Rescue after the Fact

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Novelette

Time Patrol 4

The Only Game in Town


While on a two-man mission to stop a Mongol party from exploring North America in AD 1280, Patrolman John Sandoval gets a cracked skull, which leaves Manse Everard to figure out a way to save John and the mission while waxing philosophical about time travel and the Time Patrol. —Michael Main
Thin lightnings winked from above. The cloven air boomed behind them. He felt a chill, deeper than the night cold. But he eased his pace. There was no more reason for hurry.
No image currently available.
  • Undetermined
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Time Patrol 4

The Only Game in Town


While on a two-man mission to stop a Mongol party from exploring North America in AD 1280, Patrolman John Sandoval gets a cracked skull, which leaves Manse Everard to figure out a way to save John and the mission while waxing philosophical about time travel and the Time Patrol. —Michael Main
Thin lightnings winked from above. The cloven air boomed behind them. He felt a chill, deeper than the night cold. But he eased his pace. There was no more reason for hurry.
No image currently available.
  • Undetermined
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Time Patrol 5

Gibraltar Falls

  • by Poul Anderson
  • in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1975

As part of an crew assigned to crew to observe the filling of the Mediterranean from the Atlantic in the late Micene, Patrolman Tom Nomura breaks the rules to use time travel to rescue Feliz a Rach when she’s swept over the falls. —Michael Main
The Mediterranean floor lay ten thousand feet below sea level. The inflow took most of that drop within a fifty-mile strait. Its volume amounted to ten thousand cubic miles a year, a hundred Victoria Falls or a thousand Niagaras.
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Artemis Fowl, Book #6

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox

  • by Eoin Colfer
  • (Hyperion Books for Children, July 2008)

When fourteen-year-old genius Artemis Fowl realizes that the only cure for his mother’s case of Spelltropy lies in a species of lemur that Artemis made extinct eight years ago, there is only one solution: Grab your 80-year-old, elfin-police-captain-friend Holly Short and trick her into traveling back in time to stop your formerly evil, ten-year-old self from killing off the last of the all-cure lemurs.

Author Eoin Colfer does a masterful job presenting a single nonbranching, static timeline, complete with three consistent causal loops (further described in our tag notes for this story). But really, Eoin, you missed the shuttle on “the kiss”! With the help of N°1, Artemis can time travel, so if you're intent on his first romantic kiss coming from Holly Short, couldn’t N°1 have brought Holly’s actual fourteen-year-old self into the story? Might have even presented an opportunity for a fourth causal loop: Fourteen-year-old Holly kissees fourteen-year-old Artemis, but only because fifteen-year-old Artemis had already told thirteen-year-old Holly that they would enjoy it. —Michael Main
Oh, bless my bum-flap. You’re time travelers.
A boy clutching a lemur and followed by a smaller version of himself is blown
                out of the page by a yellow explosion.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite 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
Novella

I Hate Time Travellers

  • by Lee J Isserow
  • (ABAM.info, March 2016) [audio reading]

Turns out the Luke is one of the few people on Earth who didn’t get involuntarily evolved into a time traveler. —Michael Main
All of them except Luke Denton and around a thousand other souls who’d been left behind whilst the rest of the human race were evolved against their will, by a force conspiracy theorists around the world had put down to anything from governmental to extra terrestrial tinkering.
The words "I Hate Time Travellers" in block letters in front of a pink vortex.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • 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
Early Chapter Book

Press Start! 9

Super Rabbit Boy’s Time Jump!


A superhero rabbit from a low-resolution handheld video game fights his arch-nemesis, King Viking, who plans to stop Baby Rabbit Boy from ever getting superpowers. —Michael Main
I built this Super Mega Robot Time Machine to use the Time Crystal’s power. That means I can travel through time!
Two low-resolution video game rabbits swirl into a vortex along with four
                clocks.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Miniseries

16 episodes

시지프스: The Myth

  • Sisyphus: The Myth
  • Sisyphus: The myth
  • Sisyphus: The Myth
  • by 전찬호 and 이제인, directed by 진혁
  • 16 untitled episodes (JTBC-TV, Korea, 17 February to 8 April 2021)

Young genius Han Tae-sul is the focus of dangerous people and a mysterious woman—Gang Seo-hae—from a war-torn near future.

Sadly, the story comes close to being a slick static timeline, but alas, the writers could not follow through. —Michael Main
The Downloader is a real piece of work. There’s only a ten percent chance of success, eh? And even if they make it, half of them get caught by the Control Bureau.
A static-y head shot of Park Shin-Hye (as Gang Seo Hae) with long black hair
                and a worried look.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel