William Shakespeare

Tag Area: Real-World Character
Short Story

The Man Who Never Grew Young

  • by Fritz Leiber
  • in Night’s Black Agents as by Fritz Leiber, Jr. (Arkham House, 1947)
Without knowing why, our narrator describes his life as a man who stays the same for millennia, even as others, one-by-one, are disinterred, slowly grow younger and younger.

The story is soft-spoken but moving, and for me, it was a good complement to T.H. White’s backward-time-traveler, Merlyn.
It is the same in all we do. Our houses grow new and we dismantle them and stow the materials inconspicuously away, in mine and quarry, forest and field. Our clothes grow new and we put them off. And we grow new and forget and blindly seek a mother.
A stylized pen-and-ink drawing of a cloaked man on a horse with a silhouette of Saturn in the background.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Fantasy
  • Experimental
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Moment Universe Stories 1

Some Like It Cold

Sure, others have pulled that 20th century actress forward to make modern films with spectacular failure, each attempt spawning a branch universe unconnected to the 21st century of time traveler Det Gruber, but none of the others took into account the psychological factors in the way that Det’s employers have done. —Michael Main
She may be a wreck, but she wants to be here. Not like Paramount’s version.
A naked child sits beside a robot dog with the moon in the background.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 25

Stage Fright on a Summer Night

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.”
Dressed in colorful green garb, young Jack and Annie take bows on a Shakespearian stage.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

The Loneliness of Time Travel

A twist on how meeting yourself for coffee interacts with how time travel works in your universe. —Michael Main
You have no idea how many of my younger selves freak out when I show up.
A star emerging from behind a blue planet.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

How to Stop Time

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.
A silhouette dog and man sit on a sandy beach inside an hourglass, withg a giant rose growing up through the hourglass like a beanstalk.
  • Fantasy
  • No Time Phenomena