Time travel stories to the past are the most common. These stories have a lot to say about culture shock of a particularly insidious kind. There is a natural tendency to romanticize the past or at least smooth over the rough and disagreeable reality. Good time travel stories to the past take a contemporary protagonist and thrust them into that past reality and shine a light on what it was really like.
Kindred by Octavia Butler - most of Butler's books are futuristic sci-fi but this one is a time travel story that follows Dana a modern black woman who is repeatedly pulled through time and space into the antebellum South. In the past she lives in the slave quarters of a large plantation until she returns to modern times. Each visit to the past is longer and the situation becomes progressively more dangerous for her.
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - Kivrin, a historical researcher from the future, travels to 14th century Europe to observe one of the deadliest eras in history. She's been innoculated against all the various plagues and speaks the appropriate dialects, yet she is a single woman traveling Europe during a time when social constructs made women particularly vulnerable. All goes well, until an unlikely crisis strands her in the past. Can Kivrin survive until she is rescued by her instructors in the future?
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - this deserves a place in the discussion because it's important to the genre but it's different in the sense that the novel is mainly a satire. Hank Morgan is bashed in the head by a crowbar in the nineteenth century and wakes up in the England of King Arthur's court. Obviously confused, he soon finds himself in trouble and is sentenced to death. He uses his understanding of eclipses to evade execution and convince the populace that he's really a powerful magician. It gets him out of his bind but causes a bevy of new problems.
When We Wake by Karen Healey - Tegan Oglietti is a pretty normal teenager from Australia in our near future. She has a boyfriend and a best friend. She's happiest when playing guitar. One day she goes to a protest where the Prime Minister is going to speak and she dies. She wakes up 100 years later after being cryogenically preserved and physically restored. The future isn't a friendly place. Some things are better, but many things have gotten worse and Tegan finds herself caught in a conspiracy controlled by the most powerful people in her country.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - first published in 1895, this is one of the first time travel novels written. Our narrator builds a machine and travels 800,000 years into the future where he encounters a seemingly utopian society of the Eloi. When he tries to return to his own time, he discovers that his time machine has been stolen and there is a sinister opposite to the Eloi.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - The leaders of Earth have decided on a war with a distant alien force. So they build interstellar ships and load up an elite military unit which includes Private William Mandella. So he and his unit make the 1000 year trip at near the speed of light. They fight their battle and return to Earth. However, because of time dilation, they've aged months while humanity has both developed and changed by centuries. What will become of these relics from the past?
Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - this is really more of love story in a really untraditional way. Clare Abshire is an artist who is for the most part living a pretty typical life until she meets Henry DeTamble. Henry has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to randomly travel through time to different points in his own time line. Henry has no control of this and is often landed in dangerous situations as a result. Henry and Clare fall in love, but it's a love that is tested over and over again.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut - So this is really more a book explore the disorientation of war, however to do so the main protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is set adrift in time. It's really not my favorite of Vonnegut's books but it does use the idea of time travel to make some interesting observations.
Some examples:
Kindred by Octavia Butler - most of Butler's books are futuristic sci-fi but this one is a time travel story that follows Dana a modern black woman who is repeatedly pulled through time and space into the antebellum South. In the past she lives in the slave quarters of a large plantation until she returns to modern times. Each visit to the past is longer and the situation becomes progressively more dangerous for her.
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - Kivrin, a historical researcher from the future, travels to 14th century Europe to observe one of the deadliest eras in history. She's been innoculated against all the various plagues and speaks the appropriate dialects, yet she is a single woman traveling Europe during a time when social constructs made women particularly vulnerable. All goes well, until an unlikely crisis strands her in the past. Can Kivrin survive until she is rescued by her instructors in the future?
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - this deserves a place in the discussion because it's important to the genre but it's different in the sense that the novel is mainly a satire. Hank Morgan is bashed in the head by a crowbar in the nineteenth century and wakes up in the England of King Arthur's court. Obviously confused, he soon finds himself in trouble and is sentenced to death. He uses his understanding of eclipses to evade execution and convince the populace that he's really a powerful magician. It gets him out of his bind but causes a bevy of new problems.
Unlike time travel to the past, time travel to the future doesn't necessarily need an outrageous or supernatural cause. After all, if you think about it, we are all time travelers we just do it very slowly and only in one direction. These books almost always deal with an appalling future with society or technology (or both) gone amok. These books tend to read like chilling warnings half the time but are still highly entertaining.
Some examples:
When We Wake by Karen Healey - Tegan Oglietti is a pretty normal teenager from Australia in our near future. She has a boyfriend and a best friend. She's happiest when playing guitar. One day she goes to a protest where the Prime Minister is going to speak and she dies. She wakes up 100 years later after being cryogenically preserved and physically restored. The future isn't a friendly place. Some things are better, but many things have gotten worse and Tegan finds herself caught in a conspiracy controlled by the most powerful people in her country.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - first published in 1895, this is one of the first time travel novels written. Our narrator builds a machine and travels 800,000 years into the future where he encounters a seemingly utopian society of the Eloi. When he tries to return to his own time, he discovers that his time machine has been stolen and there is a sinister opposite to the Eloi.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - The leaders of Earth have decided on a war with a distant alien force. So they build interstellar ships and load up an elite military unit which includes Private William Mandella. So he and his unit make the 1000 year trip at near the speed of light. They fight their battle and return to Earth. However, because of time dilation, they've aged months while humanity has both developed and changed by centuries. What will become of these relics from the past?
There are occasional outliers though. A few novels have had a time traveler who moves in both directions. The result tends to be disorientating and the good examples fold that disorientation into the themes of the narrative.
A couple examples:
Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - this is really more of love story in a really untraditional way. Clare Abshire is an artist who is for the most part living a pretty typical life until she meets Henry DeTamble. Henry has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to randomly travel through time to different points in his own time line. Henry has no control of this and is often landed in dangerous situations as a result. Henry and Clare fall in love, but it's a love that is tested over and over again.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut - So this is really more a book explore the disorientation of war, however to do so the main protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is set adrift in time. It's really not my favorite of Vonnegut's books but it does use the idea of time travel to make some interesting observations.
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