Closing the Timelid
- Eloi Bronze Medal
- by Orson Scott Card
- Short Story
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- “Closing the Timelid” by Orson Scott Card, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1979.
Centuries in the future, Orion throws an illicit party in which the partygoers get to experience complete death in the past.
—Michael Main
Ah, agony in a tearing that made him feel, for the first time, every particle of his body as it screamed in pain.
Tags
(11)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 1970 to 1999: “in the eighth decade of the twentieth century”
- Unspecified Future Year: start time
- Timeline Models
- In a Changed Timeline, You Don’t Remember Your Changed Life: When a change is made, the traveler returns to the new future with no memory of the previous timeline.
- Multiple Naive Timelines
- Time Travel Methods
- Time Booths, Wardrobes, et al.: The chair and its lid are a boothlike object.
- Time Tethers: The chair also acts as a tether, sending and retreiving the traveler as needed.
- Themes
- Grabbing or Affecting Someone Right before Death
- Never Change the Past!: “We have reason to believe you are interfering with timetracks [. . .]”
- Time Cops: Los Angeles Timesquad
- Groupings
Variants
(1)
- “Closing the Timelid” by Orson Scott Card, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1979.