Know any good read-only time travel stories?

September 14, 2009 12:47 PM

Can you recommend any good stories/books that deal with unobtrusive time travel tourism? Tourists from the future going back in time to view historical events, or catch a glimpse at a historical person, but not interacting or interfering in any way, shape, or form... read-only time travel, if you will.
posted by bjork24 to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

Hmm... A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? Scrooge looks at himself in the past, present and future but can't interact with himself or anyone else.
posted by Rewind at 12:51 PM on September 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

That would be a little tricky, since the whole messing-up-time trope is kind of inextricably tied to time travel lit. The best example I can think of is Edward Eager's The Time Garden, which is a fantastic children's book wherein a group of cousins realize that their elderly relative's thyme garden (get it?) allows them to skip around in time. Some wacky hijinks ensue, but the children don't end up actually changing history.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:52 PM on September 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh, and Book 6 of the Aeneid offers a glimpse forward in time to as-yet-unborn historical figures.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:55 PM on September 14, 2009

Good info in a related AskMe, including a reference to Catherine Moore's "Vintage Season."
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:01 PM on September 14, 2009

Inside Mr. Enderby by Anthony Burgess opens with a visit to observe the sleeping Enderby by a group of travelers from the future.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 1:02 PM on September 14, 2009

The queen of time travel fiction is Connie Willis. She writes about both read-only and intervention-focused time travel. You cannot go wrong with any Connie Willis book, but my favorite is To Say Nothing of the Dog.
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:02 PM on September 14, 2009

The light of other days, by Arthur C. Clarke
posted by slide at 1:19 PM on September 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Well, The Pastwatch Series by legendary übertool Orson Scott Card has a considerable read-only time viewing component at first, but it leads to intervention in the first book and is all alternate history from there. However, the first part of the first book deals heavily with the scholarly reaction to what is essentially a microfiche viewer that can view any place and time of the past and how such a device would change many fields.
posted by ulotrichous at 1:34 PM on September 14, 2009

Up The Line by Robery Silverberg. . . The protagonist is a "time courier" whose job it is to escort groups of tourists back in time to observe historical events. It's a very entertaining read; one of my all time favorites. Also The Time Hoppers by Silverberg is in a similar vein.
posted by FairlyFarley at 1:48 PM on September 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Jack Finney wrote a lot about time travel. His collection "About Time" has some good stories; his famous novel "Time and Again" is great, but I can't say that the protagonist doesn't interfere with events.
posted by OolooKitty at 1:48 PM on September 14, 2009

Has someone already suggested "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury? Is that too obvious?
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 1:50 PM on September 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've suggested it many times here on the green - Heinlein's All You Zombies. It 'does' involve character interference...sort of.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:58 PM on September 14, 2009

"The Fox and the Forest," also by Bradbury. Unobtrusive time tourism in twentieth century Mexico.
posted by Iridic at 2:25 PM on September 14, 2009

"The Dead Past", a short story by Isaac Asimov. I can't find it online; your best bets would be to hunt for "Earth Is Room Enough" or "The Best of Isaac Asimov".
posted by roystgnr at 2:29 PM on September 14, 2009

One of the Transmetropolitan collections (Filth of the City I think) has a single page panel about visiting the past, where you appear as translucent ghosts, invisible to the locals.
posted by Happy Dave at 3:32 AM on September 15, 2009