Time Tethers

Tag Area: Time Machine
Novel

The End of Eternity


Andrew Harlan, Technician in the everwhen of Eternity, falls in love and starts a chain of events that could lead to the end of everything. —Michael Main
He had boarded the kettle in the 575th Century, the base of operations assigned to him two years earlier. At the time the 575th had been the farthest upwhen he had ever traveled. Now he was moving upwhen to the 2456th Century.
A black-and-white drawing of an elderly man standing at an electronic control
                board with a futuristic sphere in the background.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Unusual Tales #5

The Man Who Changed Times


A prisoner, Vincent Rand, is offered a way out of his ten-year sentence. —Michael Main
Wouldn’t you prefer being free, even five hundred years in the past, to serving out a ten year sentence in this prison?
In three panels, a man in a green suit makes a proposal to a prisoner about
                travel to the past.
  • Science Fiction
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #42

The Panhandler


One of the six time travelers who’ve arrived to intervene in Doug Cotter’s panhandling life just seems to know far too much about Doug’s private life. —Michael Main
You haven’t a prison record yet. But you will have . . . unless you let us help you!
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Time Travel Inc.


I found this in one of three old sf magazines that I traded for at Denver’s own West Side Books. (Thank you, Lois.) Both the title and the table-of-contents blurb (They wanted to witness the Crucifixion) foreshadow Moorcock’s “Behold the Man,” although the story is not as vivid. —Michael Main
Oh . . . The Crucifixion. You want to witness it, of course—
An angry man with tubes connected to his temples grasps two fistfuls of other
                tubes and wires.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Fantastic Four #5

Prisoners of Doctor Doom!


The Marvel Comics Brand began in 1939 with the first edition of Marvel Comics. Throughout the ’40s and ’50s, some of the Timely and Atlas comics had the slogan “A Marvel Magazine,” ”Marvel Comic,” or a small “MC” on the cover. As for me personally, I was hooked when Marvel started publishing the Fantastic Four in 1961. During the sixties, I devoured as many Marvels as I could as they arrived at the local Rexall Drug Store or swapping comcs with my pals, and this is the first of those Marvel issues in the ’60s involved superhero time travel.

Nowadays, we all know that Doc Doom is far too smart to think the most profitable way to use his time platform is by sending three of the FF into the past with orders to bring back Blackbeard’s treasure (while keeping the fourth member of their team captive). And yet, the story has a charm that stems from the causal loop of Ben Grimm’s presence in the past actually causing the legend of Blackbeard, which in turn caused Doom to send the loveable lunk back.
And now I shall send you back. . . hundreds of years into the past! You will have forty-eight hours to bring me Blackbeard’s treasure chest! Do not fail!
Through a large, round portal in an air-tight chamber, Doctor Doom threatens to
                destroy the F F, who helpless struggle as they run out of air.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Avengers Annual #2

. . . and Time, the Rushing River . . .


After the Scarlet Centurion waylays the Avengers on their way back from the 1940s, they find themselves in an alternative 1968 where the five original Avengers stayed together under the thumb of the Scarlet Centurion.

The story includes flashbacks and previously unknown explanations of the team’s previous trip to the ’40s in Avengers #56, and at the end of the story, Goliath uses Dr. Doom’s Time Platform to banish the Scarlet Centurion back to his time—and we think this is the only time travel that actually appears in the story (apart from the flashbacks). We don’t know what happens to the alternative 1968 (now known as Earth-689, but the traveling Avengers return to the universe that we all knew and loved in the 1960s (a.k.a. Earth-616), with their memory of the whole affair wiped by the Watcher. —Michael Main
Time is like a river! Dam it up at any one point . . . and it has no choice but to flow elsewhere . . . along other, easier routes!
Five Avengers from 1968, led by Goliath and the Wasp, face off against the five
                Avengers as they were in early 1964, led by Giant Man and the Wasp.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Avengers #56

Death Be Not Proud!


Using Doc Doom’s time platform, the tag-3743 } Wasp sends Cap and the other three 1968 Avengers back to observe Bycky Barnes’s death at the hands of Baron Zemo. —Michael Main
That’s just what’s begun to torure me! How can I be sure he’s dead? I saw only a single searing blast! If I somehow survived it . . . couldn’t he have, too?
Standing over Bucky Barnes’s body, an anguished Captain America beseeches a
                higher power.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Closing the Timelid


Centuries in the future, Orion throws an illicit party in which the partygoers get to experience complete death in the past. —Michael Main
Ah, agony in a tearing that made him feel, for the first time, every particle of his body as it screamed in pain.
|pending alt-text|
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Ripples in the Dirac Sea


A physics guy invents a time machine that can go only backward and must always return the traveler to the exact same present from which he left. —Michael Main
  1. Travel is possible only into the past.
  2. The object transported will return to exactly the time and place of departure.
  3. It is not possible to bring objects from the past to the present.
  4. Actions in the past cannot change the present.
Pen-and-ink drawing of a man holding a woman in front of him with a peace sign
                on her sleeve and a complex clockface behind.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • 1989 Nebula
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e01–02)

Genesis


Physicist and all-around good guy Sam Beckett rushes his time machine into production—funding is about to be cut!—and as a consequence, he leaps into the life of a USAF test pilot, where Sam and his holographic cohort Al have a moral mission. And after setting things right in that pilot’s life, Sam—“oh, boy”—takes a few moments to win the big baseball game in 1968. —Inmate Jan
One end of this string represents your birth, the other end your death. You tie the ends together, and your life is a loop. Ball the loop, and the days of your life touch each other out of sequence, therefore leaping to one point in the string to another . . .
A worried Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett), dressed as a test pilot, stares out of
                the small cockpit of the experimental X2 plane.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Sports
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e03)

Star-Crossed


Why would anybody leap into English Professor Gerald Bryant during June 1972? Sam is certain that his mission is to he can reconcile his own future quantum physicist girlfriend with her father so that her fear of commitment won’t cause her to leave Sam at the alter in another twelve years. —Michael Main
Don’t ya see, Al? I’m here to give Donna and I a second chance.
Teri Hatcher (as Donna Elesee) and Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) study a book
                together at a library table.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e04)

The Right Hand of God


Sam leaps into professional boxer Clarence “Kid”Cody in 1974, where he must win his first legitimate fight in a year to save the sisters of St. Mary’s, start a new life with Dixie, and also—if things work out as expected in the Rumble in the Jungle—escape the mob. —Michael Main
That surprise punch in the last inning . . . it was inspired.
Michelle Joyner (as Sister Angela) leans to one side and waves into a boxing
                ring.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e05)

How the Tess Was Won


Sam leaps into Doc Young, DVM, back in 1956 Lubbock, Texas, where it seems his purpose is to out-rope, out-ride, and out-posthole-dig cowgirl Tess McGill in an effort to win her heart. —Michael Main
You can’t expect me to do this and not get involved. So if Tess falls in love with Doc, I’d appreciate it if you just leap me outta here as soon as possible.
Covered in mud in a pig sty, an exasperated Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) holds
                up a piglet.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e06)

Double Identity


Sam does a double leap at one location: First into hitman Frankie LaPalma at the moment when he and Don Geno’s former girlfriend are in the sack together, and then as Don Geno himself. —Michael Main
Who ever heard of one lousy hairdryer blacking out all of the East Coast?
Dolled-up Terri Garber (as Teresa Pacci) leans back and reaches up to give
                Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) a romantic kiss.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e07)

The Color of Truth


Upon arriving in an Alabama diner in 1955, Sam sits at the counter and sees an elderly Black man looking back at him from the mirror. —Michael Main
You’re hear to save her tomorrow, not to initiate the civil rights activity in the South.
Howard Matthew Johnson (as an older Black man, Jesse Tyler) looks out from a
                reflection in a window at Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett).
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e08)

Camikazi Kid


It seeems that the only way Sam can fulfill his mission of stopping 17-year-old Cam Wilson’s older sister from marrying shithead Bob is to race Bob “for pinks” in hopes that Bob will lose his cool and show his true self, but that’ll only work if Sam (as Cam) and his buddy Jill can soup up Cam’s pink mommobile with a blast of nitrous oxide at exactly the right moment of the race. —Michael Main
Older Brother: Come on, Mikey, we gotta rehearse.

Mikey: [waving] Bye-bye!
In the front seat of an old car, Holly Fields (as Jill) explains the workings
                of a new dashboard gadget to Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett).
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e09)

Play It Again, Seymour


Sam arrives in 1953 as a private eye who looks like Humphrey Bogart and has to solve the mystery of his partner’s murder while trying to figure out his relationship with his partner’s wife and the eager kid at the newsstand. —Michael Main
Kid, if I’m lucky I’m gonna spend the rest of my life leaping around from one place to another instead of face down in a pool of blood.
Dressed in overcoats and fedora hats, Claudia Christian (as Allison Grimsley)
                and Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) stare into each others eyes.
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e01)

Honeymoon Express


Sam pops into newly married Tom McBride (a New York policeman), who is headed to Niagara Falls with his new bride (a budding lawyer and the daughter of a senator). The two of them engage in the usual honeymoon activities—fighting off ex-boyfriend thugs, rolling underneath moving trains, studying for the bar exam—while unbeknownst to Sam, Al is at a Senate committee meeting in Washington, D.C., fighting for the life of Project Quantum Leap. Oh, yes, and it’s now official: Sam and Al believe that God has taken control of the project, although Al refuses to be pinned down as to which god she is. —Michael Main
This committee has decided that your 2.4 billion dollar funding request for Project Quantum Leap . . .
Dean Stockton (as Admiral Al Calavicci) sits at attention in his dress-white
                uniform.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e02)

Disco Inferno


Sam finds out what it’s like to be a stuntman in a family with broken dynamics and (to him but not Al) in an era with broken music. —Michael Main
Disco’s not gonna last forever. I got a feeling it’s probably gonna die in a couple of years.
Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett in a white suit with wide lapels) strikes a disco
                dance pose with one hand pointing high into the air.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e03)

The Americanization of Machiko


In 1953, Sam steps off a bus as a sailor returning home from Japan with—surprise! to Sam and everyone else—a new bride named Machiko. —Michael Main
“I try to find a husband . . . to find my husband”
Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) and Leila Lee Olsen (as Machiko, dressed in a
                Japanese robe) pick daisies on the roadside.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e04)

What Price Gloria?


Sam leaps into the body of executive secretary Samantha Stormer during a time rife with sexual harrassment that hadn’t yet been challenged or even given a name. —Michael Main
You know, this is degrading. First he chases me around the office, then he says I gotta wear lipstick
A fed-up Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) sits at a dinner table wearing a fancy,
                low-cut dress and frilly hat.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e05)

Blind Faith


Who knew that if Sam leaped into a blind pianist’s body that he’d be able to see with his own eyes and stop a Central Park killer? —Michael Main
He says he wants to play.
In a tux and sunglasses, Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) sits at a concert piano
                while Dean Stockton (as Al) holds his sheet music.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e06)

Good Morning, Peoria


Somewhat disoriented Sam—as Howlin’ Chic Howell at a 50’s radio station—must help station owner Rachel Powell defend rock’n’roll from the town elders and mobs of pitchfork-carrying, record-burning hayseeds. —Michael Main
Fred, I appreciate your opinion, but no matter how many editorials you publish, I am not gonna stop playing rock’n’roll.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Cloche vaine


At the end of her long successful writing career, a woman is still haunted by her sister’s death four decades earlier. —Michael Main
An orange glow flows over a naked torso and head holding a bright sword with
                Jupiter and stars in the background.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

12 Monkeys


In the year 2035, with the world devastated by an artificially engineered plague, convict James Cole is sent back in time to gather information about the plague’s origin so the scientists can figure out how to fight it. —Michael Main
If you can’t change anything because it’s already happened, you may as well smell the flowers.
The faces of Bruce Willis (as old James with one red eye), Brat Pitt (as young
                James), and Madeline Stowe (as Kathryn) stare out of the shadows.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

Ransom


Time travel agent Maks Hamilton is told by mysterious kidnappers that if he ever wants to see his own son again, he must travel back three centuries—just before the Troubles—to abduct another boy.

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. —Michael Main
I want you to bring someone from the past to the present—someone who would otherwise die only a few hours afterward. Surely that’s possible.
A spiral galaxy looms large behind a nighttime desert scene.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Castle (s06e05)

Time Will Tell


A murder investigation leads to a suspect (Doyle) who says he traveled back in time to stop a catastrophe that will result in at least half the people on the planet dying. —Tandy Ringoringo
Ryan: I thought it was kind of derivative.
Esposito: Like a mash-up of 12 Monkeys and Terminator.
No image currently available.
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

12 Monkeys, Season 1


Same pandemic backstory as the movie, similar names for the characters, no Bruce Willis, and a mishmash of time-travel tropes along with tuneless minor-key chords in place of actual tension and slowly spoken clichéd dialogue in place of actual plot. Random discussions of fate brush shoulders with an admixture of possible time travel models from narrative time (when a wound sprouts on old JC’s shoulder while watching young JC get shot), to skeleton timelines (JC thinks that his timeline will vanish if he succeeds), to a fascination with a single static timeline (you’ll see it in Chechnya) and time itself has an agenda. Primarily, we’d say that the story follows narrative time from Cole’s point of view.

By the end of the first season, one principal character has seemingly been trapped in the 2043, and Cole is stuck in 2015, having just gone against fate in a major way, but with a third principal character poised to spread the virus via a jet plane.

P.S. Whatever you do, whether in narrative time or elsewhen, don’t bring up this adaptation as dinnertime conversation with Terry Gilliam (but do watch it if you can set aside angst over a lack of a consistent model and just go with Cole’s flow). —Michael Main
About four years from now, most of the human race will be wiped out by a plague, a virus. We know it’s because of a man named Leland Frost. I have to find him.

—from “Splinter” [s01e01]
A man
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

A Time Travel Short

  • written and directed by Antonette Ho
  • 3-part serial (Youtube: Antonette H Channel, 4 November 2015) to 17 January 2016)

A mysterious box allows Linda to travel back in time for five minutes at each go, so she starts out by taking five minutes at age 14 to stand up to a bully who’s harrassing a friend. —Michael Main
Rule 3: Owner will be sent back to the present after 5 minutes are up.
Wide-eyed Gwyneth Shum (as the young woman, Linda) opens a small wooden box
                that shines a bright light on her face.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Future ’38

  • written and directed by Jamie Greenberg
  • (Slamdance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, 24 January 2017)

In this “lost” film from 1938, fascist powers are rising in Europe, so Mr. Essex is sent forward to 2018 to retrieve a piece of formica that’s been put into a vault where, over the decades, it will have matured into superbomb material. I don’t know whether the bomb ever worked, but surprisingly, the campy film did work—at least toward the end when the full contents of the vault are revealed. —Michael Main
If I kill you now, you will never go back in time, there is no formica bomb, and Adolf Hilter takes over the world . . . with me as his heir.
Startled Nick Westrate (as Essex) and Betty Gilpin (as Banky) walk through a
                spect-a-color futuristic city.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Again, but Better


Shy Shane Primaveri heads to London for a semester abroad for a semester abroad program in creative writing where she hopes to become more outgoing, kiss a boy that she likes, and convince her parents after-the-fact that her decision to explore paths outside of a pre-med major was the right one. But things don’t go exactly as planned the first time through the semester. —Michael Main
Could the elevator have been, like, a time machine?
Drawing of a young woman with long reddish hair, strolling from a white area
                into pastal blue with the London skyline in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Tomorrow War


Forty-year-old high school biology teacher Dan Forester is drafted for a seven-day tour of the future where he must fight what seems to be a losing cause in the war against bug/T-rex aliens. —Michael Main
We need you to fight beside us if we stand a chance at winning this war. You are our last hope.
As a purple wormhole opens in the sky, Chris Pratt (as Dan Forester) holds his
                machine gun high, standing defiantly at the lead position of three others.
  • Science Fiction
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel