Closing the Timelid

by Orson Scott Card

• Release: December 1979
• Format: Short Story
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Audience: Adults
• Content: Definite Time Travel
• Original Language: English

Ah, agony in a tearing that made him feel, for the first time, every particle of his body as it screamed in pain.

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

• Circa AD 1970 to 1999: “in the eighth decade of the twentieth century”
• Unspecified Future Year: start time

Timeline Models

• Into a Changed Timeline with Just One You: 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

• Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY

We haven’t yet mapped out the time travel itinerary.