Himself in Anachron

by Cordwainer Smith and Genevieve Linebarger

Release: June 1993
Format: Short Story
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

Tasco Magnon, time traveler, decides to take his new bride on his next trip through time—a quest to find the mythical Knot in Time—where the two of them get trapped, and only one can return.

After Smith’s death in 1966, the story was completed by his wife, Genevieve Linebarger, and sold to Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Vision, but that anthology was endlessly delayed. So in 1987, a translated version of the story was published in a French collection of Smith’s stories, and that was the first published version (although we’ve listed it as an English story, since that’s how it was written). The English version was finally published in Smith’s 1993 complete short science fiction collection by NESFA. By then, Ellison’s rights to the story had expired, although that didn’t stop him from suing NESFA.

— Michael Main

‘Honeymoon in time,’ indeed. Why? Is it that your woman is jealous of your time trips? Don’t be an idiot, Tasco. You know that ship’s not built for two.

DEBUT

“Lui-même en Anachron,” in Les puissances de’espace [The powers of space[/em] (Presses Pocket, September 1987).

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TRANSLATIONS

Translations to French, German, Spanish

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Time Travel Methods

Themes

Differing Time Rates: From +1,000,000:1 to -500,000:1.
Experiencing Time Rewinding

Groupings

The Time Traveller’s Almanac (anthology)

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From unspecified place, unspecified time ⋙ to into the Time Knot, where time swings wildly. Note: Dita and Tasco.
From the Time Knot at an unknown time ⋙ to back to the starting place and time at an unknown time. Note: Dita.
From the Time Knot at an unknown time ⋙ to hurling backward in time. Note: Tasco.