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The Internet Time Travel Database

Circa AD 1600 to 1699

Time Periods

The Search

by A. E. van Vogt
When salesman Ralph Carson Drake tries to recover his missing memory of the past two weeks, he discovers he had interactions with three people: a woman named Selanie Johns who sold remarkable futuristic devices for one dollar, her father, and an old gray-eyed man who is feared by Selanie and her father.

Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.

— Michael Main
The Palace of Immortality was built in an eddy of time, the only known Reverse, or Immortality, Drift in the Earth Time Stream
“The Search” by A. E. van Vogt, Astounding, January 1943.

Vintage Season

by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore
More and more strange people are appearing each day in and around Oliver Wilson’s home; the explanation from the euphoric redhead leads him to believe they are time travelers gathering for an important event.
— Michael Main
Looking backward later, Oliver thought that in that moment, for the first time clearly, he began to suspect the truth. But he had no time to ponder it, for after the brief instant of enmity the three people from—elsewhere—began to speak all at once, as if in a belated attempt to cover something they did not want noticed.
“Vintage Season” by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, Astounding, September 1946.

Journey into Mystery #2

The Pact

by an unknown writer 
Frances Conrad learns the dark truth about an unholy pact made by his ancestor from the horse’s mouth itself.
— Michael Main
The year is 1693, the month is June, and the day is the fifteenth. Come and watch with me.
“The Pact” by an unknown writer , in Journey into Mystery #2 (Atlas Comics, August 1952).

Travel Diary

by Alfred Bester
Travel diary of blasé tourists around the Solar System, to other stars, back in time to the Great Fire of London and to another galaxy.
— Dave Hook
“Travel Diary” by Alfred Bester, in Starburst (Signet, May 1958).

Future Science Fiction, February 1960

Through Other Eyes

by R. A. Lafferty
Although the story is not about time travel, the characters do spend the first couple of pages reminiscing about their disappointing experiences with a time machine.
— Fred Galvin
“And watching the great Pythagorous at work.”
“And the three days that he spent on that little surveying problem. How one longed to hand him a slide-rule through the barrier and explain its working.”
“Through Other Eyes” by R. A. Lafferty, Future Science Fiction, February 1960.

Lem’s Star Diaries

Czarna komnata profesora Tarantogi

Literal: Professor Tarantoga's black room

by Stanisław Lem
Professor Tarantoga saves human civilization! After using his chronopad to investigate the leading scientists and artists in history, Tarantoga concludes that without exception they are lazy drunkards. So naturally, he sends smart young people into various eras to invent differential calculus, to paint the Mona Lisa, etc.—all while a pair of police inspectors have their eye on him.
— based on Wikipedia
[ex=bare]Czarna komnata profesora Tarantogi: Widowisko telewizyjne | Professor Tarantoga’s black room: Television show[/ex] by Stanisław Lem, in Noc księżycowa (Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1963).

Unusual Tales #47

The Unwelcome Guest

by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno
After a car accident, Steve Teller stumbles into a house that takes him from one time to another.
— Michael Main
Open up! I’ve had enough of this! Whatever crazy explanation there is, I want it now!
“The Unwelcome Guest” by Joe Gill [?] and Bill Molno, Unusual Tales #47 (Charlton Comics, November 1964).

Star Trek (s03e23)

All Our Yesterdays

by Jean Lisette Aroeste, directed by Marvin J. Chomsky
The three principal Trekkers find themselves on a planet where everyone is being evacuated to the past to escape an impending supernova.
— Michael Main
Spock! You’re reverting into your ancestors, five thousand years before you were born!
Star Trek (s03e23), “All Our Yesterdays” by Jean Lisette Aroeste, directed by Marvin J. Chomsky (NBC-TV, USA, 14 March 1969).

The Time Machine

by Wallace Bennett, directed by Henning Schellerup
For me, the update to the 1970s took this made-for-TV movie too far away from the original novel. For example, the Traveller (now a rocket scientist called Neil Perry) explains the workings of the machine with gibberish, whereas the original Traveller expressed himself with up-to-date mathematical terminology. The travel to the Salem witch trials and the California gold rush were also off the mark, as was the dreamy Weena who immediately speaks English.
— Michael Main
Well, in principle, it utilizes a electromagnetic force field to molecularly reconstruct the space-time continuum.
The Time Machine by Wallace Bennett, directed by Henning Schellerup (NBC-TV, USA, 5 November 1978).

Warlock I

Warlock

by David Twohy, directed by Steve Miner
A captured warlock in 1691 Massachusetts is thrown forward 300 years to Los Angeles with warlock-hunter Giles Redferne in hot pursuit. Twentieth century chase ensues with pretty nurse Kassandra aiding the hunter.
— Michael Main
A grand grimore? Here? Now?
Warlock by David Twohy, directed by Steve Miner (Cannes Film Festival, May 1989).

The Magic Tree House 25

Stage Fright on a Summer Night

by Mary Pope Osborne
The two young tree house time travelers go to the Globe Theatre in Shakespearian times where they play the parts of two fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and discover their first kind of magic without wands.
— Michael Main
“’Tis,” said Wil “The queen pretends to be young and beautiful. Just as you pretended to be a boy, and the bear pretended to be an actor. You see, all the world’s a stage.”
Stage Fright on a Summer Night by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, March 2002).

The Magic Tree House 27

Thanksgiving on Thursday

by Mary Pope Osborne
Jack and Annie visit the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they learn little things about the pilgrims’ way of life and big things about the magic of community and being kind.
— Michael Main
Be kind to those who feel different and afraid.
Thanksgiving on Thursday by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, October 2002).

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 9*

Dragon of the Red Dawn

by Mary Pope Osborne
When Merlin is weighed down by sorrows, Jack and Annie travel back to feudal Japan to learn one of the four secrets of happiness.
— based on fandom.com
Dragon of the Red Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, February 2007) [print · e-book].

Magic Tree House: Merlin Mission 17*

A Crazy Day with Cobras

by Mary Pope Osborne
The magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie back to India during the Mogul Empire in the 1600s to search for an emerald needed to break a magic spell.
— based on fandom.com
A Crazy Day with Cobras by Mary Pope Osborne (Random House, January 2011) [print · e-book].

The Last Musketeer 1

The Last Musketeer

by Stuart Gibbs
While chasing the cad who stole his family’s prized black crystal, young Greg Rich ends up back in AD 1615 where he and three future Musketeers must save Greg’s parents from Dominic Richelieu (the cardinal’s evil brother) and the deadly prison known as La Mort.
— Michael Main
When joined as a whole, the Devil’s Stone was rumored to perform many miracles: strike people dead in an instant, turn lead into gold, even open portals in time.
The Last Musketeer by Stuart Gibbs (HarperCollins, September 2011) [print · e-book].

冰封俠: 重生之門

Bing feng: Chong sheng zhi men English release: Iceman Literal: Iceman: The gate of rebirth

by 林逢 and 胡耀輝, directed by 羅永昌
In the 1989 original, 急冻奇侠::The Iceman Cometh, the villian and his persuer to the 0th century, but in this remake, the four travelers come to the present via a 300-year frozen sleep. No actual time travel occurs.
— Michael Main
How are people so weak now? No one taught them martial arts?
[ex=bare]冰封俠: 重生之門 | Iceman: The gate of rebirth | Bing feng chong sheng zhi men[/ex] by 林逢 and 胡耀輝, directed by 羅永昌 (at movie theaters, Hong Kong, 17 April 2014).

Witchcraft Mysteries 6

A Vision in Velvet

by Juliet Blackwell
To save her pet pig/gargoyle/familiar, shopkeeper and fabric whisperer Lily Ivory must solve a mystery using clues picked up via a traveling cloak that spirits her off to the Salem witch trials.
— Inmate Jan
The cape was in the trunk. When I put it on . . . It’s hard to explain, but it was as though I had been transported to another time and place.
A Vision in Velvet by Juliet Blackwell (Obsidian Mystery, July 2014) [print · e-book].

How to Stop Time

by Matt Haig
As a 400-something-year-old member of the Albatross Society, Tom Hazard ages less than a month for each year of life. But now, after falling in the 21st-century and butting heads with the Society, he seems to be on a mental trip that covers his entire life (but not an actual time traveling trip).
— Michael Main
But as time goes by, at birthdays or other annual markers, people begin to notice you aren’t getting any older.
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (Canongate Books, July 2017).

Found Things #1

The Little Shop of Found Things

by Paula Brackston
Xanthe Westlake and her mother are looking for a fresh start as owners of an antique shop in the village of Marlborough when a 17th century silver chanelaine calls to Xanthe’s psychic powers and eventually takes her on a quest to save a young servant girl in 1605 (and maybe, in the process, meet a handsome young architect with oddly modern views on women).
— Michael Main
Had she somehow crucially alterted her own present by changing Alice’s future? The thought that she might have started some terrible chain of events that she could not possibly have foreseen, nor known about, worried her more and more. It was only in the small hours of Wednesday night that an answer came to her that seemed to make sense. The present that she knew, the way things were in her time, could only have come about if she had traveled back to the past. Her finding the chatelaine, her answering Alice’s call for help, those things were necessary to shape the past and bring about the future as it was. She had to believe this. It did work. She was a part of how things had turned out, not an alternative version, but the one she was meant to live in. If she hadn’t gone back, hadn’t taken the decision to help Alice, well, that wouldhave resulted in a different future from the one she knew.
The Little Shop of Found Things by Paula Brackston (St. Martin’s Press, October 2018).

The Ottoman Secret

by Raymond Khoury
Secret police agent Kamal teams with his sister-in-law Nisreen, fleeing through time from pursuing gunmen who killed Nisreen’s family because toprotect the secret that their world was created by a violent temporal disruptor who altered history in favor of an autocratic Islam theocracy.
— Michael Main
Nisreen: I want to know how it is different and why he wanted to change it. Don’t you see? That’s how the world was supposed to be.

Ramazan: Assuming no one else had gone back and changed things before he did.

The Ottoman Secret by Raymond Khoury (Michael Joseph, May 2019).

Arthur Travels Back in Time

by Gene Lipen and Judith San Nicolas
Arthur the fearless dog travels to different times in a large blue cannister. The story is written in verse that ignores meter and uses rhymes that don’t quite work.
— Ruthie Mariner
With sights on events his eyes have never seen, Arthur is ready for his new time machine.
Arthur Travels Back in Time by Gene Lipen and Judith San Nicolas (Gene Lipen, November 2020).

Best. Scientist. EVER.

by Omar Velasco
You head out on a quick, rollicking ride back through time, with an unknown pursuer and an ambiguous conclusion.
— Tandy Ringoringo
You come to the conclusion that you can correct everything if you stop yourself before you steal the time machine.
“Best. Scientist. EVER.” by Omar Velasco, Daily Science Fiction, 8 December 2020 [webzine].
as of 1:40 p.m. MDT, 18 May 2024
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