Luggable Time Machine

Tag Area: Time Machine
Comic Book

Adventure into Mystery #8

The Night of March 5th

The machine that spy Bruno Ames steals takes him one year into the future where the Daily Bugle tells him his boss has been sentenced to life in prison. —Michael Main
I just left Novitch this morning! How could he have been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced, all in one day?
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  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Debatable Time Travel
Short Story

“—All You Zombies—”

A 25-year-old man, originally born as an orphan girl named Jane, tells his story to a 55-year-old bartender who then recruits him for a time-travel adventure. —Michael Main
When I opened you, I found a mess. I sent for the Chief of Surgery while I got the baby out, then we held a consultation with you on the table—and worked for hours to salvage what we could. You had two full sets of organs, both immature, but with the female set well enough developed for you to have a baby. They could never be any use to you again, so we took them out and rearranged things so that you can develop properly as a man.
A man wearing only a skirt stands on a spaceship while firing a ray gun upward at another ship.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Ijon Tichy

Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego, pt. 4

  • From remembrances of Ijon Tichy, pt. 4
  • by Stanisław Lem
  • in Księga robotów (Iskry, 1961) [No title for this story other than the Roman numeral IV, which is the fourth of five numbered parts out of nine total parts.]
Ijon is unphased when Physicist Molteris lugs his time machine into Ijon’s sitting room, promising Ijon will be repaid for the colossal amount of electricity that will be consumed by the first trip. —Michael Main
Zamierzałem, ale . . . widzi pan . . . ja . . . mój gospodarz wyłączył mi elektrycznoćś . . . w niedzielę.
translate I planned to, but, you see, I—my landlord turned off the electricity on Sunday.
Pencil drawing of a middle-aged man riding on the back of a large robot.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

from The Teacher of Symmetry Cycle

Фотография Пушкин (1799–2099)

  • Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099)
  • Pushkin’s photograph (1799–2099)
  • Pushkin’s Photograph (1799–2099)
  • by Андре́й Би́тов
  • Znamia, January 1987
In 1985, an author has visions of a time traveler named Igor from 2099. The traveler is being sent by his comrades in the domed city of St. Petersburg back to the 19th century, where he is tasked with capturing images and audio of motherland’s supreme father of poetry, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.

Note: A dissertation by Gulius Natalya Sergeevna notes that this story is part of Bitov’s Teacher of Symmetry Cycle, which consisted of a series of avant-garde stories purportedly written by an obscure Englishman named A. Tired-Boffin and loosely translated to Russian by Bitov. The English version of “Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099)” was said to have been called “Shakespeare’s Photograph” (or possibly “Stern’s Laughter” or “Swift’s Pill”), and presumably it was about Shakespeare rather than Pushkin.

Sergeevna explains that all this artistic mystification was part of an extensive footnote to “Fotografiya Pushkin (1799–2099),” but up in the ITTDB Citadel, we’ve yet to track down the footnote. Perhaps it was part of the 1987 publication in Znamia, or maybe it did not appear until the story was published along with the rest of the cycle in Bitov’s 1988 collection, Chelovek v peyzazhe. It is not listed in the table of contents of "]Prepodavatelʹ simmetrii(2008), which was translated to English as Symmetry Teacher (2014). —Michael Main
. . . мы сможем в будущем, и не таком, господа-товарищи, далеком, заснять всю жизнь Пушкина скрытой камерой, записать его гол . . . представляете, какое это будет счастье, когда каждый школьник сможет услышать, как Пушкин читает собственные стихи!
translate . . . we will be able in the future, and, gentlemen-comrades, not such a distant one, to photograph Pushkin’s entire life with a hidden camera, record his voice . . . imagine how wonderful it will be when every schoolboy will be able to hear Pushkin read his own poetry!
Journal cover with red text on a white background.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Moment Universe Stories 1

Some Like It Cold

Sure, others have pulled that 20th century actress forward to make modern films with spectacular failure, each attempt spawning a branch universe unconnected to the 21st century of time traveler Det Gruber, but none of the others took into account the psychological factors in the way that Det’s employers have done. —Michael Main
She may be a wreck, but she wants to be here. Not like Paramount’s version.
A naked child sits beside a robot dog with the moon in the background.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

The Moment Universe Stories 2

The Miracle of Ivar Avenue

  • by John Kessel
  • in Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Antholgy , edited by John Kessel et al., January 1996
In 1949 Los Angeles, Detective Lee Kinlaw has writer/director Preston Sturges down in the morgue. The only problem is that Sturges is still alive and well in Hollywood. —Michael Main
It’s a transmogrifier. A device that can change anyone into anyone else. I can change General MacArthur into President Truman, Shirley Temple into Marilyn Monroe.
Three patterned rectangles sit below the title of the Intersections anthology.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (s07e08)

Bada Ping!

Sabrina takes Salem into the future to find out her fate after gangster Mickey Brentwood finds out that she’s writing an exposé on his shady practices. —Inmate Jan
You see, this thug nightclub owner threatened our little Lois Lame over there—
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina) lies peacefully in a white-lined coffin.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Moment Universe Stories 4

It’s All True

About five years after the first two Moment Universe stories, time traveling talent scount Det Gruber heads to 1942 in hopes of recruiting young, bitter Orson Welles to accompany him back to the future. —Michael Main
Welles clenched his fists. When he spoke it was in a lower tone. “Life is dark.”
An abstract design in red, orange, and yellow, perhaps suggesting paper rolling through a press.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Dimensions

Imagine you’re a young boy in 1921 Cambridge when your equally young first love dies in a deep well. What would you do? Naturally, you’d vow to become a great scientist in an artsy movie so you could go back in time to alter the tragic event.

Apparently, people in early 20th-century Cambridge espouse many wise thoughts about time, parallel universes that encompass every possible combination of events again and again, and something about every decision every made creating a branch point. In the end, it's difficult to make a cohesive model of time from the plotline of Dimensions, but we tried our best to do so in our plot notes. —Michael Main
Annie: Are you ready to leave?
Stephen: Yes.
Annie: How long will it take?
Stephen: I don’t know: seconds, decades, an eternity.
Annie: An eternity? For a few moments together?
Stephen: Yes.
Intent Henry Lloyd-Hughes (as Stephen) and happy-go-lucky Camilla Rutherford (as Jame with a parousel) are superimposed over a spiral of 1921 dates with version numbers
  • Science Fiction
  • Debatable Time Travel
Novelette

Fortunately, the Milk

When Dad is late returning from a milk (not the fat-free kind) run, he has to explain to his two kids about how he’d been delayed by sundry trips through time. —Michael Main
I am slightly lost in space and time right now and need to get home in order to make sure my children get milk for their breakfast.
No image currently available.
  • Fantasy
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Audio Play Series

3 seasons

ars Paradoxica

—pending
No image currently available.
  • 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
Novel

Here and Now and Then

When time travel agent Kin Stewart finds himself rapidly losing his memory and stranded in 1996, he writes a journal of his life in the future and proceeds to break every rule in the book by creating a new life and family in his new present . . . until a retriever shows up in 2014. —Michael Main
Science fiction. She thought the journal was filled with tales, like her Doctor Who or Heather’s Star Trek shows.
Two paper dolls--a man and a woman--run on opposite sides of a looped, non-Moebius, strip of paper with the San Francisco skyline along its edge.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Miniseries

Il était une seconde fois

At first, Vincent’s only plan for the mysterious 600mm wooden cube that provides a tunnel to the past is to make sure that Louise doesn’t break up with him four months in the past, but new circumstances soon raise the stakes. Then it gets weird in this four-part miniseries. —Michael Main
En fait, je suis passé dans un cube, et ça . . .
translate I actually went through this cube, and it . . .
Freya Mavor (as Louise) sleeps peacefully in the arms of wide-awake Gaspard Ulliel (as Vincent).
  • Science Fiction
  • 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 Season

The Umbrella Academy, Season 2

  • by multiple writers and directors
  • ten episodes (Netflix, USA, 31 July 2020)
Five’s plan for the Umbrella siblings to escape the apocalypse by going into the past ends up scattering them throughout different years of Dallas in the 1960s. They manage okay on their own until shortly after 11/22/63, when secondary effects from changes to the timeline cause a nuclear holocaust that can be averted only by recently arrived Five jumping back to 11/15/63 to exert his unique charm into getting the gang to work together. —Michael Main
Hazel to Five: If you want to live, come with me.”
All seven siblings of the Umbrella Academy walk in a straight line in their blue uniforms over a background of 1960s psychedelic black lines.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Season

The Umbrella Academy, Season 3

  • 0
  • (Netflix, 22 June 2022)
After stopping the JFK-induced apocalypse in Season 2, the six Umbrella siblings return to 2019 where they no longer exist and their still-living father has founded The Sparrow Academy in their stead. —Michael Main
Well, someone killed our mothers, so we shouldn’t exist, but clearly we do exist, and the universe can’t handle it, which is a problem.
The six living siblings of the Umbrella Academy gather in colorful garb on a luggage rack along with their dead brother and new friend from 1963.
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Totally Killer

It’s fortunate that Jamie’s best friend in high school is building a time machine so that Jamie can go back to when Mom was in high school to stop the serial killer who killed Mom’s three friends—and just now killed Mom, too! —Michael Main
If your parents don’t get married and have kids, then basically you just have no life to go home to because everything woud be different. No one would have any idea who you are.
No image currently available.
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Strip

Frank & Ernest

Microwaves

. . . and this one is our top of the line
No image currently available.
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel