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The Internet Time Travel Database

Frozen Time

Time-Related Situations

The Time Professor

by Ray Cummings
Professor Waning Glory takes his new friend Tubby on a trip in a boat that stays always at 9 p.m. in a lofty time-river of some sort, starting at Coney Island, then Chicago, then Denver, and farther west. The professor is able to briefly stop the boat above Chicago, where time for those below stays frozen at 9 p.m., and when their boat crosses the 180° meridian, they travel back a day. Eventually, they arrive back at their starting point on Coney Island, where it is still 9 p.m.
— Michael Main
Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
“The Time Professor” by Ray Cummings, in Argosy, 1 January 1921.

Journey into Mystery #9–10

Zadixx from Dimension X!

by an unknown writer and Jerry Robinson
Professor Wilbur Thompson is the only human still outside of frozen time[/d]. Oh, yes: He’s also the only human who can save humanity from the Zadixx.
— Michael Main
But I’ll restore mankind somehow! I’ll find a way! I swear it!
“Zadixx from Dimension X!” [unofficial] by an unknown writer and Jerry Robinson, in Journey into Mystery #9–10 (Atlas Comics, June to July 1953).

Journey into Mystery #27

The Man Who Stopped Time!

by Carl Wessler and Dick Ayers
After George Applby’s proposal is rejected by his fiancée, George stumbles across a stopwatch that freezes time for other people in the vicinity, so naturally he hatches a scheme to use the watch to break up Nancy and her new boyfriend.
— Michael Main
I don’t want some other girl! I want Nancy! If only I could stop time!
“The Man Who Stopped Time!” by Carl Wessler and Dick Ayers, in Journey into Mystery #27 (Atlas Comics, October 1955).

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).

Starcrash

by Luigi Cozzi and Nat Wachsberger, directed by Luigi Cozzi
Smugglers Stella Star and Akton are sprung from prison by the Galactic Emperor (Christopher Plummer!) to rescue the Galactic Prince (the Hoff!) and save the universe (using kickboxing and an occasional lightsaber!) from the Evil Count Zarth Arn (“Evil” appears to be his first name). At various points, the murky plot has brief stints with suspended animation (Stella), precognition (Arkon), and the freezing time (the Emperor), none of which rises to actual time travel. On the other hand, in the words of reviewer Kurt Dahike, “the budget special effects transcend into the realm of real art.”
— Michael Main
Stella: So you can see into the future? All these years you never told me. Think of all the trouble I might have avoided.

Akton: You would have tried to change the future, which is against the law.

Starcrash by Luigi Cozzi and Nat Wachsberger, directed by Luigi Cozzi (at movie theaters, West Germany, 21 December 1978).

The Hemingway Hoax

by Joe Haldeman
Literature professor John Baird and conman Sylvester Castlemaine hatch a plan to get rich forging Hemingway’s lost stories, but before long, Baird is confronted by an apparent guardian of the many timelines in the form of Hemingway himself.
— Michael Main
I’m from the future and the past and other temporalities that you can’t comprehend. But all you need to know is that yiou must not write this Hemingway story. If you do, I or someone like me will have to kill you.
“The Hemingway Hoax” by Joe Haldeman, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April 1990.

Clockstoppers

by Rob Hedden and Andy Hedden
According to the book’s preface, the novel was written by brothers Rob and Andy Hedden based on an idea from Rob’s son Ryan. The story was turned into a movie of the same name in 2002, and the book appear at roughly the same time. We’re listing the book as a novelization of the movie (rather than the movie being an adaptation of the novel) because that’s how it’s described on the book’s cover.
— Michael Main
The large clock appeared to be broken, its second hand stopped at thirteen seconds past the hour.
“Clockstoppers” by Rob Hedden and Andy Hedden (Simon Pulse, March 2002).

Clockstoppers

by Rob Hedden, J. David Stern, and David N. Weiss, directed by Jonathan Frakes
Teenager Zak Gibbs and his pals must protect a metabolism-speeding device from falling into the wrong hands and rescue Zak’s dad as well.
— based on Wikipedia
Zak: My dad consults on these super-secret projects, and I think this is one of them.
Francesca: So your watch stops time?
Clockstoppers by Rob Hedden, J. David Stern, and David N. Weiss, directed by Jonathan Frakes (premiered at an unknown movie theater, Los Angeles, 17 March 2002).

R.I.P.D.

by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, directed by Robert Schwentke
Note to self: When you’re a detective having second thoughts about stealing that gold from a drug bust, don’t express your thoughts to your partner who might give you a shotgun blast to the face, whereupon time will momentarily freeze and you will be recruited to an understaffed supernatural police department. Apart from time freezing, there are no time phenomena in this adaptation of the earlier comic book miniseries.
— Michael Main
Proctor: You’re lucky, Nick. You have skills that we want, so we’re giving you a choice: You can take your chances with judgement, or . . . [fishes undeader gun from a drawer and places it on the desk]/actor] you can join the R.I.P.D.
R.I.P.D. by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, directed by Robert Schwentke (at movie theaters, Iceland, 17 July 2013).

Tock

by Mike Murphy
Jake lies shivering iin bed while someone—it’a hard to say who—falls endlessly down the stairs.
— Michael Main
He clutched his blankets, waiting for the inevitable.
The dusty mantle clock hadn’t peeped since Aunt Beryl . . .
English
“Tock” by Mike Murphy, in Chronos: An Anthology of Time Drabbles, edited by Eric S. Fomley (Shacklebound Books, August 2018).

The Umbrella Academy, Season 1

by multiple writers and directors
Of the 43 children born 1 October 1989 with no gestation period, the eccentric and sometimes cruel billionaire Reginald Hargreeves brought up seven of them and turned them into the super-powered group called the Umbrella Academy when they developed powers. Nearly thirty years later, after Hargreeves dies, the five surviving members of the group gather at their family home. Oh, and: Number Six died some time ago and only Number Four can see him; Number Five disappeared about seventeen years ago, but he’s back (and in his 13-year-old body) after living 45 years in a post-apocalyptic future that’s scheduled to start in eight days.
— Michael Main
As far as I could tell, I was the last person left alive. I never figured out what killed the human race. I did find something else: the date it happens. . . . The world ends in eight days, and I have no idea how to stop it.
The Umbrella Academy, Season 1 by multiple writers and directors, 10 episodes (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019).

The Dust of Giant Radioactive Lizards

by Jason Sanford
Forty years after NASA explorer Tessa Raij attempted to step through a dimensional portal and was instead relegated to an inexplicable state of isolation in a radioactivce crater, a dead girl—resembling her grandmother as a teen—shows up at her feet.
— Michael Main
Anything entering her horizon no longer experienced the passage of time.
“The Dust of Giant Radioactive Lizards” by Jason Sanford, Asimov’s Science Fiction, September/October 2021.

The Alchemies of Time

by Jack Pagliante
A king who fears only the passage of time takes one drastic step after another to try to stop time altogether.
— Michael Main
Time will take us away from what we love, who we love, and Time will take us, finally, from ourselves.
“The Alchemies of Time” by Jack Pagliante, Daily Science Fiction, 20 July 2022 [webzine].
as of 4:46 p.m. MDT, 18 May 2024
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