the high castle I think is about as far as my knowledge here goes), but would be interested depending on the premise
Much better than the "movie".
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/aliens-must--stay-frosty/index.html
1632 involves time travel, but it's not a central theme. It's about a town of people that gets sent from the present day back to 1632, and how they try to live. The first novel and a few sequels are by Eric Flint, but it's kind of like Lovecraft's stuff in that tons of other authors write set in that same setting. It's an interesting series.
You can find tons of short story collections about time travel. I think Del Ray puts out an annual anthology of the best. I usually prefer short stories about time travel, just because it lets authors play with an idea, but not have to commit to an full novel.
Haha, I guess many of the Doctor Who novels could be considered "dark and gritty", as the background characters don't generally enjoy a great life expectancy (at least in the ones I read ~20 yrs ago).
The Guns of the South has a bunch of white supremacists going back to give a shit ton of AKs to the Confederates. Wackiness ensues.
Counting Up, Counting Down is a good short story collection, too.
Premise: during World War II reptilian aliens invade the earth intending to conquer it.
Problem for the aliens, they budgeted time and material assuming earth would maintain itself at a medieval level of technology until they got here. Instead they find that our weapons technology is nearly on-par with theirs, and we're really good at learning new tricks.
This wiki link might help.
The Difference Engine, I suppose. I tried reading it once and never got into it.
It's not exactly Back to The Future style time travel, but The Forever War is a really good novel involving the effects of conventional space travel across huge distances on war and personal relationships - people ageing at massively different rates and such like.
Oh, someone mentioned Timeline. Just so you know, it might be better than the film, but it's still absolute shit. Don't waste your time on it.
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Greg Benford's Timescape is an excellent hard SF treatment of time travel.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Joke option whatever: there's a bunch of random Star Trek novels you can pick up at any public library that handle the concept pretty well, although you'll probably only enjoy them if you're a trekkie already.
"NIGHT ARROWS!" Which seem to be regular arrows.....fired at night....
Hated the Timeline movie. The book was not a whole lot better, the science still made me gag. If you're going to try to explain something using "real" science, it better make some kind of sense. He took "Quantum Physics is crazy, you can make it do anything" to another level in this book. "Your not traveling in time, just to different dimensions that look just like our past, and influence our present as if you had been in the past... but your not in the past.....really."
Go with The Time Ships or The End of Eternity, I was much much happier.
Seconded.
And, if you can believe it, he wants to make a sequel.
http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~mfedder/zombies.html
Heh. I'd forgotten about that one. Most convoluted paradox ever.
This is the only book I've ever read that made me cry. I cannot recommend it enough.
There are at least two Heinlein short stories that are must-reads for time travel fiction: "All You Zombies" and "By His Bootstraps."
You don't see a double paradox like in AYZ very often. I read it just now and really enjoyed it.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
I love this book.