Anthony Boucher

writer
Short Story

Snulbug

In need of $10,000 to open a medical clinic, Bill Hitchens calls forth Snulbug, a one-inch high demon who likes the warmth in Bill’s pipe, and orders the demon to retrieve tomorrow’s newspaper and bring it back to today.
Then as soon as I release you from that pentacle, you’re to bring me tomorrow’s newspaper.
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  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Ghost of Me

After Dr. John Adams is murdered, his ghost accidentally begins haunting some time before the murder occurred.
I’ve simply come back into time at the wrong point.
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  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Barrier

A man, apparently dazed from running into a temporal snag, appears in a radio factory, whereupon (before returning to his own time) he makes a radio that’s actually a Twonky which gets shipped to a Mr. Kerry Westerfield, who is initially quite confounded and amazed at all it can do.

Because of the opening, I’m convinced that this Twonky is from the future. The “temporal snag” that brought him there feels like an unexpected time rift to me, although the route back to the future is an intentional journey via an unexplained method. —Michael Main
“Great Snell!” he gasped. “So that was it! I ran into a temporal snag!”
Futuristic men battle electric bolts and giant vacuum tubes.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Elsewhen

Private detective Fergus O’Breen investigates Harrison Patrigde, inventor and ne’er-do-well, who accidentally invents a short-range time machine, causing him to envision how the world (and the lovely Faith Preston) will admire him if only he can get enough money to build a bigger version (perhaps via a murder with the time machine providing an alibi).
Time can pass quickly when you are absorbed in your work, but not so quickly as all that. Mr. Partridge looked at his pocket watch. It said nine thirty-one. Suddely, in the space of seconds, the best chronometer available had gained forty-two minutes.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Sanctuary

Mr. Holding, an American poet in Vichy France before the U.S. came into the war, visits an American scientist who is trying to stay neutral as he builds his time machine.
I am, sir, a citizen of the world of science.
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  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Pink Caterpillar

After Norm Harker tells of a magic man who can bring you back a single item from the future (for the right price), Anthony Boucher’s detective Fergus O’Breen tops the story with the tale of how he figured out why a dead American living in Mexico liked to call himself a doctor.
At least that’s the firm belief everywhere on the island: a tualala can go forward in time and bring you back any single item you specify, for a price. We used to spend the night watches speculating on what would be the one best thing to order.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Mr. Lupescu

Time travel makes a cameo appearance in this story in which young Bobby tells his Uncle Alan about his godfather, Mr. Lupescu, who has a great big red nose, red gloves, red eyes, and little red wings that twitch.
But one of Mr. Lupescu’s friends, now, was captain of a ship, only it went in time, and Mr. Lupescu took trips with him and came back and told you all about what was happening this very minute five hundred years ago.
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  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Cameo Time Travel
Short Story

The Chronokinesis of Jonathan Hull

Private Eye Fergus O’Breen is back for his third and final encounter with time travel, this time with a time traveler who shows up dead in his room one day and is alive and walking in a stilted manner the next. In the process of explaining himself, the traveler also displays knowledge of Boucher’s traveler in “Barrier” and also of Breen’s other time travel encounters.
And now, I realize, Mr. O’Breen, why I was inclined to trust you the moment I saw yoiur card. It was through a fortunately preserved letter of your sister’s, which found its way into our archives, that we knew of the early fiasco of Harrison Partridge and your part therein. We knew, too, of the researches of Dr. Derringer, and how he gave up in despair after his time traveler failed to return, having encountered who knows what unimaginable future barrier.
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  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Transfer Point

Vyrko, the Last Man on Earth, is confined to a shelter with the beautiful but unalluring scientist’s daughter Lavra, until he starts reading a stash of old pulp magazines with stories that exactly describe himself and Lavra.
Good old endless-cycle gimmick. Lot of fun to kick around but Bob Heinlein did it once and for all in ‘By His Bootstraps.’ Damnedest tour de force I ever read; there just aren’t any switcheroos left after that.
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  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Other Inauguration

Usually, when I start a story, I already know whether it has time travel in the plot, but occasionally I’m surprised when the temporal antics arise, as in this story of Peter Lanroyd’s attempt to change the outcome of a presidential election that’s stolen by an ideologue. (No, no—not the year 2000. This is a fictional tale.)

I first read this one on an overnight ice-climbing trek not far from the ITTDB Citadel, hosted by fellow indexer Tim.
To any man even remotely interested in politics, let alone one as involved as I am, every 1st Tue of every 4th Nov must seem like one of the crucial if-points of history.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

A Shape in Time

  • by Anthony Boucher
  • in The Future Is Now, edited by William F. Nolan (Sherbourne Press, 1970)
Time-traveling, Marriage-prevention specialist Agent L-3H has her first failure while trying to intervene in the 1880 marriage of Edwin Sullivan to Angelina Gilbert.
Temporal Agent L-3H is always delectable in any shape; that’s why the Bureau employs her on marriage-prevention assignments.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Rappaccini’s Other Daughter

You know of Nathanial Hawthorne’s tale of “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” but do you know of the second, equally beautiful, daughter who had a significant effect on all time travelers?
And that is why our time machines are not permitted to travel back farther than the middle of the twentieth century.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel