a Haertel Complex story

Common Time

by James Blish

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.

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

Past Master

by R. A. Lafferty

Thomas More is brought from the 16th century to the 26th in a time machine to save the world.

— Fred Galvin

We are trying to find a new sort of leader who can slow, even reverse, the break-up, Paul. We’ve selected a man from the Earth Past, Thomas More. We will present him to the people only as the Thomas, or perhaps, to be more fanciful, as the Past Master. You know of him?

Past Master by R. A. Lafferty (Ace Books, 1968).

Giampaolo Cossato

narrator, translator