Common Time

by James Blish

Release: July 1953
Format: Short Story
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Time Phenomena
Original Language: English

Spaceman Garrard is the third pilot to attempt the trip to the binary star system of Alpha Centauri using the FTL drive invented by Dolph Haertel (the next Einstein!) The Haertel Complex stories provide little in the way of actual time travel, but this one does have minor relativistic time dilation and more significant differing time rates.

— Michael Main

Figuring backward brought him quickly to the equivalence he wanted: one second in ship time was two hours in Garrard time.

DEBUT

“Common Time,” in Shadow of Tomorrow, edited by Frederik Pohl (Permabooks, July 1953).

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TRANSLATIONS

Croatian translation:
[ex=bare]“Paralelno vrijeme” | Parallel time[/ex], Sirius #50, August 1980.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Mirjana Živković
Dutch translation:
[ex=bare]“Gewone tijd” | Ordinary time[/ex], in Het testament van Andros (Bruna, 1972).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by C. A. G. van den Broek
French translation:
[ex=bare]“Sautes de temps” | Time jumps[/ex], in Terre, il faut mourir ( Denoël, 1961).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Michel Deutsch
German translation:
[ex=bare]“Zwischen Zeit und Unendlichkeit” | Between time and infinity[/ex], in 8 Science Fiction Stories, edited by Arnulf D. Krauß and Helmuth W. Mommers (Heyne, 1967).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Birgit Reß-Bohusch
Walter Brumm
German translation:
[ex=bare]“Die gewöhnliche Zeit” | The ordinary time[/ex], in Eine Handvoll Sterne (Goldmann, 1974).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Tony Westermayr
German translation: Alternative title of “Zwischen Zeit und Unendlichkeit”.
[ex=bare]“Im Griff der Zeit” | In the grip of time[/ex], in Die Fünfziger Jahre I, edited by Hans Joachim Alpers and Werner Fuchs (Hohenheim, October 1981).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Birgit Reß-Bohusch
Walter Brumm
German translation:
[ex=bare]“Normalzeit” | Standard time[/ex], in Welten im All (Bastei Lübbe, October 1987).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Eva Bauche-Eppers as by Eva Eppers
Fredy Köpsell as by Leo P. Kreysfeld
Italian translation:
[ex=bare]“Il tempo dell'uomo” | The time of man[/ex], in Prigione senza sbarre, e altri racconti (Fanucci Editore, 1977).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Sandro Pergameno
Italian translation:
[ex=bare]“Tempo comune” | Common time[/ex], in Le grandi storie della fantascienza 15, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg (Armenia Editore, May 1987).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Giampaolo Cossato
Sandro Sandrelli
Serbian translation:
[ex=bare]“Zajedničko vreme” | Time together[/ex], in Savremenici budućnosti: Priče i tvorci naučne fantastike, edited by Zoran Živković (Narodna Knjiga, 1983).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written by James Blish
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . narrated by Zoran Živković

10 translations

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 2000 to 2099: In David Ketterer’s timeline, the FTL drive was invented by Haertel in 2030.

Timeline Models

Unexplained Timeline Model

Time Travel Methods

FTL Time Travel: 22.4 times the speed of light

Themes

Differing Time Rates: At FTL speeds, Garrand’s subjective time vastly differs from the ship’s clock time.
Long Sleep, Cryogenics, Etc.: Garrard goes into a long sleep at both the beginning of the story and as he returns to Earth.
Relativistic Time Dilation: At any speed below the velocity of light, subjective and objective time were exactly the same as far as the pilot was concerned. For an observer on Earth, time aboard the ship would appear to be vastly slowed at near-light speeds, but for the pilot himself, there would be no apparant change.

Real-World Tags

Dolph Haertel

Groupings

a Haertel Complex story

Common Time

by James Blish

DEBUT