Working on the prep for a video on Time Travel SF books. So many to choose from. I've picked my favourites. What are yours?
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Spoilers, obviously. I think Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer does some interesting things with time travel and immortality Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire has time travel in a nonsense world, where cause and effect are a bit strange.
aug 27, 2025, 6:15 pm • 1 0 • view
The Fall of Chronopolis by Barrington Bayley. One of my very first proper adult SF books - been loving time travel stories ever since.
aug 27, 2025, 9:57 am • 3 0 • view
As someone who is currently building a time machine, I'll take your word on that 🤣😂
aug 27, 2025, 10:09 am • 3 0 • view
How is your design for the Chronoflangeflux Sphere working out? Mine needs some adjustment 🫤 😆
aug 27, 2025, 12:59 pm • 3 0 • view
The chronicles of st mary's by Jodi Taylor are my favourites. opposite end of the spectrum from most / all of the other replies but sometimes you need a fun, non-technical, adventure story. Also the audio narrator (Sara Ramm) is perfection.
aug 26, 2025, 9:38 pm • 3 0 • view
I’ll have to ponder which are my favourites, but here’s one I read a while ago that was quite brain stretchy. 🪐📚💙
aug 26, 2025, 7:57 pm • 4 1 • view
Kage Baker’s Company series….
aug 30, 2025, 3:11 pm • 1 0 • view
If time dilation is an option, there's Vernor Vinge's The Peace War (also published in Across Realtime) where temporal stasis fields are used to incapacitate weapons...until the field pops years later.
aug 27, 2025, 2:10 pm • 1 0 • view
Nice, thanks. I have about 40 books, I'll end up covering 10 or so. I'll add all the also-rans to the video description.
aug 27, 2025, 2:26 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh one other tidbit - this was used in Permafrost, but also came up in my professor's time machine book - was the idea that you can't send the time machine to a time before its creation. Physicist Kip Thorne apparently did the math on that. IIRC.
aug 27, 2025, 5:33 pm • 1 0 • view
One of my favorites has it as a plot point twist, so I'd hesitate to mention it for spoilers. However there's: bsky.app/profile/quit...
aug 26, 2025, 8:05 pm • 1 0 • view
And the extremely popular (as judged by it getting about the most likes of any review I've posted.) bsky.app/profile/quit...
aug 26, 2025, 8:06 pm • 1 0 • view
I'll be reading that in September!
aug 26, 2025, 8:06 pm • 2 0 • view
Nice! It's pretty fast and has a neat take on how changes in the present affect the future. Plus anything by Reynolds is a safe bet.
aug 26, 2025, 8:28 pm • 1 0 • view
Looks like the internet archive has a copy of this definitive reference: Nahin was one of my Electrical Engineering professors (He'd described writing this as "living proof of the power of tenure") Am kicking myself for not getting my copy signed when I'd have had the chance.
aug 26, 2025, 8:03 pm • 1 0 • view
- Sound of Thunder (Bradbury short story - greatest ever time travel story) - Time Machine (obv) - The Man Who Awoke (Laurence Manning) - Behold the Man (Moorcock) - Sphere (Crichton) - Roadmarks (Zelazny) Does Tau Zero count? If so, that one too
aug 26, 2025, 7:30 pm • 3 0 • view
I'm defo including tao zero. And forever war.
aug 26, 2025, 7:37 pm • 3 0 • view
Oh for goodness sake, I knew I was missing an obvious one! Yes Forever War definitely - got to be one of the top 5 most influential Time Travel stories (after Time Machine, Rip van Winkle and Sound of Thunder)
aug 26, 2025, 7:44 pm • 2 0 • view
The Forever War has time dilation, but I don't remember time travel in it. Maybe your including stories that span vast stretches of time?
aug 26, 2025, 8:39 pm • 3 0 • view
I lean on the side of time dilation and time travel being inter-linked enough that it's safe to include them
aug 26, 2025, 8:46 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm counting time dilation as time travel, after a fashion.
aug 26, 2025, 8:46 pm • 1 0 • view
A relatively obscure one here, but David Masson’s short story ‘Travellers Rest’ (written in 1965) is one the best time dilation tales I’ve read to date. A huge influence on Christopher Priest when he was starting out.
aug 27, 2025, 9:38 am • 2 0 • view
Looks like it was originally published in Lightspeed Magazine & for those interested, it can be found here: www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/trav... Thanks for this, not one I'm familiar with. Going to pick it up for the ereader (I hate reading stories online)
aug 27, 2025, 10:04 am • 1 0 • view
It’s a fine piece of storytelling - packs a tremendous amount into 20 pages 👍 Interesting that Masson only ever wrote short stories - each one markedly different in theme and tone. Currently dipping in and out of his one and only collection ‘The Caltraps of Time’.
aug 27, 2025, 10:25 am • 2 0 • view
Ahhh, OK. That opens it up quite a bit
aug 26, 2025, 8:58 pm • 1 0 • view
I'm always on about it, but still Times Without Number (1962) by John Brunner - AKA The Society of Time in later editions.
aug 26, 2025, 8:56 pm • 2 0 • view
Also Benford's Timescape (1980) which I've just covered and which is a very interesting and more "serious" or rigorous look at time and causality.
aug 26, 2025, 9:30 pm • 2 0 • view
Reading this again right now.
aug 27, 2025, 9:55 am • 0 0 • view
Yes, I enjoyed it too. 👍
aug 26, 2025, 9:31 pm • 1 0 • view
I really enjoyed the video. Thanks for including the blueprints for the time machine in it as well!
aug 27, 2025, 1:34 pm • 3 0 • view
See what you did there! Was a bit slow on the uptake....
aug 27, 2025, 3:29 pm • 1 0 • view
I don't think it gets a lot of talk in the SF community because it feels more Lit. Fiction, but How to Stop Time by Matt Haig was outstanding. For me, it's on the very edge of SF.... the thriller/ intrigue/speculative side, but still a damn good story!
aug 26, 2025, 7:30 pm • 2 0 • view