Time-Travel Fiction

  Storypilot’s Big List of Adventures in Time Travel


Operation Freedom
First publication: Six issues circa 1953
A group called the Institute of Fiscal and Political Education published a series of at least six giveaway comic books to extol the virtues of America and democracy. Some were printed with blue and red ink with nice halftones, and others were black and white. I don’t know many details, but Lone Star Comics says that Joshua Strong goes back in time to explain issues such as the right to free speech and press (in issue #5). [Jun 2012]

We must never forget our rights are based on our FAITH IN GOD. We claim them in Jefferson’s words, Not under the charters of kinds or legislatures, but under the King of Kings.
—from the first issue

Button Gwinnett plays the title role in this story.
“Button, Button”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: Startling Stories, Jan 1953
Harry Smith has an eccentric scientist uncle who needs to make some money from his astonishing invention that can bring one gram of material from the past. [Jul 1976]

Do you remember the time a few weeks back when all of upper Manhattan and the Bronx were without electricity for twelve hours because of the damndest overload cut-off in the main power board? I won’t say we did that, because I am in no mood to be sued for damages. But I will say this: The electricity went off when my uncle Otton turned the third knob.


“Who’s Cribbing”
by Jack Lewis
First publication: Startling Stories, Jan 1953
Jack Lewis finds that all his story submissions are being returned to him with accusations of plagerizing the great, late Todd Thromberry, but Lewis has another explanation. [Jan 2012]

Dear Mr. Lewis,
   We think you should consult a psychiatrist.
Sincerely,
Doyle P. Gates
Science Fiction Editor
Deep Space Magazine


“Dominoes”
by C.M. Kornbluth
First publication: Star Science Fiction Stories, Feb 1953
Stock broker W.J. Born jumps two years into the future to find out when the big crash is coming. [Apr 2012]

A two-year forecast on the market was worth a billion!


“Death Ship”
by Richard Matheson
First publication: Fantastic Story Magazine, Mar 1953
This story is in The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century, so it’s gotta have time travel, right? For me, though, it was a Flying Dutchman story with the heroes’ ghosts visiting their own crash site in normal time fashion, and at the end of the Twilight Zone version, the ghosts appear to be in a time loop, doomed to repeated visits to the same crash site without necessarily traveling through time. [Jul 2011]

Nothing from Ross. Nothing from any of them then but stares and shuddering breaths.
    Because the twisted bodies on the floor were theirs, all three of them.
    And all three...dead.


“The Old Die Rich”
by H.L. Gold
First publication: Galaxy Science Fiction, Mar 1953
Dang those drop-dead beautiful, naked redheads with a gun and a time machine! How did actor Mark Weldon start out investigating the starvation deaths of rich, old vagrants and end up at the wrong end of a derringer being forced into a time machine invented by Miss Robert’s mad scientist father? [Jan 2012]

She had the gun in her hand. I went into the mesh cage, not knowing what to expect and yet too afraid of her to refuse. I didn’t want to wind up dead of starvation, no matter how much money she gave me—but I didn”t want to get shot, either.


“The Other Inauguration”
by Anthony Boucher
First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mar 1953
Usually, when I start a story, I already know if it has time travel in the plot, but occassionally I’m surprised when the temporal antics arise, as in this story of Peter Lanroyd’ attempt to change the outcome of a presidental election that’s stolen by an ideologue. (No, no--—not the year 2000. This is a fictional tale.) [Jan 2013]

To any man even remotely interested in politics, let alone one as involved as I am, every 1st Tue of every 4th Nov must seem like one of the crucial if-points of history.


“Infinite Intruder”
by Alan E. Nourse
First publication: Space Science Fiction, Jul 1953
Since the 4-day atomic war of 2078, Roger Strang has been working on the Barrier Project to build an electronic barrier against missles, but now someone is trying to kill his 12-year-old son with attacks that seemingly succeed but don’t, while any records of his own background have been erased, as if he had never even lived, at least not in the 21st century. As a bonus, the story also has a grandfather paradox. [May 2012]

The theory said that a man returning through time could alter the social and technological trends of the people and times to which he returned, in order to change history that was already past.


ACE Comics
published by Aaron A. Wyn and Rose Wyn
First time travel: Baffling Mysteries 18, Nov 1953

Ace Comics published a couple dozen anthology comic titles between 1940 and 1956. The only time travel that I’ve spotted so far was in Baffling Mysteries 18. [Jun 2012]

I am Chronos, the spirit of time! Do not destroy the sacred sun dial! Come closer and I shall initiate you into the mysteries of time which you pursue so hotly.


Black Magic
edited by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon
First time travel: Black Magic #27, Nov 1953

Simon and Kirby put together the Black Magic horror comic for Prize Comics in the fifties, and there was at least one time-travel story, “A Hole in His Head” by none other than an early Steve Ditko. That story was based on a 1951 tv episode of Lights Out (“And Adam Begot”) written by Arch Oboler and taken from the 1939 radio show Arch Oboler’s Plays. [Apr 2012]

Somehow we have stepped out of our own time into another.
—from “A Hole in His Head”


“Hall of Mirrors”
by Fredric Brown
First publication: Galaxy Science Fiction, Dec 1953
You have invented a time machine of sorts that can, at any time, replace yourself with an exact duplicate of your body—and mind—from any time in the past. [Jul 2011]

They didn’t use that style of furniture in Los Angeles—or anywhere else that you know of—in 1954. That thing over there in the corner—you can’t even guess what it is. So might your grandfather, at your age, have looked at a television.

11 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)