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The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time
Here is a magnificent collection of classic stories by some of fantasy's and science fiction's best-known and award-winning authors, focusing on humanity's explorations through time. Selected by award-winning author Barry N. Malzberg, this special oversized volume features such tales as "The Battle of Long Island" by Nancy Kress, "The Man Who Came Early" by Poul Anderson, "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" by Philip K. Dick, "Time Travelers Never Die" by Jack McDevitt, "Hawksbill Station" by Robert Silverberg, and "Time-Tipping" by Jack M. Dann.
Contents
vii • Introduction (The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time) • (2003) • essay by Barry N. Malzberg
1 • The Battle of Long Island • (1993) • novelette by Nancy Kress
29 • The Man Who Came Early • (1956) • novelette by Poul Anderson
61 • Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket • (1972) • shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
87 • Anachron • (1954) • shortstory by Damon Knight
111 • On the Nature of Time • (1981) • shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
119 • A Little Something for Us Tempunauts • (1974) • novelette by Philip K. Dick
149 • Ripples in the Dirac Sea • (1988) • shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis
169 • Hall of Mirrors • (1953) • shortstory by Fredric Brown
179 • 3 Rms, Good View • (1990) • shortstory by Karen Haber
197 • Time Trap • (1948) • novelette by Charles L. Harness [as by Charles Harness ]
237 • Brooklyn Project • (1948) • shortstory by William Tenn
253 • Timetipping • (1975) • shortstory by Jack Dann
269 • The Chronology Protection Case • [Dr Phil D'Amato] • (1995) • novelette by Paul Levinson
301 • Hawksbill Station • (1967) • novella by Robert Silverberg
363 • Time Travelers Never Die • [Time Travelers Never Die] • (1996) • novella by Jack McDevitt
Contents
vii • Introduction (The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time) • (2003) • essay by Barry N. Malzberg
1 • The Battle of Long Island • (1993) • novelette by Nancy Kress
29 • The Man Who Came Early • (1956) • novelette by Poul Anderson
61 • Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket • (1972) • shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
87 • Anachron • (1954) • shortstory by Damon Knight
111 • On the Nature of Time • (1981) • shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
119 • A Little Something for Us Tempunauts • (1974) • novelette by Philip K. Dick
149 • Ripples in the Dirac Sea • (1988) • shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis
169 • Hall of Mirrors • (1953) • shortstory by Fredric Brown
179 • 3 Rms, Good View • (1990) • shortstory by Karen Haber
197 • Time Trap • (1948) • novelette by Charles L. Harness [as by Charles Harness ]
237 • Brooklyn Project • (1948) • shortstory by William Tenn
253 • Timetipping • (1975) • shortstory by Jack Dann
269 • The Chronology Protection Case • [Dr Phil D'Amato] • (1995) • novelette by Paul Levinson
301 • Hawksbill Station • (1967) • novella by Robert Silverberg
363 • Time Travelers Never Die • [Time Travelers Never Die] • (1996) • novella by Jack McDevitt
448 pages, Paperback
First published February 18, 2003
5 people are currently reading
436 people want to read
About the author
Barry N. Malzberg
526 books117 followersBarry Nathaniel Malzberg was an American writer and editor, most often of science fiction and fantasy.
He had also published as:
Mike Barry (thriller/suspense)
K.M. O'Donnell (science fiction/fantasy)
Mel Johnson (adult)
Howard Lee (martial arts/TV tie-ins)
Lee W. Mason (adult)
Claudine Dumas (adult)
Francine di Natale (adult)
Gerrold Watkins (adult)
Eliot B. Reston
He had also published as:
Mike Barry (thriller/suspense)
K.M. O'Donnell (science fiction/fantasy)
Mel Johnson (adult)
Howard Lee (martial arts/TV tie-ins)
Lee W. Mason (adult)
Claudine Dumas (adult)
Francine di Natale (adult)
Gerrold Watkins (adult)
Eliot B. Reston
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 13, 2025
A good collection of science fiction stories about time travel ( which, admittedly, is more of a fantasy, like wizards and dragons). I skipped around in the book and took my time with this one. The Big Three authors of the book are Robert Silverberg, Philip K. Dick, and Poul Anderson with great stories, my favorite one being Anderson's "The Man Who Came Early." Unlike most of the other stories in this book, it does not deal with time paradoxes, but is simply a story about a man who finds himself in the past. Gerald Robbins is a US Army soldier stationed on Iceland during the Cold War and finds himself hurled back into Iceland's Viking past. As a modern man, he believes he knows more than the rather barbaric people among whom he finds himself...but he discovers he barely knows enough to survive in their society...Silverberg's story, "Hawksbill Station," is about a prison set up far in the prehistoric past and is also excellent, while Dick's story, "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts," does deal with time paradoxes.
One that sticks with me is "Brooklyn Project" by William Tenn (Phillip Klass). It's a parody of Bradbury's classic, "A Sound of Thunder," but a parody written before Bradbury's better known time travel story! And some of you might remember that a Simpsons episode also parodied the Bradbury story. Another good one, and a darker one, is "The Chronology Protection Case" by Paul Levinson. We discover that the Universe has ways of protecting itself! Jack McDevitt's "Time Travelers Never Die" shows us that time travel is a way to gain immortality...as well as a way to meet some interesting people like Socrates or Einstein.
Two stories I did not think much of are by two fine writers, James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) and Jack Dann. Most of the 15 stories in the book are at least above average. Poul Anderson's is a great one I would say, as well as Silverberg's--and I really like William Tenn's story!
One that sticks with me is "Brooklyn Project" by William Tenn (Phillip Klass). It's a parody of Bradbury's classic, "A Sound of Thunder," but a parody written before Bradbury's better known time travel story! And some of you might remember that a Simpsons episode also parodied the Bradbury story. Another good one, and a darker one, is "The Chronology Protection Case" by Paul Levinson. We discover that the Universe has ways of protecting itself! Jack McDevitt's "Time Travelers Never Die" shows us that time travel is a way to gain immortality...as well as a way to meet some interesting people like Socrates or Einstein.
Two stories I did not think much of are by two fine writers, James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) and Jack Dann. Most of the 15 stories in the book are at least above average. Poul Anderson's is a great one I would say, as well as Silverberg's--and I really like William Tenn's story!
December 13, 2009
A varied collection of short stories involving time travel. Individual stories vary in length from a few pages to several dozen. Tones of the stories range from comedic to light to serious to disturbing.
I am not typically a fan of time travel stories. I find usually that the author has a very anti-physical concept of the logical issues involved; one or two of the stories in this anthology declare the problem of causality paradoxes closed by declaring that no human beings may witness the effects of time travel. This type of paradox resolution is more of a fantasy element than science fiction; it sounds like a caveat that a wizard would put in his spell.
And yes indeed, the type of thinking necessary to write something like this is everywhere in the stories collected here. It may be that there are "harder" time travel stories than these, which consider physical reality in addition to the world of human affairs; Malzberg, the editor, does seem a bit dainty and foppish, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were a selection bias in favor of Dune-like fantasy.
But regardless of plausibility, the real test is pure enjoyment. Many of the stories are well written, and some are not. The worst is Brooklyn Project by William Tenn. After a few pages of dull, semicompetent writing, there is a short sequence betraying an insipid misogyny from the author; I skimmed the rest to find the punchline ridiculous and empty of meaning. I could probably guess Tenn's weight and annual hygiene budget without missing by much.
But again, most of the stories are better than this. Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg is elegantly beautiful and accomplishes the best that I personally can expect from a time travel plot, which is that it steers the mind away from the preposterous aspects of the device with skillful, engaging writing. I'd never heard of Silverberg but I'm now inclined to pursue more of his material, and in my opinion this piece elevates the entire collection.
There are other pieces falling on the good end of the scale. The Battle Of Long Island by Nancy Kress is imaginitive, and Time Travelers Never Die is as expertly written as Hawksbill Station. I don't feel obligated to rate each story, but the upshot is it wouldn't kill you to read this book if you have a long plane ride coming up.
I am not typically a fan of time travel stories. I find usually that the author has a very anti-physical concept of the logical issues involved; one or two of the stories in this anthology declare the problem of causality paradoxes closed by declaring that no human beings may witness the effects of time travel. This type of paradox resolution is more of a fantasy element than science fiction; it sounds like a caveat that a wizard would put in his spell.
And yes indeed, the type of thinking necessary to write something like this is everywhere in the stories collected here. It may be that there are "harder" time travel stories than these, which consider physical reality in addition to the world of human affairs; Malzberg, the editor, does seem a bit dainty and foppish, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were a selection bias in favor of Dune-like fantasy.
But regardless of plausibility, the real test is pure enjoyment. Many of the stories are well written, and some are not. The worst is Brooklyn Project by William Tenn. After a few pages of dull, semicompetent writing, there is a short sequence betraying an insipid misogyny from the author; I skimmed the rest to find the punchline ridiculous and empty of meaning. I could probably guess Tenn's weight and annual hygiene budget without missing by much.
But again, most of the stories are better than this. Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg is elegantly beautiful and accomplishes the best that I personally can expect from a time travel plot, which is that it steers the mind away from the preposterous aspects of the device with skillful, engaging writing. I'd never heard of Silverberg but I'm now inclined to pursue more of his material, and in my opinion this piece elevates the entire collection.
There are other pieces falling on the good end of the scale. The Battle Of Long Island by Nancy Kress is imaginitive, and Time Travelers Never Die is as expertly written as Hawksbill Station. I don't feel obligated to rate each story, but the upshot is it wouldn't kill you to read this book if you have a long plane ride coming up.
November 20, 2018
I’ve been reading science fiction since discovering Heinlein’s juveniles in my elementary school library in the early ’50s. I’ve read all sorts of SF in those sixty years, but certain categories of the genre have become my favorites -- especially alternate history and time travel, two themes that often overlap. Probably this preference is due partly to my deep interest in history generally.
Nancy Kress is highly regarded among serious SF readers, and has won several awards, though she’s never really made it to the top tier in terms of public consciousness, possibly because her work is more “literary” than most. “The Battle of Long Island,” which has been one of my favorites since it first appeared twenty years ago, is about the Hole that spontaneously opens in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and the appearance through it of random participants on both sides of the battle that took place there in August 1776. Most of them are dead within minutes, but not all. The modern U.S. military, of course, immediately assumes a terrorist trick and cordons off the site, but the senior Army nurse on the project declines to obey the Pentagon’s paranoid protocol. And that’s the set-up. It’s about people, and how different -- really fundamentally different -- those in the past are from those in our present. Or perhaps they’re really all just alike. A beautifully written and very thoughtful story.
I remember reading Poul Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early” in F&SF when I was in junior high, and I immediately began tracking down every other book of his I could find. (As I quickly discovered, Poul had been voted a Grand Master for a reason.) This classic is about an American GI stationed in Iceland during the Cold War who gets struck by lightning and finds himself floundering around in 998 AD, trying (with notable lack of success) to adapt his modern skills to life on a Norse farmstead. It’s a useful antidote to DeCamp’s Lest Darkness Fall, featuring an improbable polymath, who also is thrown back in time by a bolt of lightning, but who never fails at anything. “Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket,” by James Tiptree (who was really psychologist Alice Sheldon, and who had far too short a career), somewhat reminds me in style of Cordwainer Smith, but slightly raunchier. Dovy Rapelle’s problems all stem from the fact that he’s such a nice person, but one has to wonder just how Loolie ever fell in love with him in the first place, since she set herself up for it via a time loop. A nice bit of writing.
Damon Knight is another of the Great Names of SF and the author of a staggering number of short stories, nearly all of them above average in the field. “Anachron” is the story of two Italian brothers, one a scientist, the other a collector of antiquities, but both dedicated amateurs, and what they do with the accidental “hole into the future” one of them invents. Not Knight’s best but certainly worth reading. Bill Pronzini is generally identified with mystery thrillers rather than science fiction, but “On the Nature of Time” suggests a new solution to the standard Temporal Paradox. Physicist Geoffrey Landis is not as well known as some authors in this collection, but he deserves to be. “Ripples in the Dirac Sea” is a study in solipsism, about a man fleeing into the past to escape death in a hotel fire in the present. And then being forced to do it over and over again, coming a little closer to the final seconds of his life each time. Somewhat depressing, but a strongly-written story.
Every breath Philip Dick ever took was an original, and his classic “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts” is no exception. It’s another time-loop story, about what happens to a trio of government-sponsored time-travelers who are killed on “reentry,” only to find themselves alive again, and trying to explain their entirely temporary survival to their loved ones -- even while the big public memorial service is being planned. An interesting situation, and with a typically Dickian flavor. (Attending your own autopsy? And doing TV interviews?) Fredric Brown is perhaps the only author as well known and highly regarded for his mystery novels as for his multitude of SF short work. “Hall of Mirrors” focuses on the inventor of time travel who finds he must stand guardian over the process far into the future, leaving the job to each subsequent iteration of himself. Karen Haber (who is also Mrs. Robert Silverberg) is another author who is not as well known as she ought to be. “3 Rms Good Vue” is about the effect, sort of, of commercial time travel on housing costs in the Bay Area. It starts out kind of lighthearted but soon turns serious. Very nice stuff.
Charles Harness had sort of an odd career, writing some well-received stories in the post-World War II years -- because he needed the money -- and then dropping it for several decades to pursue a career as a patent attorney. Unfortunately, I have to say “Time Trap” (published in 1948) strikes me as dreadfully overplotted, confused, and excessively purple in its prose style. It was supposedly very influential to the later work of people like Phil Dick, but I can’t imagine how. William Tenn’s “Brooklyn Project,” from 1946, starts out as a cautionary tale about life in a country where “national security” trumps everything, but quickly turns to a different sort of caution altogether. Interesting but kind of lightweight. “Timetripping,” by Jack Dann, Malzberg says, is the sort of thing Bernard Malamud would write if Malamud wrote science fiction. It just seems rather self-consciously “literary” to me, and Dann lays on the yiddishkeit far too thick to be enjoyable.
The couple of novels of Paul Levinson’s I’ve read I didn’t think were particularly successful, but “The Chronology Protection Case,” about a forensic physicist working for the NYPD, isn’t bad. The point here is that if the universe decides it doesn’t want you messing about with time, you’d damn well better listen to it. Robert Silverberg later expanded “Hawksbill Station” into a short novel, but I thing this even shorter version works better. Time travel here is used not for academic exploration, or trade, or even tourism, but simply as a way for the government to rid itself of political malcontents, by dumping them irretrievably in the late Cambrian. Not one of his major works but an interesting take on the theme.
Finally, there’s “Time Travelers Never Die,” by Jack McDevitt, both the longest piece in the collection and the best. Physicist Adrian Shelborne has managed to invent a cell-phone-sized time machine in his basement lab, and he and his friend, the narrator, use it almost entirely as tourists, talking aerodynamics with Leonardo, drinking schnapps with Einstein, gambling with Julius Caesar. The past can be changed but nothing they do amounts to much, so there are no problems. Until Adrian returns from the past to witness his own solemn funeral and decides he’s not ready to die just yet, especially since he’s due to be brutally murdered. McDevitt has a very fluid and easy style and his prose is a joy to read.
Despite the rather fatuous title, this is actually a barely average collection. Though there are a number of winners, there are also more than a few clunkers. (Malzberg’s peculiar intros aren’t terribly helpful, either.) That may be just a matter of taste, though, and I recommend this volume to anyone with a penchant for wandering through time.
Nancy Kress is highly regarded among serious SF readers, and has won several awards, though she’s never really made it to the top tier in terms of public consciousness, possibly because her work is more “literary” than most. “The Battle of Long Island,” which has been one of my favorites since it first appeared twenty years ago, is about the Hole that spontaneously opens in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and the appearance through it of random participants on both sides of the battle that took place there in August 1776. Most of them are dead within minutes, but not all. The modern U.S. military, of course, immediately assumes a terrorist trick and cordons off the site, but the senior Army nurse on the project declines to obey the Pentagon’s paranoid protocol. And that’s the set-up. It’s about people, and how different -- really fundamentally different -- those in the past are from those in our present. Or perhaps they’re really all just alike. A beautifully written and very thoughtful story.
I remember reading Poul Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early” in F&SF when I was in junior high, and I immediately began tracking down every other book of his I could find. (As I quickly discovered, Poul had been voted a Grand Master for a reason.) This classic is about an American GI stationed in Iceland during the Cold War who gets struck by lightning and finds himself floundering around in 998 AD, trying (with notable lack of success) to adapt his modern skills to life on a Norse farmstead. It’s a useful antidote to DeCamp’s Lest Darkness Fall, featuring an improbable polymath, who also is thrown back in time by a bolt of lightning, but who never fails at anything. “Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket,” by James Tiptree (who was really psychologist Alice Sheldon, and who had far too short a career), somewhat reminds me in style of Cordwainer Smith, but slightly raunchier. Dovy Rapelle’s problems all stem from the fact that he’s such a nice person, but one has to wonder just how Loolie ever fell in love with him in the first place, since she set herself up for it via a time loop. A nice bit of writing.
Damon Knight is another of the Great Names of SF and the author of a staggering number of short stories, nearly all of them above average in the field. “Anachron” is the story of two Italian brothers, one a scientist, the other a collector of antiquities, but both dedicated amateurs, and what they do with the accidental “hole into the future” one of them invents. Not Knight’s best but certainly worth reading. Bill Pronzini is generally identified with mystery thrillers rather than science fiction, but “On the Nature of Time” suggests a new solution to the standard Temporal Paradox. Physicist Geoffrey Landis is not as well known as some authors in this collection, but he deserves to be. “Ripples in the Dirac Sea” is a study in solipsism, about a man fleeing into the past to escape death in a hotel fire in the present. And then being forced to do it over and over again, coming a little closer to the final seconds of his life each time. Somewhat depressing, but a strongly-written story.
Every breath Philip Dick ever took was an original, and his classic “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts” is no exception. It’s another time-loop story, about what happens to a trio of government-sponsored time-travelers who are killed on “reentry,” only to find themselves alive again, and trying to explain their entirely temporary survival to their loved ones -- even while the big public memorial service is being planned. An interesting situation, and with a typically Dickian flavor. (Attending your own autopsy? And doing TV interviews?) Fredric Brown is perhaps the only author as well known and highly regarded for his mystery novels as for his multitude of SF short work. “Hall of Mirrors” focuses on the inventor of time travel who finds he must stand guardian over the process far into the future, leaving the job to each subsequent iteration of himself. Karen Haber (who is also Mrs. Robert Silverberg) is another author who is not as well known as she ought to be. “3 Rms Good Vue” is about the effect, sort of, of commercial time travel on housing costs in the Bay Area. It starts out kind of lighthearted but soon turns serious. Very nice stuff.
Charles Harness had sort of an odd career, writing some well-received stories in the post-World War II years -- because he needed the money -- and then dropping it for several decades to pursue a career as a patent attorney. Unfortunately, I have to say “Time Trap” (published in 1948) strikes me as dreadfully overplotted, confused, and excessively purple in its prose style. It was supposedly very influential to the later work of people like Phil Dick, but I can’t imagine how. William Tenn’s “Brooklyn Project,” from 1946, starts out as a cautionary tale about life in a country where “national security” trumps everything, but quickly turns to a different sort of caution altogether. Interesting but kind of lightweight. “Timetripping,” by Jack Dann, Malzberg says, is the sort of thing Bernard Malamud would write if Malamud wrote science fiction. It just seems rather self-consciously “literary” to me, and Dann lays on the yiddishkeit far too thick to be enjoyable.
The couple of novels of Paul Levinson’s I’ve read I didn’t think were particularly successful, but “The Chronology Protection Case,” about a forensic physicist working for the NYPD, isn’t bad. The point here is that if the universe decides it doesn’t want you messing about with time, you’d damn well better listen to it. Robert Silverberg later expanded “Hawksbill Station” into a short novel, but I thing this even shorter version works better. Time travel here is used not for academic exploration, or trade, or even tourism, but simply as a way for the government to rid itself of political malcontents, by dumping them irretrievably in the late Cambrian. Not one of his major works but an interesting take on the theme.
Finally, there’s “Time Travelers Never Die,” by Jack McDevitt, both the longest piece in the collection and the best. Physicist Adrian Shelborne has managed to invent a cell-phone-sized time machine in his basement lab, and he and his friend, the narrator, use it almost entirely as tourists, talking aerodynamics with Leonardo, drinking schnapps with Einstein, gambling with Julius Caesar. The past can be changed but nothing they do amounts to much, so there are no problems. Until Adrian returns from the past to witness his own solemn funeral and decides he’s not ready to die just yet, especially since he’s due to be brutally murdered. McDevitt has a very fluid and easy style and his prose is a joy to read.
Despite the rather fatuous title, this is actually a barely average collection. Though there are a number of winners, there are also more than a few clunkers. (Malzberg’s peculiar intros aren’t terribly helpful, either.) That may be just a matter of taste, though, and I recommend this volume to anyone with a penchant for wandering through time.
May 16, 2014
Overall I found this to be a great collection of stories, giving a broad range of some of the different kinds of rules and laws involved in time travel and how they might affect the world at large.
I found the first couple of stories I had to chew through a little, but afterwards it picked up and grabbed my interest enough to quickly gobble up the rest of the book.
The big names in the anthology proved once again why they are so well remembered in the genre. I would recommend this book to anyone who has in interest in SF or time travel in general.
I found the first couple of stories I had to chew through a little, but afterwards it picked up and grabbed my interest enough to quickly gobble up the rest of the book.
The big names in the anthology proved once again why they are so well remembered in the genre. I would recommend this book to anyone who has in interest in SF or time travel in general.
October 27, 2008
Fairly average compendium of time travel stories, despite the title. It had a few winners though, like "Time Travellers Never Die" and "The Battle of Long Island", but the entire book is worth a read.
January 16, 2023
I did not have high expectations for this book, and I'm pleased to say that I liked this book a whole lot the more I read.
I've been a little eh about scifi lately, but a telling feature of this book, for me, was that I allotted a certain number of stories per day to read, and I often read over said allotment. The editor's notes, while relevant, were sort of something I could do without. That said, I'm certainly interested in several of the authors, and the editor does call attention to short stories and novellas he likes from the authors, so perhaps I should give him due credit for a really good collection.
"3 RMS GOOD VIEW/VUE" by Karen Haber was my favorite. It was quick, it had some wit, and I liked the main character. Haber didn't have to write a lot to get the story across, and it was a good one.
"FOREVER TO A HUDSON BAY BLANKET" by James Tiptree, Jr. was quite hilarious, oddly sexual, and a wonderful read.
"BROOKLYN PROJECT" by William Tenn had the sort of social commentary that is not rare in scifi, but he seems to do it well, and if he's compared at all to Ray Bradbury, I'm definitely interested.
"THE CHRONOLOGY PROTECTION CASE" by Paul Levinson makes me want to read more about Phil D'Amato.
"HAWKSBILL STATION" by Robert Silverberg gave me some interesting feels.
"TIME TRAVELERS NEVER DIE" by Jack McDevitt was the longest of the bunch at 80 pages, and it actually didn't feel like 80 pages.
Honorable mention to "THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND" by Nancy Kress. It was a really magnificent short story that was so tight and complex that I needed a moment to process everything (in a good way). The story within the story was good.
The only story I really did not like was "TIMETIPPING" by Jack M. Dann, and that's because I had absolutely no idea what was happening.
I'd actually consider keeping this book. I'm cleaning out my bookshelves because I have quite a lot of books but wanted to read the ones I was pretty sure I'd end up donating. I believe I received this from a friend's former coworker. I'm so glad I read it first.
I've been a little eh about scifi lately, but a telling feature of this book, for me, was that I allotted a certain number of stories per day to read, and I often read over said allotment. The editor's notes, while relevant, were sort of something I could do without. That said, I'm certainly interested in several of the authors, and the editor does call attention to short stories and novellas he likes from the authors, so perhaps I should give him due credit for a really good collection.
"3 RMS GOOD VIEW/VUE" by Karen Haber was my favorite. It was quick, it had some wit, and I liked the main character. Haber didn't have to write a lot to get the story across, and it was a good one.
"FOREVER TO A HUDSON BAY BLANKET" by James Tiptree, Jr. was quite hilarious, oddly sexual, and a wonderful read.
"BROOKLYN PROJECT" by William Tenn had the sort of social commentary that is not rare in scifi, but he seems to do it well, and if he's compared at all to Ray Bradbury, I'm definitely interested.
"THE CHRONOLOGY PROTECTION CASE" by Paul Levinson makes me want to read more about Phil D'Amato.
"HAWKSBILL STATION" by Robert Silverberg gave me some interesting feels.
"TIME TRAVELERS NEVER DIE" by Jack McDevitt was the longest of the bunch at 80 pages, and it actually didn't feel like 80 pages.
Honorable mention to "THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND" by Nancy Kress. It was a really magnificent short story that was so tight and complex that I needed a moment to process everything (in a good way). The story within the story was good.
The only story I really did not like was "TIMETIPPING" by Jack M. Dann, and that's because I had absolutely no idea what was happening.
I'd actually consider keeping this book. I'm cleaning out my bookshelves because I have quite a lot of books but wanted to read the ones I was pretty sure I'd end up donating. I believe I received this from a friend's former coworker. I'm so glad I read it first.
April 16, 2015
It's hard to do time travel stories well because in the wrong hands the concept comes across as hacky tripe for dudes that need power trip fantasies, but it's to the fantastic authors in this book's credit that most of the characters don't ever get what they want and usually end up making everything worse by mucking around with things they have little concepts of. Most of these stories are very sad, often achingly so, and hit at a basic truth: You really can't go back again. Damn paradoxes, messing everything up!
Highlights include Robert Sliverberg's novella "Hawksbill Station," Phillip K. Dicks' "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts," and editor Barry N. Malzberg's often incomprehensible introductions to each story.
Also includes a comic book adaption of Ray Bradbury's over anthologized "A Sound of Thunder" which is quite nice and fixes the problem of "We have to include this or the book's title is going to be a lie, but we don't really want to print the damn thing again!"
Highlights include Robert Sliverberg's novella "Hawksbill Station," Phillip K. Dicks' "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts," and editor Barry N. Malzberg's often incomprehensible introductions to each story.
Also includes a comic book adaption of Ray Bradbury's over anthologized "A Sound of Thunder" which is quite nice and fixes the problem of "We have to include this or the book's title is going to be a lie, but we don't really want to print the damn thing again!"
September 17, 2010
A very nice collection of short stories.
Of course in any collection about one topic there are bound to be some repeats of themes and ideas but overall I think the stories here are all of good quality. In some of the stories the best of Science Fiction comes out where the Science fades into the background and it is about the characters and telling a story from a different angle.
The details that will be problems for future (or past) time travelers are examined and in most stories the elasticity of Time is at least a major part if not the key part of the Science.
Perhaps the stories would not run together so much in my head if I had picked up and read one story then switched books and read a different story later.
If you like Science Fiction or if you like Short Stories this is a good collection to keep around for those few moments of time you do have to read.
Of course in any collection about one topic there are bound to be some repeats of themes and ideas but overall I think the stories here are all of good quality. In some of the stories the best of Science Fiction comes out where the Science fades into the background and it is about the characters and telling a story from a different angle.
The details that will be problems for future (or past) time travelers are examined and in most stories the elasticity of Time is at least a major part if not the key part of the Science.
Perhaps the stories would not run together so much in my head if I had picked up and read one story then switched books and read a different story later.
If you like Science Fiction or if you like Short Stories this is a good collection to keep around for those few moments of time you do have to read.
September 11, 2012
If you love short stories (which I do) and if you are a science fiction fan (which I am), this should be added to your must-read list.
Despite the (tongue-in-cheek?) title, this is definitely a great collection.
Some of the seeds of our pop-culture understanding of time travel are contained in this book.
Did the writers of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" read "Time Travellers Never Die"? It's hard to imagine they didn't. "The Man Who Came Early" feels like a rebuttal to "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". The list goes on and on.
Some of the stories read like episodes of The Twilight Zone and some of them leave you wanting so much more: thus, good short stories.
Even if Time Travel isn't your science fiction kink, it probably will be when you're done with this set.
Despite the (tongue-in-cheek?) title, this is definitely a great collection.
Some of the seeds of our pop-culture understanding of time travel are contained in this book.
Did the writers of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" read "Time Travellers Never Die"? It's hard to imagine they didn't. "The Man Who Came Early" feels like a rebuttal to "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". The list goes on and on.
Some of the stories read like episodes of The Twilight Zone and some of them leave you wanting so much more: thus, good short stories.
Even if Time Travel isn't your science fiction kink, it probably will be when you're done with this set.
June 23, 2018
Over the years, I've found that a collection of the "best" stories of a year usually lives up to its title. Any other "bests" tend to fall short. This one came close, however. Mr. Malzberg has collected tales from the forties through the nineties--ah, given the focus of the book, I should say the nineteen-forties through the nineteen-nineties. There are nice, solid time travel tales in here, including one of my personal favorites, "Brooklyn Project". While not spectacular, it's definitely a keeper.
February 5, 2010
It's too bad that I can't give this book a higher rating, since a couple of the stories in here, "Time Travelers Never Die" and "The Chronological Protection Case" in particular, were excellent.
However, there were a lot of fairly-weak stories... long buildups that never went anywhere, simplistic story-lines, two-dimensional characters, etc. I wouldn't have read the whole thing but the husband LURVES his time travel stories. First book I read out loud in its entirety.
However, there were a lot of fairly-weak stories... long buildups that never went anywhere, simplistic story-lines, two-dimensional characters, etc. I wouldn't have read the whole thing but the husband LURVES his time travel stories. First book I read out loud in its entirety.
February 13, 2009
Truly was one of the best books about time travel I've ever read. Phenomenal story-telling. I give it 4 stars because the editor found it necessary to precede every new story with an anecdote about the author, lauding them as the BEST WRITE EVER. It was very annoying and pulled me out of the cool science-fiction vibe I was in.
July 29, 2014
Overall I enjoyed this. I hadn't read a science fiction book in several years, so it was a fun change of pace. I thought a couple of the stories were stinkers, but there were definitely more good than bad with a couple excellent ones mixed in. Definitely a good read if you enjoy time travel stories.
April 1, 2012
Great stories by Fredric Brown, Philip K. Dick, Robert Silverberg and others. But no Heinlein--"By His Bootstraps" is mentioned, but not included, and there is not even a mention of "All You Zombies." But it does include a graphic adaptation of Bradbury's classic "A Sound of Thunder."
June 27, 2011
Decently okay, but not memorable.
September 29, 2013
Not the best at all a very average selection
January 24, 2016
Bought and read this back in 2011. Nice collection of some of the best classic time travel stories.
February 11, 2020
I had a hard time deciding between two and three stars because some of the stories were terrible and many were ones I had read before and liked. Only a couple I had not read before were outstanding.
January 28, 2024
Bought this in a thrift store because when I was reading science fiction back in the day, say, thirty years ago, I liked time travel stories best, because when its true that anything goes in science fictions, as far as plot and ideas are concerned, when time travel comes in to play really anything goes, and I liked that, and I was wondering if I still do.
I guess I do, as long as the stories are as good as these are. Even my old hero Frederic Brown was in here. Losts of time loops and lots of 'you cant change history' banter, and yet these stories every time succeed in making something of it. And then for a strange conclusion, the one with the littlest plot, the one by R. Silverberg, the one with people being locked up two billion years in the past I liked even best.
I guess I do, as long as the stories are as good as these are. Even my old hero Frederic Brown was in here. Losts of time loops and lots of 'you cant change history' banter, and yet these stories every time succeed in making something of it. And then for a strange conclusion, the one with the littlest plot, the one by R. Silverberg, the one with people being locked up two billion years in the past I liked even best.
May 5, 2019
Some good stories, some are just OK. My favorite is Hawksbill Station which is about socialist political prisoners being transported back 2 billion years ago and then when a more benign regime took power these prisoners were allowed to return. Other stories deal with time travel paradoxes and how time doesn’t allow these paradoxes.
April 4, 2022
More like the most so-so time travel stories of all time. Two or three were above average, the rest not so much.
November 3, 2024
Time travel. Short stories. Tow of my fav things.
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August 23, 2008isbn,original
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May 20, 2010Has some really excellent stories.
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April 2, 2019Some good short stories. Some of them you'll find elsewhere. The editor did a lousy job with spelling at the least.
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