Unusual Aging

Tag Area: Time-Related Situation
Novel

El Anacronópete

  • He who flies backwards in time
  • The Time Ship: A Chrononautical Journey
  • by Enrique Gaspar
  • in Novelas (Daniel Cortezo, 1887)

Mad scientist Don Sindulfo and his best friend Benjamin head to the past in Sindulfo’s flying time machine along with Sindulfo’s niece, her maid, a troop of Spanish soldiers, and a bordelloful of French strumpets for madcap adventures at the 1860 Battle of Téouan, Queen Isabella’s Spain, nondescript locales in the eleventh and seventh centuries, 3rd-century China, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and a biblical time shortly after the flood.

After taking a year of Spanish at the University of Colorado, I undertook a three-year project of translating Gaspar’s novel to English, which is available in a pdf file for your reading pleasure. Even with the unpleasant twist at the end, it was still a fine, farcical romp through history. —Michael Main
—Poco á poco—argumentaba un sensato.—Si el Anacronópete conduce á deshacer lo hecho, á mi me pasrece que debemos felicitarnos porque eso no permite reparar nuestras faltas.

—Tiene usted razón—clamaba empotrado en un testero del coche un marido cansado de su mujer.—En cuanto se abra la línea al público, tomo yo un billete para la vispera de mi boda.
translate “One step at a time,” argued a sensible voice. “If el Anacronópete aims to undo history, it seems to me that we must be congratulated as it allows us to amend our failures.”

“Quite right,” called a married man jammed into the front of the bus, thinking of his tiresome wife. “As soon as the ticket office opens to the public, I’m booking passage to the eve of my wedding.”
A flower plant in a vase and a Chinese woman holding a large shpere
                containing the flying time machine, El Anacronópete.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Creatures of the Light


A Teutonic scientist attempts to create a race of artificially created superman who, among other things, can jump a few seconds through time, but only as invisible witnesses to the future goings-on. The story is disturbingly prescient of Nazi ideas of an Aryan Herrenvolk. —Michael Main
Before Northwood’s horrified sight, he vanished; vanished as though he had turned suddenly to air and floated away.
Black-and-white drawing of a well-dressed man and woman struggling behind a
                large energy-beam projector.
  • Science Fiction
  • Debatable Time Travel
Short Story

The Thief of Time


The brilliant Dr. Bird might well give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money when solving cases that involved modern science as does the case of the money that disappeared from a teller’s cage right before his eyes. Alas, the solution involved no time travel, but it did involve a time-related phenomenon made famous in a story by an author whose notoriety in sf circles exceeds even that of Holmes’s creator. —Michael Main
“But someone must have taken it,” said the bewildered cashier. “Money doesn’t just walk off of its own accord or vanish into thin air—"
Black-and-white drawing of a group of suited men sitting in a bank office.
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Time Phenomena
Novelette

Elsewhere and Otherwise


A young soldier’s elderly cousin disappears after not having aged for more than two decades. But now, after the way, a spectre of the cousin reappears, needing to talk about where he’s been outside the plane of our existence and the great debt he owes. —pending
The alternative was staggaring more than my facilities could hold or deal with—that my cousin, sleeping calmly in that bed, had left our spance and time for a period of four years, and that before this complete disappearance, as a preliminary to it, by way of training possibly, he had escaped our time, while still occupying our space, for a far longer period, for some twenty-five years. 
No image currently available.
  • Horror
  • Time Phenomena
Novelette

The Search


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
Pen-and-ink drawing of a man descending a staircase into fog.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
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
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #6

The Man Who Went Back


A man on death row murders his guards and escapes, getting on an odd bus where everyone is rapidly aging. And when he demands to be taken back, that’s when the real fun begins. —Michael Main
You’ve got to stop the bus . . . turn around or we’ll all soon be dead of old age!
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #27

The Man Who Stopped Time!


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!
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #67

The Black Clock!


An ex-con steals a clock and quickly learns that it’ll bring him death if he doesn’t return it to its owner—but doing that would mean another prison sentence. —Michael Main
You mustn’t touch the clock! It’s enchanted! It will put you under a spell!
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #75

The Magic of Mordoo!


Franz finds Katrina attractive, but he wishes she were younger, so he approaches a Bavarian magician to make her young again. —Michael Main
But I want a young wife--a glamorous one! Not a middle-aged female!
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
TV Episode

Star Trek: The Next Generation, s02e01

The Child


An alien ball of energy impregnates Counselor Troi. No time travel, but the pregnancy and the boy's childhood both speed by at warp 10. —Michael Main
Riker: A baby? This is a surprise.
Troi: More so for me.
Marina Sirtis (as Deanna Troi) gazes lovingly at a newborn boy in her
                arms.
  • Science Fiction
  • Time Phenomena
Feature Film

Warlock I

Warlock


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?
A neatly dressed, barefooted Julian Sands (as the Warlock) casts a demonic
                shadow.
  • Fantasy
  • Horror
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Parallel Highways

  • by James Van Pelt
  • in After Shocks: An Anthology of So-Cal Horror, edited by Jeremy Lassen (fREAk pRESs, May 2000)

Jack and Debbie have been driving nonstop in high-speed, bumper-to-bumper traffic for decades. Particularly fun is swapping drivers from time to time, without stopping. No actual time travel for the fated pair, but you will spot some familiar time phenomena. —Michael Main
He remembered the morning this started, holding his own in his lane, the early commute streaming toward its destination, when he saw the mini-van coming toward him from the on-ramp.
No image currently available.
  • Horror
  • Time Phenomena
Novel

Clockstoppers


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.
Garikayi Mutambirwa (as Meeker), Jesse Bradford (as Zak Gibbs), and Paula
                Garcés (as Francesca) pose in front of a giant, yellow and orange watch dial.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Clockstoppers


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?
Garikayi Mutambirwa (as Meeker), Jesse Bradford (as Zak Gibbs), and Paula
                Garcés (as Francesca) pose in front of a giant, neon-green watch dial.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Time Phenomena
Cartoon

Horrid Henry [s01e16]

Horrid Henry’s Time Machine


In the cartoon version of the short story, Henry imagines that his time machine is an elaborate time ship, at least until his perfect little brother brings him out of his daydream and back to the real world of cardboard. —Michael Main
Peter: “I'm going to the future. I want to see it for myself!”
  • Mainstream
  • Audience: Children
  • Time Phenomena
Novel

Artemis Fowl, Book #6

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox

  • by Eoin Colfer
  • (Hyperion Books for Children, July 2008)

When fourteen-year-old genius Artemis Fowl realizes that the only cure for his mother’s case of Spelltropy lies in a species of lemur that Artemis made extinct eight years ago, there is only one solution: Grab your 80-year-old, elfin-police-captain-friend Holly Short and trick her into traveling back in time to stop your formerly evil, ten-year-old self from killing off the last of the all-cure lemurs.

Author Eoin Colfer does a masterful job presenting a single nonbranching, static timeline, complete with three consistent causal loops (further described in our tag notes for this story). But really, Eoin, you missed the shuttle on “the kiss”! With the help of N°1, Artemis can time travel, so if you're intent on his first romantic kiss coming from Holly Short, couldn’t N°1 have brought Holly’s actual fourteen-year-old self into the story? Might have even presented an opportunity for a fourth causal loop: Fourteen-year-old Holly kissees fourteen-year-old Artemis, but only because fifteen-year-old Artemis had already told thirteen-year-old Holly that they would enjoy it. —Michael Main
Oh, bless my bum-flap. You’re time travelers.
A boy clutching a lemur and followed by a smaller version of himself is blown
                out of the page by a yellow explosion.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Boy in His Winter


After Huck Finn and Jim fall asleep on an appropriated raft in Hannibal, Mo., they find themselves floating down the Mississippi for decades without ever aging a day themselves. —Michael Main
We came by the raft dishonestly. We’d only meant to do a little fishing. It was cool and nice under the big willow with its whips trailing over the water. Christ, it was a scorcher of a day. The whole town must have fallen asleep, along with Jim and me. When we finally did wake, if we ever did, the raft was too far along in space and time to return it. We could no longer reverse ourselves, our motions in all five dimensions, than fly to the moon.
A empty raft with not much space for two people floats on a wide river toward
                distant skyscrapers.
  • Mainstream
  • Time Phenomena
TV Season

The Flash, Season 2

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • (The CW, USA, 6 October 2015) to 24 May 2016)

After Barry aborts his mission to the past in Season 1 in order to prevent his own present from being erased, he finds that his travel has caused even bigger problems! Yep, a rift has been a-opened to a parallel world with an alternate Flash and an evil speedster and—it would seem—more time travelin’ and another attempt to save his mom and dad! —Michael Main
No, that’s not how it works. In our timeline, Barry’s mother’s already dead, and her death is a fixed point. And nothing can change that.
Surounded by yellow lightning, Grant Gustin (as the Flash) races towards us in
                his red costume with a new white logo on his chest.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Marvel Cinematic Universe 19

Avengers: Infinity War


Given that the Time Stone is a key element to Thanos’s master plan, you’d think that time travel would play a major part in this movie, but not so. Doc Strange does use the stone to view a slew of possible futures, but we know that’s not actually time travel. So where does the time travel come into play? Pay close attention to the final thirteen minutes of the film, after Strange announces “We’re in the end game now,” and you’ll spot one definite time travel moment and a second possible moment. —Michael Main
Tony, there was no other way.
A giant Josh Brolin (as Thanos) stands proudly behind a determined Robert
                Downey Junior (as Iron Man) and the rest of the Avengers.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Umbrella Academy, Season 1

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • 10 episodes (Netflix, USA, 15 February 2019)

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 six living siblings of the Umbrella Academy gather in colorful garb under a
                black umbrella held by Luthor.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Fantasy Island (v3s01e01), pt. 2

Mel Loves Ruby


I see the original 1977 Fantasy Island through nostalgia-colored glasses, making it hard for any island-come-lately to compete in my eyes. So I was happily surprised when I enjoyed the premiere of the 2021 revival, complete with a relative or the original Mr. Roarke and a new sidekick named Ruby. In the second of the episode’s two subplots (“Mel Loves Ruby”), there is even a bit of time-related fantasy when the island makes Ruby young again (although without sending her back in time). —Michael Main
What is your deepest desire, your most heartfelt need? The island knows, even if you don’t.
Roselyn Sánchez (as Elena Roarke), dressed all in white, stands with photos of
                the ocean and lush greenery behind her.
  • Fantasy
  • Time Phenomena
Short Story

The Dust of Giant Radioactive Lizards


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.
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Time Phenomena
Feature Film

Captain Nova


Captain Nova Kester travels back from a devastated future to warn an energy mogel about the impending climate cataclysm, but only young Nas takes her seriously. That happens when time travel causes you to revert to 12 years old. —Michael Main
Luister, jongedame: De mensen denken al eeuwen dat ze leven in het einde der tijden. Het zou handig ziln als je jezelf ietsje minderbelangrijk maakt.
translate Listen, young lady: People have thought for centuries that the end of time is drawing near. It would help everyone if you showed just a little less . . . self-importance.
Kika van de Vijver (as young Nova Kester) and three costars pose in front of a
                merged background of 2025 and the future.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Unwound


A sweet romance story about a gray-haired man and his wife’s reaction to his discovery of reverse aging. —Michael Main
Would it make him younger? Would his hair darken and his wrinkles fade?
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for
                Daily Science Fiction.
  • Romance
  • Time Phenomena