Time Habitats

Tag Area: Time Machine
Short Story

Trapped in Eternity

Alan Blair and his beautiful fiancée Dora are brought to the future by the lecherous Sah Groat who cures her blindness and proposes that she be his mate to start a new race. —Michael Main
Time traveling! And here, in this same space that now held Dora’s little bungalow and garden, Sah Groat’s home existed in the year 2536.
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  • 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
Cartoon

SpongeBob SquarePants [s1:e14A]

SB-129

The first of SpongeBob’s family to foray into time was Squidward, whose accidental cryofreeze took him two millennia into the future. Of course, even primitive sponges know that that was not actual time travel, but future-SpongeTrons point the six-limbed cephalopod to a time machine that took him on two actual time travel trips before returning him to his own time. No, we don’t know whether one of the future SpongeTrons is SB-129, but we do note that the production code for this episode was 2515-129. —Inmate Jan
Well, why didn’t ya just ask? The time machine is down the hall and to the left.
Squidward, the green anthropomorphized squid, looks in shock at a throw switch with labels for Future and Past.
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Blood Trail

  • by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • in Past Imperfect, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff (DAW Books, October 2001)
Detective Wheldon, the top man in NYPD Homicide is approached by two FBI agents who offer to let him go back in time two weeks to observe the 4th killing by a serial killer.

This is the first story in Future Imperfect, a 2001 anthology of 12 original time-travel stories, co-edited by the prolific anthologist Martin H. Greenberg (1941-2011) who was also a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. —Michael Main
When it became clear that time travel was even a remote possibility, the government bought a lot of scientists. Those who didn’t play got discredited.
A warped gold pockewatch with Arabic numerals and a separate second hand on its own dial.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • 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
Cartoon

SpongeBob SquarePants Mini 68

Lessons Learned

  • [writer and director unknown]
  • (SpongeBob SquarePants Mini 68, Nickelodean (USA, 14 June 2011)
SpongeBob and faithful Patrick use the boxy time machine from “SB-129” to travel back and give advice to their younger selves. —Michael Main
Patrick, with this time machine, we can go back to the past and make our young selves wiser!
Cartoon character Sponge-Bob and his starfish pal Patrick stand in a boxy time machine in front of their younger selves.
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Chronicles of St. Mary’s 1

Just One Damned Thing after Another

Fresh from finishing her Ph.D., Madeline Maxwell (aka Max) runs into her high school mentor who encourages her to apply for a position with a cloistered group of historians called St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research. —Michael Main
Think of History as a living organism, with its own defence mechanisms. History will not permit anything to change events that have already taken place. If History thinks, even for one moment, that that is about to occur, then it will, without hesitation, eliminate the threatening virus. Or historian, as we like to call them.
A white coffee cup and saucer sit in front of background images of Big Ben
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel