The Search
by A. E. van Vogt
Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.
Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.
Despite the characters’ belief that they can change history, up in the ITTDB Citadel we all agreed that the characters are an unreliable source and this story actually lives in a carefully crafted single static timeline along with a nice bootstrap paradox.
As you might guess, we enjoyed Far and his friends, but the thing that sealed an Eloi Bronze Medal was the fact that when a particular timeline actually managed to branch (not an easy feat) and the traveler then jumped to the future, she found her another self—the her that was born on that timeline—waiting for her. Most branching timeline stories ignore this issue entirely.
P.S. Don’t skip the end-credits!