A Thief in Time
by Robert Sheckley, Galaxy Science Fiction (July, 1954); UK No. 21 (December, 1954), pp. 4-27.
A light-hearted romp but the time travel paradox isn’t explored so much as indulged in, ad hoc, until (it feels) Sheckley rollicked his word count up to novelette length and the editor had enough pages filled to put a stop to it.
Flux
by Jinwoo Chong (Melville House, 2023)
audiobook read by David Lee Huynh (Tantor, 2023)
Suitably twisty in its time travel motifs and displaced narrative perspectives. The human element and the TV show’s formative influence are well integrated. Still, there’s a sense of Chong writing himself artfully into a corner and passing it off as a dénouement.
Synchronic
dir. Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead (2019)
In addition to its main speculative premise (drug-fuelled time travel, history proving the grimmest of backdrops to the protagonists’ modern-day life situations), the story plays cleverly with narrative time, picking up interrupted scenes as memories. Morose as all get-out but gloriously non-Hollywood.
This Time Tomorrow
by Emma Straub (Riverhead, 2022); audiobook read by Marin Ireland (Penguin, 2022)
Literary novelists don’t always shine when dabbling in SF. Straub here proves herself an exception, drawing on a harrowing life experience (terminal illness of a parent) to craft a paean to timeless relationships, choices made, and living in the moment. Excellent characterisation.
Jughead’s Time Police
by Sina Grace; ill. Derek Charm (Archie Comic Publications, 2019)
A reboot that seems overly pleased with itself for doing something old in a chaotic, unoriginal, one-joke-food-obsessed way. Charm’s drawing style is a point of difference (though not a particularly inspiring one). Grace amuses himself but doesn’t tell much of a story.
Making History
by Stephen Fry (Hutchinson, 1996)
audiobook ready by Stephen Fry and Richard E. Grant (Penguin, 2021)
A cleverly conceived, assiduously researched but poorly paced take on the classic ‘Kill Hitler’ time alteration tale. Fry writes in a conversational style and displays an undoubted gift for off-the-cuff storytelling. As a novelist, however, his expressiveness manifests too often as waffle.
Spring Forward, Fall Back
ed. Todd Sanders (Air & Nothingness Press, 2022)
Two collections of time-travel short stories presented back-to-back in the style of the old Ace Double SF books. The tales in question are rich conceptually and soaked with atmosphere, bringing unique imaginative twists to a well-worn genre. A trove of all-new nostalgia.
The Time Travel Diaries
by Caroline Lawrence (Piccadilly, 2019); audiobook read by Simon Scardifield (Bonnier, 2019)
Solid MG adventure grounded in historical fact. Sometimes the story feels less like fiction and more like a construct through which to impart knowledge about Roman Britain, but Alex is a level-headed protagonist and Dinu and Plecta add some heart to proceedings.
Johnny and the Bomb
by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 1996); audiobook read by Richard Mitchley (BBC Audiobooks, 1997)
Pratchett gifts middle-grade readers the perfect introduction to time travel, albeit that his mid-1990s ‘now’ is itself receding into history, in rapid pursuit of the Second World War ‘then’. Thought-provoking and wryly funny, with memorable characters and a rich vein of dialogue.
Limited Wish
by Mark Lawrence (47North, 2019); audiobook read by Matthew Frow (Brilliance, 2019)
Lawrence restarts the time-travel story of One Word Kill, thus bringing to life a new iteration of twisty paradoxes. The narrative voice is just as engaging and the plot is cleverly stitched but it’s still more a reimagining than a new work.