Talk:Time travel in fiction

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[edit] Earliest time travel fiction?

There appears to be something of a dispute over which piece of fiction can hold claim to being the earliest time travel fiction. While the text of this article claims The Clock That Went Backward (1881), Dr Paul Shackley claims here that the earliest example of the genre is Missing One's Coach (1838). Can anyone verify this?

More of a folktale, but Urashima Tarō uses time dilation (which is actually known as Urashima effect in Japan) as a plot device. After events where the protagonist spends only a few days (to few years) away from his village, he ends up 300 years (700 years in some versions, just "long time later" in some versions) in future and realizes that everyone he know (or just his parents) is long gone. As the collection (Otogizoshi) which contains one of the version of this story was compiled in 14th-16th century, it is one of the oldest work of fiction to deal with time travel. --Revth 05:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Another Folk tale, and time dilation, based on legend and early Celtic myth... In Ireland and Scotland, the legend of Oisín or Ossian is that he was a warrior-poet who fell in love with a fairy woman from Tír na nÓg (the Land of Youth, or the Ever Young). He left his father Fionn Mac Cumhail (analagous to King Arthur) to travel across the sea on a magical horse, where after several adventures he lived for what he thought was 3 years. Growing homesick, and determined to visit his home, his wife lent him the magical horse, but made him promise never to dismount. After reaching Ireland, he searched in vain for anything familiar, and is horrified to find the old home fort in a pile of rubble and weeds. Attempting to help some farmers move a rock, he falls off the horse and ages 300 years - the length of time hes has actually been away. The horse gallops away across the sea, and he never sees his love again. A further legend has it that an old man is brought to Saint Patrick, claiming to be Oisín (who is thought to be an old myth at this stage), and their conversations and debates are handed down to this day. In another myth - one of the "three sorrows of Irish storytelling" - the children of a king called Lir are turned into swans by their jealous stepmother, and they survive for 900 years roaming the seas and barren places, before they are brought back to human form by being baptised by Saint Patrick. Probably the legend of Oisín fits the time dilation definition better - since it even seems to incorporate relativistic time. These legends go back at least to the 12th century in written form, I believe. Oisinoc 19:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

(I posted the original question but forgot to sign it). That's interesting. Thank you Revth. I'll pass that along to Dr Shackley.--Ketlan 07:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Dr Shackley's response: Time dilation is not time travel. Time travel involves at least the possibility of pastwards travel, from the present to the past or from the future back to the present. "Missing One's Coach" is the earliest work of fiction that I know of in which the protagonist is transported to an earlier time.--Ketlan 20:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

This page lists some other early time travel stories not in the wikipedia article:
Some important early time travel subcategories, and their first published
examples include:
Present to Future: "Anno 7603", by Norwegian playwright Johan Hermann Wessel (1781)
Present to Past: "Missing One's Coach", anonymous, Dublin Literary Magazine,
1838, sends narrator back a millennium
Future to Present: "An Uncommon Sort of Spectre", Edward Page Mitchell, 1879
(or should I count the Ghost of Christmas Future in Charles Dickens'
"A Christmas Carol" (1843)?
Past to Present: "The Hour Glass", Robert Barr, [The Strand magazine,
December 1898]
can anyone verify any of these (and check if they involve actually interacting with other time periods or just viewing them passively as in A Christmas Carol)? Hypnosifl 08:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, the section titled "A Norwegian Time Journey" from this page mentions that in "Missing One's Coach" the narrator is able to talk with The Venerable Bede in the past, but that "The time travel is used, as so often, just as an excuse to bring a historical person into focus." It also mentions that the "French critic Pierre Versins" identified an earlier example of what he considered time travel (although it is present -> future, and it's not clear from the quote whether the characters were able to return to the present):
In Encyclopédie de l’utopie, des voyages extraordinaires et de science fiction (1972) he points to the French author Restif de la Bretonne, who as early as 1802 let one of his characters, the Duke of Multipliandre, visit the future. In the novel Les posthumes France is a much transformed nation; Paris is once more just a village, there are two capitals (one for the summer and one for the winter)—in fact Multipliandre voyages all of 100,000 years into the future, where the society is composed of wise men with an average life span of 700 years.
The page also talks a bit more about Anno 7603 from 1781 (although again, it's a story of travel from the present to the future, and it's not clear if the main characters could return):
However, even an earlier example may be uncovered. The Norwegian dramatist and poet, Johan Hermann Wessel (1742-85) is mainly remembered for his witty verse and one comedy—a parody named Love Without Stockings (Kierlighed uden Strømper, 1772). He was living in Copenhagen, where he for a short while studied (Norway was at that time united with Denmark and did not have a university of its own), but mostly just survived.
In 1781 he wrote and published a comedy called Anno 7603. This comedy was never staged, and has been half-forgotten—even excluded from his collected works, which still are in print. In this comedy, a friendly fairy transports the young couple Leander and Julia into a future where the men occupy the roles of women and vice versa—the women fight as soldiers, flirt with the boys, drink and sing bawdy songs. Actually the literary merits of the play are doubtful, but it has over the centuries gained value as a curiosity.
Hypnosifl 08:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

This question is discussed comprehensively in Time Travel#Origins of the Concept. BreathingMeat (talk) 01:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assassin in the late 1970's

I am considering adding a section ... I not sure what to call it, or where exactly to place it.

I am Al Macintyre, creator (designer) of Assassin, introduced to the simulation gaming world in 1969 at Lake Geneva convention (Gen Con). It was later published in Conflict magazine, which at the time had a circulation of about 500 people, which at that time in the simulation gaming hobby was considered to be respectable. Excluding that distribution, over the years I probably gave out another 500 copies, mainly at game conventions.

Over the years, a series of enthusiasts would ask me for permission to try to program a variant of this, and I did so, with the provision that they distribute any result in a not-for-profit manner, and they keep me informed if they successful at getting it to work.

AlMac|(talk) 19:19, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Personal computing vintage in the 1970's

While computers had been around for a while, such as mini computers, mainframes, what was called computers in WW II, such as the stuff used to plot how to fire torpedoes from submarines, and all sorts of punched cards tabulating machines, that which was affordable to the home user was very rudimentary by today's standards.

It was rare to find a PC with as much as 64 k of Ram, hard disk did not yet exist on PCs ... we used diskettes to store data ... they were large in physical size and small in storage size, by today's standards ... forget about video ... it was all text based processing ... there might be value some place in Wikipedia, if there is not already, in depicting what technology was like down the ages at various stages of development ... anyhow, describe this reality there, then when talking about Time Travel games on personal computers in the 1970's which was the dawn of the micro computer revolution, link to that article to explain the environment within which they existed.

AlMac|(talk) 19:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] President Assassinated by Time Traveler

I do not remember exactly when this was ... I am figuring the mid 1970's. I was in a social group in Northern Kentucky, consisting of a bunch of computer programmers (not on PCs but their larger professional brethern) who played and designed and play tested simulation games, including science fiction games, and we were exploring which of these games could be transplanted in one form or another to the Personal Computer world.

Dan Reece wrote a variant of Assassin in the programming language C to run on CPM operating system. At start of game you specified how many players and how many artificial intelligence enemies. The game framework was the history of USA, with the country divided into regions. The AI characters were time traveling terrorists (TTT), let loose into US history, and it was the job of the human players to track them down, then get them, dead or alive, but you had to find them to do so, and you found them by finding what they had done, then tracking their movements from those actions, to eliminate them in their time lines before those actions, so as to undo their actions.

We would travel to various places in US history and either be told

  • All is well with history ... The President is ... and it would name the current Government leaders, VP, important people in important government functions of the day, or
  • Something is wrong ... it would name who is President etc. and the names would be jumbled up using real VP as actual President, or be even more so ... the names were from real history, but in different job functions than actual history
    • You would get this news if you were at a later time in history than where the change in history occurred, and have to then do a binary search back in time to find out when it happened ... too far back and everything is well with history ... not far enough and you are taking too much time to figure this out ... because the enemy will strike again, and make this even more difficult to untangle
  • The nation is in an uproar ... The President was just assassinated by ______ and it would give a general description of the time traveling terrorist who done it, and in what part of the nation
    • If you were in that region of the country when it happened, it would tell you precisely what city ... in some other region just what region
    • If you were in that city, you were able to get detective info on the movements of ______ so that you could try to chase down the TTT who is also hunting you
    • Each TTT was given a unique identification, randomized at game start ... race gender general-body clothing ... much like a police description

I showed the program to several people, including my sister who converted it to BASIC written to run on a Texas Instruments PC, which at the time was limited to 4 k total. She's a school teacher, who collected games for her students, that emphasized logical thinking and various skills she was trying to teach. Her version added a few features not in Dan's, such as when you apprehend the TTT and read the miranda rights, and reason for arrest is which president got assassinated, if you spelled the President name wrong, the suspect managed to escape from you, and you would have to chase them down again.

AlMac|(talk) 19:19, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Additions and tidying up

I tidied up the Literature section and added new books under Comedy, Romance and Children’s Fiction. In addition, I split the Film and Television section into two sections and tidied up the list. Logan’s Run is futuristic but does not include time travel, so I removed it. /Time travel fan

[edit] Watch Time travel

People are adding stuff to the Time travel article that belongs here. User:AlMac|(talk) 10:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] El anacronópete

I should start reading Enrique Gaspar's El anacronópete (1887) and make an article on it. --Error 01:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tidying, plus removed an entry

I've just sorted through parts of this this page, reordering the entries by their release dates. I've also removedthe following entry:

  • A recent non-fiction book (Time Travel in Einstein's Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time (2001) by J. Richard Gott) has a scientist analyzing Star Trek and science fiction in literature and films.

This is more non-fiction than fiction, hence has no place in this article (except possibly as a reference).

I'm unsure about:

  • Master of the Universe (1987). Time travel was not featured in this movie but a villain had a camcorder-like gadget which could show what actually happened in the past hour or so. Instead of going to the past, just being able to look at the past would be more interesting than time travelling. Want to see the parting of the Red Sea ? How about looking at a real dinosaur ?

As it says in the entry, it doesn't feature time travel. Should it be kept on this page? I've left it in place for now.

I'll be doing more work on this article in the future (when I'm more awake). Mike Peel 20:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comprehensive List of Science Fiction Novels

I am a huge fan of time travel fiction, and I would like to begin a comprehensive list of science fiction novels that contain time travel that would be arranged alphabetically by author, but it would mean altering the current list by eliminating the descriptions (most of the novels currently listed link to other pages with synopses of the novels). I would like to list title, author and publication date. I am new to Wikipedia and do not want to step on any toes, so I want to throw this out for comment. Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Apollosrose (talk • contribs) .

I think you'd better do that on another page, one that starts with "List of...". —Keenan Pepper 19:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Your list would be a new article – plenty of examples exist of different formats, e.g. see List of television series that include time travel and List of Star Trek: Voyager episodes. One problem you might encounter is that a short list will not appear to have any merit when you first create it, and will probably be voted for deletion almost as soon as it is created. To avoid this, ensure that the initial list has plenty of entries... and I also suggest you make sure that at least some people show an interest in it first (either here or in a general forum) – they may then support you in voting against any proposed deletion. See also List of science fiction novels. Thanks.   — Lee J Haywood 19:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roleplaying games

Please help to flesh out the roleplaying games section I only know a few so I added them but more would be great

John Doe or Jane Doe 11:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Most famous time machine?

"The most famous time machine in popular culture is the De Lorean DMC-12 from the Back to the Future trilogy."

Excuse me? Who says? Isn't this NPOV? And even if it isn't, surely many more people would recognise the TARDIS from Doctor Who. Even Bill & Ted copied that. Can we get rid of this picture and caption, please?--63.165.234.2 11:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you completely - and was thinking pretty the much the same thing. But I don't think the picture needs to be removed, merely recaptioned. I'll take a shot at that - the result will still give the page a nice picture.PaulLev 01:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


I agree with 63.165.234.2. The TARDIS is obviously the most well known one. (insert TARDIS image here) Doctor Who has it's own subcategory in the List of Time travel television series

"The TARDIS is obviously the most well known one." In your dreams. Recall Chronic Argonauts had about a 50yr lead on BBC... Dr. What 15:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline is not a time travel story

Even Michael Chricton admits it. The protagonists do not travel, they are instead killed. Their replacements are from another parallel universe which believes it has figured out how to time travel but instead is just moving from one parallel to another. And each time they do, there is no time travel involved.--Stu-Rat 19:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. I suppose the novel could be identified as pseudo-time-travel, or mimicking time travel, and it might be ok to include it with that explanation. Do you have an article or interview in which Chricton says that, and we can put in here as a source?PaulLev 04:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Nope, but just read the book. It is stated, many times over, that it is not time travel.

[edit] Parallel Realities

Often the characters in a novel make statements that are not true, to misdirect the readers.

Sending messages to another time, leading to changes in that time that would not have occurred had the messages not been received, that is very similar in results to a person actually traveling to that time and having the same end effect.

I had always thought that there were several dimensions to possible time travel, just as there are several dimensions to space. If you think that time travel is only along the past future dimension, then you are denying yourself the pleasure of sideways travel to another set of dimensions like in the adventures of Lord Kalvan of Other When. User:AlMac|(talk) 19:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] discussion & decision on merge suggestion?

Any thoughts on the List of films containing a predestination-grandfather paradox Merge suggestion tagged on to the top of this article? I looked at the list, and I think it could easily be put into this article's movie section.PaulLev 04:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree you can do it if you wish...John Doe or Jane Doe 10:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I think they should remain separate. Otherwise, you lose some information. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 05:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Please clarify what informatin would be lost. I think it could be retained.John Doe or Jane Doe 11:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Right now, the time travel film list in this article is ordered by genre: Children's, Romance, Comedy and Science Fiction (which is a logical way to do it). If the List of films containing a predestination-grandfather paradox was merged in, the information in it could only be retained by having it occupy it's own sub-section (in which case it would be a constant target for either reversion or dismantling by putting the individual films into subsections). People trying to change it that way would cause the original information to be lost, but they would be right in line with Wikipedia rules, which discourage repeating some of the same information (such as dual links to films that are both sci-fi and grandfather paradox in the same article) and encourage a logical organization (so that listing by both genre and other plot details would be seen as disorganized). I don't doubt that the merge could proceed without loss of information at first, I just doubt that it would be able to retain that information once it became a merged article. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 14:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of television series that include time travel

This article is relevant to both TV series about time travel, as well as those that only occasionally reference it. The former is covered by Category:Time travel television series and the latter is covered by List of television series that include time travel. Both of these other sources are now more comprehensive than the list that appears in this article, but I'm too biased to decide the best way to change this article to refer to those other sources. Will you please either (a) give an opinion here or (b) make the changes you feel are appropriate. Thanks!   — Lee J Haywood 19:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Time Travel in Science Fiction article

A new page was created to expand the info. available on time travel in science fiction. Tables were created to organize the incredibly long lists in Time travel in fiction. Info. from Time travel in fiction (specifically in the Science Fiction subtopics) has been reviewed, editied, and copied to this page. We have also updated the lists of media to include more current works, added information about the significance of time travel in the science fiction genre, and expanded the explanation of how time travel in science fiction differs from time travel in fantasy. I would like to remove the info. under the science fiction subtopics on this page and put redirects to the new Time Travel in Science Fiction article. Time Flyer 24:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grandfather Paradox

It seems to me that someone has been doing some editing who is blinded by the grandfather paradox of time crime suicide which is only one of many paradoxes that we find in time travel. I think that one paradox overly dominates the text references. Discussion of paradoxes, that science fiction stories manage to get around, may belong in a separate article that includes other common variations between our comprehension of scientific reality and popular themes of science fiction, such as the speed of light barrier. User:AlMac|(talk) 19:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] YTMND's Time Traveler fad.

YTMND's famous "Time Traveler" joke/fad is missing from the list. Should be added, as it was even feautured in Jay Leno's show:

http://wiki.ytmnd.com/Safety_Not_Guaranteed

(Cernex 04:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Time tourist

I didn't se any mention of Silverberg's "time tourist" stories from IAsfm. Include? (If I could find my copies, I would...) Trekphiler (talk) 12:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Axl Low

I didn't see Axl Low from the Guilty Gear game series, so I added him into the article (you can find where simply by using your browser's Find command while you're on the page; note that I put him under the appropriate existing subheading, 'Video and computer games'). Just figured I'd tell you all in the event, this is M. Burusu out (note: I don't have an account on Wikipedia). 01:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:MagicTreeHouseBookCover.jpg

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[edit] 13 Monkeys?

The article says it relies on an unchanging past; the ending leaves unclear if anyone can change the past, & suggests an intention to keep trying. Trekphiler (talk) 19:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] A Christmas Carol is not Time Travel

Aren't we casting the net a bit wide on this page? Isn't time travel a sub-genre of science fiction? If so, Dickens wouldn't qualify. Simply being able to view the past, or the future, does not constitute time travel. If it did, then wouldn't just remembering something that happened in the past be considered time travel? And so far as seeing the future goes, surely you don't consider prophecy as being time travel too? If so, Oedipus Rex and Macbeth ought to be included on this page. If you're going to consider both memory and prophecy as time travel, then, in my opinion, the article becomes inclusive to point of being useless. -Buckley Cloud 8 April 2008

Seconded. Seeing the future (or past) doesn't count as time travel. Especially when it's a future that doesn't happen. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Degenerating into a list

This article is degenerating into a list of everyone's favourite time travel stories. I suggest it gets mercilessly trimmed, down to maybe twenty examples; otherwise it will keep growing for ever. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Can I suggest we describe themes (using stories as illustrations) rather than just listing all the stories. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


Agree totally with both of the above. I started the culling (moving lists to their own articles, see see also links). Yobmod (talk) 13:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

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[edit] Cleanup Tag

I have added a cleanup tag to this article. There are a couple of things about it which seem a little ... anarchic.

  • The section Time travel in science fiction verses fantasy seems to be original research. The opening statement which differentiates fantasy time travel from sci-fi time travel depends on an interpretation of the linked reference - and a rather restricted one at that. Surely the line between sci-fi and fantasy is a bit too blurred for statments such as this?
  • The subsequent sections seem to be indiscriminate lists of examples illustrating sub-genres. Is there anything which governs how many examples can be for each genre? Is there anything which governs whether something should be included as a genre at all? Is there anything which governs which might be the best examples for each genre? These sections look like disastrous cruft-magnets.

BreathingMeat (talk) 01:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The article was at some time forked (to Time travel in SF). I recently remerged them, hence the mess :-). I move a huge amount of examples into the new "list" articles. What remains are those that didn't fit easily into the different media lists (film, TV, books, games). I'm always for cutting down lists extensively, and only keeping major works that illustate particular points, in a prose format. But looks like a lot of work, and every example i remove gets replaced by 2 more :-/.Yobmod (talk) 08:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Just moved the last lists to List of time travel science fiction literature talk page. They all need extensive formatting there.Yobmod (talk) 08:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC)