Time-Travel Fiction

  Storypilot’s Big List of Adventures in Time Travel


“The Chronokinesis of Jonathan Hull”
by Anthony Boucher
First publication: Astounding Science Fiction, Jun 1946
Private Eye Fergus O’Breen is back for his third and final encounter with time travel, this time with a time traveler who shows up dead in his room one day and is alive and walking in a stilted manner the next. In the process of explaining himself, the traveler also displays knowledge of Boucher’ traveler in “Barrier” and also of Breen’s other time travel encounters. [Dec 2012]

And now, I realize, Mr. O’Breen, why I was inclined to trust you the moment I saw yoiur card. It was through a fortunately preserved letter of your sister’s, which found its way into our archives, that we knew of the early fiasco of Harrison Partridge and your part therein. We knew, too, of the researches of Dr. Derringer, and how he gave up in despair after his time traveler failed to return, having encountered who knows what unimaginable future barrier.


“Film Library”
by A.E. van Vogt
First publication: Astounding Science Fiction, Jul 1946
Each time a film goes through Peter Caxton’s projector at Tichenor Collegiate, it gets replaced with a different film from the future.

Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future. [Apr 2012]

Not that he would necessarily have suspected anyway that he had come into possession of films that had been made more than fifty years in the future.


Prize Comics’ Frankenstein
by Dirk Briefer
First time travel: Jul 1946

I’m always on the lookout for early depictions outside of sf with a climb-in-able time machine where you set the dials and go. Briefer’s humorous Frankenstein had just a such a machine in a 9-page story in issue #3 (Jul 1946). Frankenstein runs into Professor Goniph, and they travel in his machine to 2046 and 1646, although there is a twist at the end. [Jan 2012]

It works!! It works!!! I am a genius!! We are in 2046!!!

The story also appears in Worlds of George O.
“Blind Time”
by George O. Smith
First publication: Astounding Science Fiction, Sep 1946
Oak Tool Works has developed a handy time treatment whereby a portion of any tool can be sent into the future for a limited time, but it's movements during that time must exactly mirror the movements of the rest of the tool during the current time. Peter Wright is the insurance adjuster who must examine an accident that the treatment is going to cause at 8pm. [Mar 2012]

There is that element of wonder, too, you know. Every man in the place knows that someone is going to get clipped with that crane.


“Vintage Season”
by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore
First publication: Astounding Science Fiction, Sep 1946
More and more strange people are appearing each day in and around Oliver Wilson’s home; the explanation from the euphoric redhead leads him to believe they are time travelers gathering for an important event. [Jun 2011]

Looking backward later, Oliver thought that in that moment, for the first time clearly, he began to suspect the truth. But he had no time to ponder it, for after the brief instant of enmity the three people from—elsewhere—began to speak all at once, as if in a belated attempt to cover something they did not want noticed.


Timely Comics
founded by Martin Goodman
First time travel: All Winners Comics 21, Winter ’46-47
Timely was the predecessor to Atlas which became Marvel Comics in the ’60s. Some of their superheroes survived that transition (Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, and an android Human Torch, among others). I’ve only begun to dig up their time travel, finding one issue of All Winners Comics where Captain America and the All Winners Squad do battle with a man from 1,000,000 A.D. Also, in 1948, the Timely superhuman, comical boxer, Powerhouse Pepper, visited the pilgrims via time machine (#4, Sep 1948). [Jun 2012]

Project yourselves for into the fture...to the year one million A.D. The Earth is almost unfit for human life!
—Captain America in All Winners Comics 21

6 items are in the time-travel list for this year.
Thanks for visiting my time-travel page, and thanks to the many sources that provided stories and more (see the Links in the menu at the top). —Michael (main@colorado.edu)