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The Toynbee Convector

by Ray Bradbury
You’ll enjoy this story, but I’ll give away no more beyond the quote below. By the way, if you get the original publication, you’ll also see Kurt Vonnegut and Marilyn Monroe.
— Michael Main
What can I do to save us from ourselves? How to save my friends, my city, my state, my country, the entire world from this obsession with doom? Well, it was in my library late one night that my hand, searching along shelves, touched at last on an old and beloved book by H. G. Wells. His time device called, ghostlike, down the years. I heard! I understood. I truly listened. Then I blueprinted. I built. I traveled [. . .]
DEBUT
“The Toynbee Convector,” Playboy,January 1984.
VARIANTS
1 English variant
TRANSLATIONS
No translations.
DERIVATIVE WORKS
  1. “The Toynbee Convector” by Ray Bradbury, directed by John Laing, (USA Network, USA, 26 October 1990).
TAGS(SPOILERS!)
Time Periods
  • Circa AD 1970 to 1999: The traveler was around in the 1960s and traveled at age 30, which places his travel (most likely) in the 1990s.
  • Circa AD 2000 to 2099: The story takes place exactly 100 years after the travel, which was in the 1990s.
Time Travel Methods
  • Wellsian Time Machines: “The young man sat in the center of it all, unable to speak, gripping the armrests of the padded chair.”
Themes Groupings
INDEXER NOTES (SPOILERS!)