"Favorite SF ‘time machine’ story" Topic

Time travel stories sometimes boggle the mind. Example, the paradox of what happens when the inventor of the time machine goes back in time and kills his great grandwhoever etc.

What is your favorite mind blowing time machine story?

The strangest one I've read is "The Very Slow Time Machine" by Ian Watson.

Time and Again by Jack Finney is a beautifully written, evocative novel of time travel and a good love story as well. A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury is a fantastic short story. Also liked 11/22/63 by Stephen King, about a man who goes back in time to try to avert the JFK assassination

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

"Dark" on Netflix is absolutely mind blowing, and turns everything sci-fi has told us about time travel on its head.

"The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" by Alfred Bester

And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with Islam or anything of the sort. It's about a man who travels back in time to kill his unfaithful wife, though that's not really what it's about, either. Rather it's a brilliant examination of the paradox theory, built around the understanding that time travel is personal. (So Marty McFly is screwed.)

But that's not really my favorite. My favorite is quite possibly Heinlein's The Door Into Summer.

Paratime by H Beam Piper

Behold the Man, michael moorcock

agree with ''the door into summer ..''

Heinlein, certainly, but "--All You Zombies--."

Wackmole, Paratime is a short story collection. Do you have an actual story in mind? For me, best Piper of this sort would be "He Walked Around the Horses" and I'm pretty sure it was included in that volume. Great story, but not as mind-blowing as the Heinlein.

"Last Enemy" is a science fiction short story by American writer H. Beam Piper, and is a part of his Paratime series. The title is a reference to 1 Corinthians 15:26, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (KJV)

It made its first appearance in August 1950, in Astounding Science Fiction magazine (now Analog).

The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold.

"Time wants a skeleton" by Iirc Ross Rocklynne Diverse group of space travellers find their ships sharing a planetoid, and the reslts of a malfunctioning FTL drive that throws them back in time. This wouldn't be such a huge problem, if not for two issues: A human skeleton of some age is found in a cave, and the skeleton is wearing a ring molecularly identical to one in possession of the crew . . . And another 'time skip' is likely . . .

I really enjoyed this time machine read;
"Just One Damned Thing After Another" (The Chronicles of St Mary's #1) by Jodi Taylor
link

So much in fact that I read the next 3 in the series!

+1 for "All You Zombies" because it's soooooo messed up.

‘Time After Time,' the film.

+1 for All You Zombies
Thanks for reminding me what that story was called.

Ahh robert, we're agreeing again.

RAH's 'All you Zombies'(1959) and 'By his Bootstraps'(1941) pretty much defined time travel and the paradoxes that can be found in a fixed timeline as compared to the multi-timeline approach, best exemplified in modern fiction I suppose by Eric Flint and the 1632 'time spike' series.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

R. A. Lafferty's classic "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne" .

If you haven't read it, you owe yourself a Treat.
It's pithy fortune-cookie tag-line is my absolute favorite end-quote
and moral lesson from any time travel epic

{q}
"Oh, no, no!" Valery forbade. "Not again.
That way is rump of skunk and madness."
{/q}

A TV program – The Flip Side of Dominic Hyde

He Walked Around the Horses by H Beam Piper

Of course, City on the Edge of Forever, even tho its' author was torqued over the changes made to it.

Demon with a Glass Hand.

and a little known gem, Timescape. Well, I really liked it.

I really liked Niven's The Flight of the Horse series.

Back to the Future deserves a mention.

But Piper's Paratime series is probably the pinnacle.

"Lest Darkness Fall" (L. Sprague de Camp)is always fun.

That JFK episode of Red Dwarf :)

Cheesy, but 60's Time Tunnel TV show. Hey I was a kid!

Dinosaur Beach by Keith Laumer, everyone I know who has read it says the same thing; "My head hurts".

A lot to choose from … But some were better than others …

John Titor

An oldie. Annals of the Time Patrol. Can't disremember who wrote it and the sequel ?

"City on the Edge of Forever"

by Harlan Ellison

Up The Line – Robert Silverburg.
Set in Byzantium.

'The Flipside of Dominic Hyde' YouTube link It's about flying saucers.

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