Fragile Timeline

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Novelette

Jon’s World

  • by Philip K. Dick
  • in Time to Come: Science-Fiction Stories of Tomorrow, edited by August Derleth; Farrar (Strass and Young, April 1954)
First the Soviets and the Westerners fought. Then the Westerners brought Schonerman’s killer robots into the mix. Then the robots fought both human sides. You know all that from Dick’s earlier story, “Second Variety.” But now it’s long after the desolation, long enough that Caleb Ryan and his financial backer Kastner are willing to bring back the secret of Schonerman’s robots from the past to make their world a better place for surviving mankind, including Ryan’s visionary son Jon. —Michael Main
And then the terminator’s claws began to manufacture their own varieties and attack Soviets and Westerners alike. The only humans that survived were those at the UN base on Luna.
The title Time to Come--along with other text--appears in a white letters on a red blob in front of a mottled black-and-white background.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Of All Possible Worlds

Max Alben Mac Albin is genetically predisposed to survive time travel, so he’s the natural choice to go back in time and shift the course of a missile that shifted the course of history. —Michael Main
Now! Now to make a halfway decent world! Max Alben pulled the little red switch toward him.
flick!
Now! Now to make a halfway interesting world! Mac Albin pulled the little red switch toward him.
flick!
Pen-and-ink drawing of a falling rocket, divided into interleaved horizontal stripes that alternate between normal and negative black-and-white.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Millennium

Cheryl Ladd plays Louise Baltimore opposite Kris Kristopherson’s Bill Smith in this movie adaptation of Varley’s novel (1983), although on-screen credit is given only to his earlier short story “Air Raid” (1977). —Michael Main
For one thing, paradoxes can occur. Say you build a time machine, go backwards in time and murder your father when he was ten years old. That means you were never born. And if you were never born, how did you build the time machine? Paradox! It's the possibility of wiping out your own existence that makes most people rule out time-travel. Still, why not? If you were careful, you could do it.
A passenger jet flies into a starburst of light.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Back to the Future II

Back to the Future II

Doc Brown takes Marty and Jennifer from 1985 to 2015 to save their children from a bad fate, but the consequences pile up when Biff also gets in on the time-travel action. —Michael Main
The time-traveling is just too dangerous. Better that I devote myself to study the other great mystery of the universe—women!
Michael J. Fox (as Marty) and Christopher Lloyd (as Doc) check their watches beside the DeLorean in a lightning storm.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Santa Clause 3

The Escape Clause

Now that Santa and Mrs. Claus have the North Pole running smoothly, the Counsel of Legendary Figures has called an emergency meeting on Christmas Eve! The evil Jack Frost has been making trouble, looking to take over the holiday! So he launches a plan to sabotage the toy factory and compel Scott to invoke the little-known Escape Clause and wish he'd never become Santa. —from publicity material
This is the part where I’m transported through time and everything goes back to the way it was, like I’d never become Santa at all.
Tim Allen (as Santa) and Martin Short (as Jack Frost) smile out at us over a winter scene in a tiny town.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Cartoon

SpongeBob SquarePants [s7:e09A]

Back to the Past

SpongeBob, Patrick, and their two superhero friends head back to the days when the old superheroes were young. Can you guess who it was back in that past who ate all of Mermaid Man’s tartar sauce, unintentionally altering the future? Note: The old superheroes were voiced by Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway; their young counterparts were Adam West and Burt Ward. —Michael Main
This device allows us to transport into the future or past, at a date or destination of our choosing. Unfortunately, the consequences of altering the order of history are so dangerous [thunder], we’ve chosen to leave it alone. So you mustn’t touch!
Former superhero sidekick Barnacle Boy stands beside a stylized control panel of a time machine.
  • Superhero
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

The Thundermans (s04e15)

Save the Past Dance

Superhero teens Phoebe and Max and their younger siblings have heard their parents tell a hometown hero legend once too often, so they “borrow” Cousin Blobbin’s time machine to find out the truth. But they manage to screw up the past and create a disaster in their own time, so they have to make a second round trip to sort it all out.

And just for fun . . . we get to see a flying pig three times! [Sadly, we have no Flying Pig tag. —the curator] —Tandy Ringoringo
If we see ourselves in the past, the whole universe could close in on itself. Watch a movie, you bookworm!
Jack Griffo (as Max) and Kira Kosarin (as Phoebe) pose in a leather jacket and poodle skirt for a 1950s dance.
  • Superhero
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Ottoman Secret

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.
A man and a woman flee under a red Turkish flag that hangs from the Eiffel tower.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Remington Mansion 2

The Tinseltown Murderer

Josie Matthews and her husband, David Remington, travel to 1936 Los Angeles after discovering that her prior trip to 1929 has changed history—specifically by prolonging World War II. They meet up with friends from 1929 and attempt to find and fix the problem. While doing so, they encounter communists, Nazis, the Los Angeles chapter of the Hitler Youth, movie studio executives, and several murders. —Tandy Ringoringo
“What? You live almost a hundred years in the future and you’ve never seen microfilm before?” asked Grant, who shook his head. “Women.”

“We have computer code which can store a warehouse of microfilm in a space the size of a pinhead.”

“How the hell do you do that?”

“With a series of zeros and ones.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.”

“Yeah, I don’t really understand it myself.”
No image currently available.
  • Romance
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

The Speed of Time

Johnny Killfire of the year 2055 (the buff version) comes back to 2020 to stop his younger self from making a killer pizza-delivery app. —Michael Main
You know that pizza app you’re working on to reduce delivery times? You designed it too well.
A bearded man peers over his sunglasses, which reflect images of four characters and a dog from the film.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

A Smell of Jet Fuel

On the 107th floor of the South Tower on 9/11, time travel tour guide Brad Eckelson meets Sitra Velasco, a woman who couldn’t possibly be there. —Michael Main
Well, she wasn’t a contemporary, that much was clear.
A cloaked person, dressed in all-black with a billowing cape, stands atop a roaring dragon in flight.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel