Give me more stories on time travel or alternate history
December 23, 2023 12:30 AM Subscribe
I often find myself daydreaming about what I would do if I could go back to the past. Where would I go? When would I go?? I'd like more content on that!
I recently found this video called "Advice for time traveling back to medieval Europe" and quite enjoyed it.
I've read a few alternate history stories like The Man In The High Tower, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, and The Years of Rice and Salt (though I really only enjoyed the last one).
Do you have any recommendations for content that explores topics like going back in time or changing history?
I recently found this video called "Advice for time traveling back to medieval Europe" and quite enjoyed it.
I've read a few alternate history stories like The Man In The High Tower, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, and The Years of Rice and Salt (though I really only enjoyed the last one).
Do you have any recommendations for content that explores topics like going back in time or changing history?
Try Ian Mortimer's "Time Traveler's Guide" series. It's a collection of history books written under the conceit that they're travel guides. in case you get transported back to different periods in British history and need to blend in with the locals.
(You know, on the off chance you find yourself in the midst of a medieval soccer match, so prep in advance for a village-wide mosh pit that happens to have a ball in there somewhere.)
posted by champers at 2:52 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
(You know, on the off chance you find yourself in the midst of a medieval soccer match, so prep in advance for a village-wide mosh pit that happens to have a ball in there somewhere.)
posted by champers at 2:52 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
You will almost certainly enjoy the books of Connie Willis, which feature historians who go back in time to study the past. Blackout and All Clear take place in the London Blitz; Doomsday Book intertwines the stories of those caught in a pandemic in the book’s present day with that of a historian trapped by mistake in a time travel expedition to the Black Plague. She’s got other great books as well in the same universe.
posted by ourobouros at 3:10 AM on December 23, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by ourobouros at 3:10 AM on December 23, 2023 [11 favorites]
A question from 2008, What's the time-travel canon?, will get you some classics and other lists to check out.
posted by cocoagirl at 3:16 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by cocoagirl at 3:16 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
There's the short story Wikihistory by Desmond Warzel which includes the line: "everybody kills Hitler on their first trip."
posted by ShooBoo at 3:28 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by ShooBoo at 3:28 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
posted by Sar at 3:56 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Sar at 3:56 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
One of the more poignant stories I've read in a long time is actually an alternate history story - "The Winterberry" by Nick DiChario. Its premise is that JFK actually survived his assassination, but was profoundly brain-damaged and had the mental age of a child. The premise is that the Kennedy family faked his death and took him home to Massachusetts, where he was kept in seclusion and cared for by Rose and Teddy Kennedy. It's written from his own perspective, as a handful of secret diary entries spanning the last couple decades of his life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:01 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:01 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
- by his bootstraps, groundbreaking classic by heinlein
- the dechronization of sam magruder, a golden age oddity
- outlander series
- the hainish cycle stories have einsteinian time dilation as a major plot device
- flawed but importantmillennium, varley. borrows the term twonky to great effect.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:06 AM on December 23, 2023
- the dechronization of sam magruder, a golden age oddity
- outlander series
- the hainish cycle stories have einsteinian time dilation as a major plot device
- flawed but importantmillennium, varley. borrows the term twonky to great effect.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:06 AM on December 23, 2023
For a very literary take on time travel you could check out Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, which I loved. And The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz is on my to-read list.
posted by brookeb at 6:07 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by brookeb at 6:07 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Hot Tub Time Machine and its sequel Are VERY fun movies.
the book The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
is also excellent.
posted by wowenthusiast at 6:12 AM on December 23, 2023
the book The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
is also excellent.
posted by wowenthusiast at 6:12 AM on December 23, 2023
I'm a bit surprised no one has recommended Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler yet. Ibalso love Connie Willis.
posted by Tanya at 6:17 AM on December 23, 2023
posted by Tanya at 6:17 AM on December 23, 2023
Stirling's Nantucket books are kind of a mixed bag -- some folks really enjoy, others definitely not -- but probably worth giving _Island in the Sea of Time_ a try.
Basic idea: Nantucket and the Coast Guard training ship _Eagle_ get zappulated back to something like 1500 BC.
There's also a long series of books by someone else in which a town in West Virginia gets zapped back to medieval/renaissance Europe.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:20 AM on December 23, 2023
Basic idea: Nantucket and the Coast Guard training ship _Eagle_ get zappulated back to something like 1500 BC.
There's also a long series of books by someone else in which a town in West Virginia gets zapped back to medieval/renaissance Europe.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:20 AM on December 23, 2023
I’m currently reading Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister - it’s about a woman who finds herself travelling backwards through her own life to try and put something right, so it’s not like she appears in historical eras, but might scratch the time travelling itch. Not finished yet so can’t vouch for it having a satisfying denouement or not!
Ministry of Time/El Ministerio del Tiempo is an enjoyable Spanish TV series about government agents recruited from various eras who travel in time to fight the baddie time travellers. Particularly interesting if you know nothing of Spanish history! Unfortunately I think it disappeared from Netflix a few years ago and for a while was a bit hard to track down but it might have reappeared somewhere else now - a quick google suggests maybe Disney and/or Amazon might have it. Worth looking for, anyway.
posted by penguin pie at 7:04 AM on December 23, 2023
Ministry of Time/El Ministerio del Tiempo is an enjoyable Spanish TV series about government agents recruited from various eras who travel in time to fight the baddie time travellers. Particularly interesting if you know nothing of Spanish history! Unfortunately I think it disappeared from Netflix a few years ago and for a while was a bit hard to track down but it might have reappeared somewhere else now - a quick google suggests maybe Disney and/or Amazon might have it. Worth looking for, anyway.
posted by penguin pie at 7:04 AM on December 23, 2023
All You Zombies, classic Heinlein story, so content warning for sexism. Product of the 1950's and seminal for many of us.
Guns of the South Shortly after Gettysburg, time travelers arrive in the past to try to prevent the South losing the American Civil War. Told from the pov of the people of that time. One of several books by Harru Turtledove, whose works frequently fit your description exactly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:10 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Guns of the South Shortly after Gettysburg, time travelers arrive in the past to try to prevent the South losing the American Civil War. Told from the pov of the people of that time. One of several books by Harru Turtledove, whose works frequently fit your description exactly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:10 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Jodi Taylor's Chronicles of St. Mary's series is about a group of historians (do not call them time travelers) who go back to record big events. They have a strict mandate not to meddle and not to take in contemporaries (the people from the time they are visiting). In typical fashion, these mandates get broken all the time.
posted by soelo at 7:40 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by soelo at 7:40 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Stephen King's 11/22/62 : A school teacher sets out to "fix" history.
Primer: Two inventors accidentally discover time travel and end up scrambling their lives.
posted by metadave at 7:43 AM on December 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
Primer: Two inventors accidentally discover time travel and end up scrambling their lives.
posted by metadave at 7:43 AM on December 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
Pavane by Keith Roberts
See also
I so agree with Mr. Hutchinson.
posted by y2karl at 8:06 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
See also
Pavane was published in 1968, and it consists of a series of linked stories set in an England where Elizabeth I was assassinated, the Spanish Armada was victorious, and Britain is under the heel of Rome. It’s a world where technological advancement has been strictly controlled, semaphore stations carry news from hilltop to hilltop, and traction engines haul freight.Science Fiction In Your Own Back Yard:Pavane, by Keith Roberts by Dave Hutchinson
It’s not a perfect book, by any means. The coda, which takes place some years after the main events of the book, seems tacked on and unnecessary, a little jarring. But it is a deeply moving book, in places, and its slow, stately, lyrical prose matches the slow dance of the title. It’s a significant achievement, by any measure. I was utterly bowled over by it.
I so agree with Mr. Hutchinson.
posted by y2karl at 8:06 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Jack Finney's Time and Again is an account of an artist in the early 1970's traveling back in time to the 1880's, with extensive discussion of how he prepares and gorgeous detail. There's a sequel, which I love less, but this is one of my (and Stephen King's) favorite time-travel stories. Finney also wrote a number of short stories, unrelated to this novel, about time travel, which were collected in About Time.
posted by pollytropos at 8:07 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by pollytropos at 8:07 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Came here to recommend Time and Again and About Time, as pollytropos suggests.
posted by nkknkk at 9:03 AM on December 23, 2023
posted by nkknkk at 9:03 AM on December 23, 2023
The Time Traders by Andre Norton. It's the first novel in the author's four-book Time Trader series from the 1950s and 60s.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:36 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by fuse theorem at 9:36 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
One I forgot is Outlander (books and TV series) - woman from post-War England goes back in time and finds herself in Scotland around the time of the Jacobite rebellion.
I’ve not seen the TV series - I read the first of the many books and it’s not high literature but diverting enough and definitely has a theme of the protagonist learning to live in a bygone era. If it turns out you like it, there’s a lot of it!
posted by penguin pie at 9:37 AM on December 23, 2023
I’ve not seen the TV series - I read the first of the many books and it’s not high literature but diverting enough and definitely has a theme of the protagonist learning to live in a bygone era. If it turns out you like it, there’s a lot of it!
posted by penguin pie at 9:37 AM on December 23, 2023
Oh oh oh how could I forget?!! (Sorry…)
Charlotte Sometimes was one of my favourite childhood books and is about a girl in an English boarding school who goes to sleep one night and wakes up in the same school around the time of the First World War. It turns out she’s swapping places, night about, with a girl from that era who looks just like her.
It’s just so evocative, I really recommend it. (Also, The Cure named a song after it, so there’s that).
And in a similar vein, another children’s book, Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. It’s about a boy in quarantine (!!) who can wake up at night, go down to the garden and meet a girl who lived in the house he’s staying in, in the Victorian era.
Children’s literature sometimes does this stuff really beautifully, I think.
posted by penguin pie at 9:44 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Charlotte Sometimes was one of my favourite childhood books and is about a girl in an English boarding school who goes to sleep one night and wakes up in the same school around the time of the First World War. It turns out she’s swapping places, night about, with a girl from that era who looks just like her.
It’s just so evocative, I really recommend it. (Also, The Cure named a song after it, so there’s that).
And in a similar vein, another children’s book, Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. It’s about a boy in quarantine (!!) who can wake up at night, go down to the garden and meet a girl who lived in the house he’s staying in, in the Victorian era.
Children’s literature sometimes does this stuff really beautifully, I think.
posted by penguin pie at 9:44 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
L Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall is about a contemporary archeologist who steps through a crack in time into 6th century Rome. He struggles to save the world through brandy and double-entry bookkeeping.
The Men Who Murdered Mohammed is an Alfred Bester story about a time traveler that attempts to change history. Things don't work out.
And, out of left field, Superboy #85, in which the Lad of Steel attempts to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Things don't work out. It's why "things don't work out" that makes it memorable.
posted by SPrintF at 9:56 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
The Men Who Murdered Mohammed is an Alfred Bester story about a time traveler that attempts to change history. Things don't work out.
And, out of left field, Superboy #85, in which the Lad of Steel attempts to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Things don't work out. It's why "things don't work out" that makes it memorable.
posted by SPrintF at 9:56 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Came here to suggest the Jack Finney, but now I can add Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates. Poets, evil clowns, whistling Beatles songs, and Egyptian gods in London.
posted by PussKillian at 9:57 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by PussKillian at 9:57 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
William Gibson's The Peripheral has as its conceit a server that allows different eras to speak to one another...in this case a near-future Appalachia and London 70+ years in their future. Gibson is very careful to point out that the act of communication makes the Appalachian timeline a "stub," or alternate timeline, and steps are taken to help prevent the stub from ending up like the book's future world. It's really much clearer in the story!
Amazon produced a single season of, then canceled, a TV show based on the book, which took liberties with the story but did a good job putting faces to the characters and establishing the two worlds.
posted by lhauser at 10:34 AM on December 23, 2023
Amazon produced a single season of, then canceled, a TV show based on the book, which took liberties with the story but did a good job putting faces to the characters and establishing the two worlds.
posted by lhauser at 10:34 AM on December 23, 2023
Oops, forgot to mention Michael Chricton's Timeline, about modern history students traveling to 14th century France, and Julian May's The Sage Of The Pliocene Exile series, where people are sent on a one-way trip to the Pliocene, only to find earth inhabited by aliens. Perhaps more of an alien-encounter than a time travel story, but it does center around the opening of the Strait of Gibraltar and the flooding of the Mediterranean basin.
posted by lhauser at 10:44 AM on December 23, 2023
posted by lhauser at 10:44 AM on December 23, 2023
Kindred by Octavia Butler.
posted by aniola at 11:25 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by aniola at 11:25 AM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
I just remembered Vintage Season by C. L. (Catherine Louise) Moore which was published under the name of Lawrence O'Donnell -- which was a pen name she shared with her husband Henry Kuttner for their collaborations. The consensus is Vintage Season is hers alone. She was one of the first woman S.F.writers published in the 20th Century with her short story Shambleau in Weird Tales in 1933.
It was reissued as half of a Tor double entitled Another Country/Vintage Season by Robert Silverberg and C.L. Moore, with Silverberg -- the most prolific science fiction writer of the era -- being the marquee name. You can get it either from Amazon or the best used bookstore in your city. I guarantee you will find it worth your while. Vintage Season is, in my humble opinion, one of the most perfect and beautiful science fiction stories ever written.
posted by y2karl at 1:22 PM on December 23, 2023
It was reissued as half of a Tor double entitled Another Country/Vintage Season by Robert Silverberg and C.L. Moore, with Silverberg -- the most prolific science fiction writer of the era -- being the marquee name. You can get it either from Amazon or the best used bookstore in your city. I guarantee you will find it worth your while. Vintage Season is, in my humble opinion, one of the most perfect and beautiful science fiction stories ever written.
posted by y2karl at 1:22 PM on December 23, 2023
Came out very recently: Some Desperate Glory. Highly recommended.
posted by curious nu at 1:36 PM on December 23, 2023
posted by curious nu at 1:36 PM on December 23, 2023
The podcast Be the Serpent had an episode on time travel fix-it fics.
posted by paduasoy at 2:40 PM on December 23, 2023
posted by paduasoy at 2:40 PM on December 23, 2023
Ryan North's "Let's Say You've Gone Back in Time" cheat sheet and "How To Invent Everything" survival guide for the stranded time traveler.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:02 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:02 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
The (sadly late) Kāhea Baker wrote a sequence based on a dodgy outfit called The Company.
posted by billsaysthis at 4:41 PM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by billsaysthis at 4:41 PM on December 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Another children's book: Fog Magic by Julia Sauer. Fog Magic tells the story of a young girl who, on foggy days, travels back in time to enter the past life of a village that is ruined/abandoned in her own time.
posted by gudrun at 5:03 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by gudrun at 5:03 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
I enjoyed Ken Grimwood’s Replay, about people who can relive their lives over and over again and try to change them.
posted by johngoren at 6:20 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by johngoren at 6:20 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yes, the Company books are so good. Kage Baker is the author name, though.
posted by PussKillian at 6:25 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by PussKillian at 6:25 PM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
Jo Walton's _Farthing_, et seq, are set in an alternate Britain which has made peace with Nazi Germany. I liked them.
Matt Ruff's _The Mirage_ is set in an alternate world in which the US and the Middle East have swapped geopolitical places. The mapping is often satisfying; there's a bit later in the novel in which the characters go to America and meet a guy named "Randall", and you know immediately who is being talked about even though his surname isn't given.
One problem with time travel stories (looking in particular at Blackout/All Clear) is that the drama often comes from the characters' ignorance of what rules of time travel are being followed. This is a fundamentally uninteresting question, and it leads to a muddle. Once you follow that link, you won't be able to read a time travel story without immediately trying to figure out what model number it uses.
This Used To Be About Dungeons has a really interesting variant on type 3, but it's otherwise not really what you are looking for since it's secondary world fantasy and the scope of time travel is to repeat exactly one day.
posted by novalis_dt at 7:31 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Matt Ruff's _The Mirage_ is set in an alternate world in which the US and the Middle East have swapped geopolitical places. The mapping is often satisfying; there's a bit later in the novel in which the characters go to America and meet a guy named "Randall", and you know immediately who is being talked about even though his surname isn't given.
One problem with time travel stories (looking in particular at Blackout/All Clear) is that the drama often comes from the characters' ignorance of what rules of time travel are being followed. This is a fundamentally uninteresting question, and it leads to a muddle. Once you follow that link, you won't be able to read a time travel story without immediately trying to figure out what model number it uses.
This Used To Be About Dungeons has a really interesting variant on type 3, but it's otherwise not really what you are looking for since it's secondary world fantasy and the scope of time travel is to repeat exactly one day.
posted by novalis_dt at 7:31 PM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you want to watch a TV show with a particularly bananapants take on this, might I suggest Legends of Tomorrow? Start with the first episode of Season 2 as they essentially repiloted it after Season 1. (You can go back and watch Season 1 later.) Time-traveling superheroes have to make sure history happens as it should. They are maybe not the best at this. Their slogan is, “Sometimes we screw things up for the better!”
There is also John Barnes’ “The Timeline Wars,” which includes Washington’s Dirigible and Caesar’s Bicycle.
In an extremely different genre, Jude Deveraux’s A Knight in Shining Armor features a woman who gets dumped at a British chapel only to have a man appear who is from the Elizabethan era. She is later displaced into the Elizabethan era. Hijinx, romance and world changes ensue.
posted by rednikki at 4:03 PM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
There is also John Barnes’ “The Timeline Wars,” which includes Washington’s Dirigible and Caesar’s Bicycle.
In an extremely different genre, Jude Deveraux’s A Knight in Shining Armor features a woman who gets dumped at a British chapel only to have a man appear who is from the Elizabethan era. She is later displaced into the Elizabethan era. Hijinx, romance and world changes ensue.
posted by rednikki at 4:03 PM on December 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: These all look awesome - thank you all!
I really thought I'd just get a few replies that looked just OK but I'm very pleased to see all the interesting material on here. This'll keep me going for a decade at least :)
posted by lalunamel at 6:41 AM on December 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
I really thought I'd just get a few replies that looked just OK but I'm very pleased to see all the interesting material on here. This'll keep me going for a decade at least :)
posted by lalunamel at 6:41 AM on December 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by crocomancer at 2:19 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]