Time Travel Novels

## **Time Travel Genres**

### **Science Fiction**

Time travel is most prevalent in science fiction novels. The first prominent science fiction novel that includes Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy. Time travel is frequent in science fiction because the use of the trope adds further complications to the narrative and also allows the author to use more science to make their writing more credible. Science fiction and time travel were often used in the late nineteenth century to either predict the future or state a political belief.

### **Romance**

Time-travel romances are a version of the classic "fish out of water" story. In most, the heroine is from the present day and travels back to meet the hero. It is rarer for the hero, who generally lives in the past, to travel forward into his future to meet the heroine. A good time-travel romance has logical characters react to their experience and investigate some of the differences, both physical and mental, between the world the character normally lives in and the one where they landed. A common occurrence is to have the characters end up in different time periods, much to the reader’s displeasure. Diana Gabaldon has written many time travel romances.

### **Fantasy**

Time travel, although perhaps most closely associated with science fiction, was first created in fantasy novels. The first fantasy time travel novel was *Memoirs of the Twentieth Century* in 1733 by Samuel Madden. Time travel in fantasy can involve any number of means of transportation. These may include the use of ghosts, such as in Charles Dickens’ *A Christmas Carol*, or a Time Turner, like in *Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* by J. K. Rowling.

### **Historical Fiction**

Historical time travel fictio generally involves a character from the present going to the pat. They the will use their knowledge of history and their past to compare it with their observations. Although the settings of the novels may vary, they are usually set in times or locations that are important to history. Historical time travel is extremely popular with children, as it can be both entertaining and
informative.  The most prevalent example of this is The Magic Treehouse series by author Mary Pope Osborne.

Time travel, however, is not exclusive to these genres, or any genre. Many time travel novels have been thrillers, horror, noirs, and mysteries, but these four are perhaps the most popular.

Ebenezer Scrooge – He is the main character in Charles Dickens’ *A Christmas Carol*. He is portrayed as a stingy, old, selfish man who cares nothing of other people’s feelings whatsoever. One night, the ghost of his ex-business partner visits him and tells him that soon he must change his ways. Along the course of three nights, three ghosts come and take him to his past present and his future. The ghosts allow Scrooge to rethink his life, and finally persuade him to be more giving to others. The play ends with Scrooge being a man changed for the better.

The Time Traveller- He is the main character in H. G. Wells “The Time Machine.” He is described as an eccentric man who is far ahead of this time, which is shown because other people of his social class do not understand the concepts even once he tries to explain it. He is a great believe in science and is willing to sacrifice himself by willing to go to the future by himself. Here, he befriends an Eloi named Weena. Although he does develop a fatherly affection for Weena, he does show an aggressive side by snapping at her occasionally and taking his anger out on the primal Morlocks. He returns, after assuming that Weena died in a fire, and tells his story to his companions. Soon afterwards, he leaves on his time machine and does not return for at least three years, and he may have never returned. Not much is known of the Time Traveller. His name is never learned, and he is rather contradictory character. Because the story is filtered through a narrator, The Time Traveller being the storyteller, not much of the Time Traveller’s character is known.

Meg Murry – Meg Murry is the main character in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet. First appearing in *A Wrinkle in Time*, Meg is shown as a high school age girl who has low self-esteem. However, as the book progresses, she becomes more confident in her abilities and finally starts blossoming into the young woman that she was destined become.

Richard “Dick” Young- He is the main character of Daphne du Maurier’s novel, *The House on the Strand*. In the novel, he is shown to be a rather dull, but curious, man who has been thrown into the world of time travel by his friend. As the story progresses, the reader learns more about his personality.

Harry Potter – He is the main character in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. In the third book of the series, *Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*, he uses time travel to save his godfather, himself, and a friend’s pet.

Hermione Granger – She is one of the main characters in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. In the third book, she uses a magical hourglass to travel in time so that she can attend her all of her classes.

Jonah Skidmore – Jonah is the 13-year old main character in The Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix. He was a famous missing child or history that was kidnapped by time travelers and was sent to the twenty-first century. As the series progresses, he helps his friends find their rightful places in history as he finally discovers his own identity. Along the way, he becomes more determined and resourceful than he was before.

Hank “The Yankee” Morgan – He is the central character and narrator of Mark Twain’s *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court*. He is a practical, determined, clever man who understands right and wrong. He attempts to help others, but, as the book progresses, it will become apparent that destiny does not agree.

The Doctor – The Doctor is the title character of the Doctor Who universe, which includes novels, comics, movies, and a television show. He is an alien that looks like a human. Known for his ability to regenerate, The Doctor has had many companions and has traveled through time and space in his time machine, the T.A.R.D.I.S, which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.

## Summaries of Select Time Travel Novels

### The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is a romance novel about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to jump in time uncontrollably named Henry DeTamble and his wife Clare Anne Abshire. Henry DeTamble struggles with his Chrono-Impairment to have a normal life because he often transported into danger. He travels within his own timeline and meets his future wife many times. After they marry, Clare wishes to have a baby but Henry’s genetic anomaly is inherited by the fetus and she suffers six miscarriages until Henry decides to have a vasectomy to prevent causing her further pain. However, Clare becomes impregnated by a version of Henry from the past and she successfully gives birth to the baby and names her Alba. Alba also has chrono-impairment but she has better control of her time traveling ability than her father. Before she was born, Henry meets her in the future and learns that he dies when she’s five years old. During one of his time jumps in the last \year of his life, he suffers hypothermia and has to have his feet amputated, severely damaging his ability to survive during his uncontrollable time jumps. In another jump, Henry is accidentally shot by Clare’s brother and he returns to the present in time to die in Clare’s arms. The novel ends when Clare is nearing the end of her life and is visited by younger Henry; she still waits for him so many years later.

### The Time Machine

H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine starts with a group of men in The Time- Traveller’s house discussing time travel and the Time-Traveller’s time machine that he is building. They are skeptical of his time machine but the Time-Traveller demonstrates with a miniature time machine that disappears into thin air. When the narrator returns for another dinner, the Time-Traveller stumbles in looking disheveled. He begins telling his story of travelling to the year 802,701 AD where he finds the future descendents of the human race: the frail, childish Eloid that live in the sunlight and the ape-like Morlocks that reside underground. He attempts to learn as much as he can about the Eloid by living with them but he becomes concerned when his time machine disappears. He befriends an Eloid named Weena and becomes determined to take her back to the past with him. The Time-Traveller suspects that the Morlocks took his time machine and he uses matches that he brought and matches that he finds in a museum as weapons to get it back because of the Morlock’s blindness when encountered with fire. However, when ambushed by the Morlocks in his sleep, he sets the entire forest on fire and loses Weena so he suspects that she died in the fire and he leaves on his newly recovered time machine without her. He goes even further into the future and witnesses new species appearing and disappearing until he eventually returns to his present. After telling his story, the Time-Traveller sleeps and the next day he leaves and never returns.

### A Christmas Carol

Written by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol is a tale about a wretched, heartless man named Ebenezer Scrooge. He cares only for money, and treats everyone he knows with malice. The story takes place seven months after the death of Scrooge’s business partner, Jacob Marley. It is Christmas Eve and he calls Christmas “humbug”, refuses an invitation to a dinner from his nephew, and the only kindness he shows anyone is to his employee, to whom he gives Christmas Day off. That night, Scrooge is visited by Jacob Marley as well as the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. They send him forward and back and time, showing him his past and future. He learns that life can be better if he gives more happiness to others, he would be more happy himself. He also learns that if he doesn’t change his ways, he will be dead within a year. He decides to become nicer, end everyone is startled by, yet happy about, this change.

### The House on the Strand

This book is about the trips of Richard “Dick” Young into the past. His friend, Magnus, gives him some drugs that he developed,and he wants Dick to try them. They send the user into the 14th century. Richard becomes addicted over time, and he confuses the past with real life.

### The Missing Series

This series by Margaret Peterson Haddix follows the life of Jonah Skidmore, a teenaged adopted child who yearns to discover the identity of his biological parents. Jonah discovers the events of how he was adopted. A plane stewardess had found an unmarked plane with no pilots full of babies; the babies are then adopted. Jonah and his friend Chip, who just discovered that he was adopted, are invited to a convention for all of the children adopted from the plane. The children are then kidnapped by the time travelers who kidnapped them in the first place. The time travelers plan on selling the famous missing children of history to the rich people of the future. Jonah and the other children overpower the criminals, but then have to go back in time to fix history. Along the way, Jonah discovers the identities of his friends and himself, is successfully able to correct history while still allowing his friends to stay in their current time.

### A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

In Mark Twain’s satirical novel, The Yankee is a product of America in the 1800’s and detests the unfairness in of inherited rank and social status. He blames the Catholic Church for providing justifications for social inequality, and he wants to destroy the Church's potential for abuse by breaking it into separate sects that people could join at will. The Yankee is an idealist and believes firmly in the power of technology to improve people's lives and bring about positive social change. In the end, though, his desire to help people of the past backfired and he ends up changing history for the worse. After trusting the people of King Arthur’s time too much, his “friends” use the technology to their own advantage and the Yankee, Hank Morgan, is made a mockery. The story ends with the publication of Hank’s manuscript of the events millennia later.

### Guns of the South

The story deals with a group of time-traveling white supremacist members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging from an imagined 21st-century South Africa, who supply Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia with AK-47's and small amounts of other supplies (including nitroglycerine tablets for treating Lee's heart condition). Their intervention and technologies result in a Confederate victory in the war.

### A Wrinkle in Time

The story revolves around a young girl named Meg whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. She, her child-genius brother Charles and another boy named Calvin, with the help or three women named Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, use  the tesseract to “wrinkle time” and travel to a planet that is controlled by a dark force called the Black Thing. There they find their father, but meg’s brother falls under the mind-control force of the Black Thing, and Meg’s father ends up leaving Charles behind. Meg and Calvin have to go back to face the Black Thing, get her brother back, and reunite Meg’s family.