Time-Travel Fiction

  Storypilot’s Big List of Adventures in Time Travel


“The Instability”
by Isaac Asimov
First publication: The London Observer, 1 Jan 1989
Professor Firebrenner explains to Atkins how they can go forward in time to study a red dwarf and then return back to Earth. [-] [Dec 1999]

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon (Stephen Herek, director)
First release: 17 Feb 1989
The Two Great Ones, Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted “Theodore” Logan, are the subjects of time-traveler Rufus’s mission, but instead they end up using his machine to write a history report to save their band Wyld Stallyns. [-] [Jul 2010]

Most excellent!


Quantum Leap
created by Donald Bellisario
First aired: 26 Mar 1989
Physicist and all-around good guy Sam Beckett rushes his time machine into production—funding is about to be cut!—and as a consequence, he shifts from one life to another, always with a moral mission and his holographic cohort Al. [-] [Mar 1989]

Oh boy!


“The Price of Oranges”
by Nancy Kress
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apr 1989
Harry’s closet takes him back to 1937 where his social security income buys cheaper oranges, treats for his friend Manny, and possibly a companionable man for his jaded granddaughter Jackie. [-] [May 1989]

Field of Dreams
by Phil Aldin Robinson
First release: 23 Apr 1989
Corn farmer Ray Kinsella is called to build a ballpark in his cornfield (with part of his calling resulting from a trip to 1972); once the field is built, various ballplayers from the past come. [-] [Dec 1992]

If you build it, they will come.


Mixed Doubles
by Daniel da Cruz
First publication: Aug 1989
Justin Pope, a music major (like Paul Eisebrey!), stumbles upon a time machine that he uses to kidnap Franz Schubert from his deathbed; Pope cures Franz and uses him as a source of compositions to create a magnificent career of his own (with the help of Angelica), until Franz turns the tables (with the help of Philipa).

Paul Eisenbrey introduced me to this author in college, but I found Mixed Doubles on my own some years later. [-] [May 1990]

Ray Bradbury Theater
created by Ray Bradbury
First time travel: 11 Aug 1989

Ray Bradbury Theater ran for two seasons on HBO starting 21 May 1985. It then shifted to the USA Network for four seasons which had three time-travel adaptations. [Mar 2012]

 TitleEvent 
A Sound of Thunder (11 Aug 1989)Dinosaur hunt
Touch of Petulance (12 Oct 1990)Newspaper from the future
The Toynbee Convector (26 Oct 1990)   100 years into the future


Dinosaurs large and small fill my junkyard workroom.
This one given to me by a friend 30 years ago. These given as toys to my daughters, and when they didn’t play with them I simply took them back. So with dinosaurs coming into my life, I often wondered what would happen if I could go back into theirs. Dinosaurs, time machines, put them together and you have a
tale one billion years old.
—Bradbury’s introduction to “A Sound of Thunder”


Millennium
by John Varley (Michael Anderson, director)
First release: 25 Aug 1989
Cheryl Ladd plays Louise Baltimore opposite Kris Kristopherson’s Bill Smith. [-] [Aug 2011]

Back to the Future II
by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale (Zemeckis, director)
First release: 3 Jul 1989
Doc Brown takes Marty and Jennifer from 1985 to 2015 to save their children from a bad fate, but the consequences pile up when Biff also gets in on the time-travel action. [-] [Jul 1989]

The time-traveling is just too dangerous. Better that I devote myself to study the other great mystery of the universe—women!

9 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)