By His Bootstraps

by Robert A. Heinlein

Release: October 1941
Format: Short Story
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

Bob Wilson, Ph.D. student, throws himself 30,000 years into the future, where he tries to figure out what began this whole adventure.

Evan Zweifel gave me a copy of this magazine as a present!

Wait a minute now—he was under no compulsion. He was sure of that. Everything he did and said was the result of his own free will. Even if he didn’t remember the script, there were some things that he knew “Joe” hadn’t said. “Mary had a little lamb,” for example. He would recite a nursery rhyme and get off this damned repetitive treadmill. He opened his mouth—

DEBUT

“By His Bootstraps,” Astounding, October 1941.

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Groupings

Cited in Paradoxes of Time Travel by Rayn Wasserrman ()
Cited in Worlds Enough and Time, edited by Gary Westfahl ()
Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY: We haven’t yet mapped out the time travel itinerary.