From The and Readers’ Advisory: The Librarian’s Guide to , Aliens, and Sorcerers by Derek M. Buker. Copyright  2002 by the American Library Association. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce for nonprofit, educational purposes. Check out the book at the ALA Online Store (www.alastore.ala.org). 10 Travel

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future. —Robert A. Heinlein Everybody has at least one event that they would love to go back in time and change if they could. Some would like to go back to Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, and unload the bullet that was used to assassinate President Kennedy. Others would go back in time to Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and warn the officers of the impending Japanese attack. But this is not all that time-travel fiction is about. Other uses of include research (why go through all those his- torical documents and interviews with survivors when you can observe it firsthand?); entertainment (go back in time and walk like an Egyptian— literally); and as a place of residence (go back and live in the time of the American Civil War). There are two types of time-travel fiction: science fiction and fan- tasy. The key to understanding the difference between the two types is to recognize the manner of travel the character utilizes. If the character uses a machine, ability, or some other form of technology, then it is science fiction. If the character happens to trip over a magical toad- stool while touring Celtic sites in Ireland and wakes up in the past, then it is fantasy time travel. In other words, if the means of travel is mysti-

52 53 TIME TRAVEL cal or otherwise unexplained, then it is fantasy. Unfortunately, not many books are strictly fantasy time travel. A number of romance books utilize a fantasy time-travel component, but as these books con- centrate on the romance and just use time travel as a means of telling the story, they will not be included in this book.

SCIENCE-FICTION TIME TRAVEL

The Novels of the Company (series) by Kage Baker In the year 2335, the most powerful entity on the planet is a company called Dr. Zeus Incorporated. The Company became the most powerful entity because of two great discoveries—the secret to immortality and practical time travel. Some say that Dr. Zeus discovered immortality through time travel. In reality, the Company discovered time travel as the only way to test immortality. The Company then found the answer to a ques- tion that has perplexed scholars and philosophers alike: Can the past be changed? The answer is no. The Company then set out to send its agents backward in time to influence people to make the correct investments so that hundreds of years later, the Company has wealth beyond imagination. The Company also went into the past seeking agents who could be made immortal through cybernetic implants. These agents would then be trained to work for the Company. Mendoza is one of these agents, rescued from the Spanish Inquisition and trained as a botanist for the Company. Titles in the series: In the Garden of Iden, Sky Coyote, Mendoza in Hollywood, The Graveyard Game.

Kindred by Octavia Butler On her twenty-sixth birthday, an African- American writer named Dana Franklin receives a life-altering gift: She is sent back in time to the 1840s in the South. There she has to save the life of Rufus, the white son of a slave owner and, as Dana discovers, one of her ancestors. If she doesn’t save his life and allow him to rape his slave Alice Greenwood (her other ancestor), she will never be born. Dana is eventually made a slave herself and is initiated into the horrors of slavery. How will a modern woman react to slavery? 54 TIME TRAVEL

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by In the future, historians of the organization Pastwatch study his- tory in a new way: by watching it “live.” The observers can only watch as history unfolds; they can do nothing to intervene in past events. That is, until they realize that someone has done just that, changing the flow of history. What could the interveners have been trying to avoid? Can the damage be fixed, and, if so, what are the consequences of fixing the changes?

Timeline by Michael Crichton In 1999, archaeologists uncover a note from their team leader—the problem is that the paper and ink used to write the note date from 1357! It seems that the team leader has also been working on a time travel project utilizing and has become trapped in the past. Now it’s up to his students to launch a rescue party to recover the professor. But the rescuers have no idea what deadly surprises await them in the past.

The by As a history major, I find the ideas in this book fascinating. In the future, time travel is a tool for histori- cal research, allowing researchers to experience and observe history firsthand. (Why did I spend all that time pawing through pieces of paper when I was an undergraduate?) Student Kivrin Engles is mak- ing preparations to travel back to Christmas 1320. But before she can complete the preparations, and before her immunizations can take full effect, her departure time is moved up and she is sent back. Problems continue to arise for Kivrin when she discovers that she isn’t in 1320 but in 1348 on the eve of the Black Death, a massive out- break of bubonic plague. As Kivrin helps the victims of the plague, a mysterious plague strikes the future, endangering everything. Winner of the 1993 Hugo and 1992 Nebula Awards.

Other Recommended Titles The Depths of Time by Roger Time Scout Series by Robert MacBride Allen Aspirin and Linda Evans by The Time Ships by Stephen Catherine Asaro Baxter 55 TIME TRAVEL

Timelike Infinity by Stephen Summer of Love by Lisa Mason Baxter Saga of the Pliocene Exile (series) Eon by by Julian May by The Iron Bridge by David E. Psychoshop by and Morse Lost Millennium by Mike No Enemy but Time by Michael Moscoe Bishop Key out of Time by Andre Orion Series by Norton Downtiming the Night Side by Echoes in Time by Andre Jack L. Chalker Norton and Sherwood Smith Foreign Bodies by Stephen Door Number Three by Patrick Dedman O’Leary Time on My Hands by Peter The Gates of Time Series by Dan Delacorte Parkinson Days of Cain by J. R. Dunn The Complete Paratime by Far Edge of Darkness by Linda H. Beam Piper Evans Atlantis Found by R. Garcia Y. Time and Again by Jack Finney Roberts The Cross-Time Engineer Series The Virgin and the Dinosaurs by by Leo Frankowski R. Garcia Y. Roberts 12 Monkeys by Elizabeth Hand End of an Era by Robert J. by Sawyer Robert A. Heinlein Thebes of the Hundred Gates by A Very Strange Trip by L. Ron Hubbard and Dave Wolverton by H. G. The Seeds of Time by Kay Wells Kenyon To Say Nothing of the Dog by Corrupting Dr. Nice by John Connie Willis Kessel ’s Robots in Time Outpost by Scott Mackay Series by William F. Wu

DEREK’S PICK The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis 56 TIME TRAVEL

BEST PICK FOR THE RELUCTANT READER Timeline by Michael Crichton

FANTASY TIME TRAVEL

Lest Darkness Falls by L. Sprague De Camp Archaeologist Martin Padway knows more than anyone what happened in the world after the fall of the Roman Empire—a period known as the Dark Ages. Padway is in Rome in the 1930s when he is struck by lightning. When Padway awakens, he finds himself in the sixth century A.D.—just before the fall of the Roman Empire—with no apparent way back to his own time. Padway’s immediate concern is how to make a living in this new world. His next concern is to use his knowledge of history to stop the fall of the Roman Empire and thus avert the Dark Ages. Sequel: To Bring the .

The Dancers at the End of Time by This book is part of the Eternal Champions series, which explores the concept of chaos versus order, but you do not have to read any of the other books in the series to understand Dancers at the End of Time. In the far future, tech- nology has advanced to the point where humans have developed into beings with godlike powers and near immortality. These beings live at a place called the End of Time. One of these beings, Jherek Carnelian, has grown bored with his life because his people can grant any wish that they desire. Indeed, all of Jherek’s and his people’s time is spent in the pursuit of diversions, any diversion. The social structure of Jherek’s people is arranged around these pursuits; the people with the best diver- sions are the most influential and powerful in the society. Then a grand diversion enters Jherek’s life in the form of Mrs. Amelia Underwood, a traveler from Victorian England (1896, to be exact). Jherek decides to fall in love with Amelia, who does not return his favors because she is already married. This does not deter Jherek in the least and he contin- ues to pursue her, even journeying to 1896 England when she returns to her home. As Jherek’s fancy for Amelia turns to a deep and true love, he discovers that it wasn’t chance that brought them together in the End of Time—their meeting may have been part of a much larger plot. The 57 TIME TRAVEL

Dancers at the End of Time is actually comprised of three novels: An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, The End of All Songs.

Wolf King by Bridget Wood In the distant future, Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war. Its survivors try to eke out an existence from the ruined soil, while also trying to avoid the irradiated lands called the Glowing Lands. On the blasted island once known as Ireland, Joanna Grady and Flynn O’Connor dream of an Ireland they know only from myths and legends. Then Joanna learns that her father has arranged her marriage to a loutish neighbor, and she flees into the one place where no one will follow: the Glowing Lands. But she has not counted on Flynn pursuing her into the lands. There the two find themselves trans- ported backward in time to an Ireland that they’ve only dreamed about and to the court of the deadly Wolf King.

Other Recommended Titles Dracula Unbound by Brian Outlander Series by Diana Aldiss Gabaldon Frankenstein Unbound by Brian Mr. Was by Pete Hautman Aldiss Woman on the Edge of Time by Arthur, King by Dennis Lee Marge Piercy Anderson Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper Enchantment by Orson Scott The Family Tree by Sheri S. Card Tepper

DEREK’S PICK Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock

BEST PICK FOR THE RELUCTANT READER Lest Darkness Falls by L. Sprague De Camp