I'm a fan of Time Travel and was wondering if anyone can recommend any ebooks free or to buy.

Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove

1632 by Eric Flint

"All You Zombies-" Robert Heinlein (best time travel story ever, but not available as an ebook)

The Time Machine by HG Wells

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_in_fiction

Recently, I've read 3 books where the main character traveled through time during his sleep:
The Sleeper Awakes: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/593
Looking Backward: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/829
Golf in the Year 2000: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/1412

1632 by Eric Flint


Although 1632 is not a conventional time travel, it kinda is. A section of modern day USA gets kicked back to 1632 Germany. There are several ebooks in this series at www.baen.com (http://www.baen.com/) by Eric Flint.

You might also want to check out "Time Traders" + it's sequel at Baen. "Time Traders" is in their Free Library section.

From Simon & Schuster comes The Entropy Effect. A very good Star Trek book where time travel features prominently in the plot. Purchase the LIT and use CLIT to break the DRM. Then you can use lit2lrf or Book Designer to convert to LRF for the Sony Reader. And the price is only $2.99. Imagine that, a reasonably priced ebook.

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=479699

"All You Zombies-" Robert Heinlein (best time travel story ever, but not available as an ebook)

Agreed. Best "time travel paradox" book ever!

Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog is a great time travel story, and funny as heck too. The title comes from Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) and the guys from that novel make a cameo appearance in Willis' novel. The time traveller's go back to the Victorian era to look for the Bishop's Bird Stump that was lost when the Coventry Cathedral was destroyed in WWII for a powerful woman who is obssessed with rebuilding an exact replica of the old cathedral.

I hate to say this, being a man and all, but I thought the Time Travellers Wife was pretty good as well

H. Beam Piper's Paratime stories might be of interest to you. Try Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. They are not, strictly speaking, time travel stories, as they involve travel to alternate histories, but they are good reading in any case, and may appeal to you if you like time travel stories. I would also suggest Larry Niven's Rainbow Mars for time travel humor. Some of Spider Robinson's "Callahan" stories involve time travel, usually in a very silly way. Leo Frankowski has a series starting with Cross-Time Engineer that you might try. Another Star Trek book to consider is Barbara Hambly's Ishmael. Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch addresses some interesting ethical issues with time travel (though I think he squeaks out of answering some of the questions he raises).

Happy reading!

Time Traders by Andre Norton (I think this is the first of a series). Available as a freebie from manybooks & probably project G. Or else Baen. Got that memory thing going this morning - crs disease.

Time Traders by Andre Norton (I think this is the first of a series). Available as a freebie from manybooks & probably project G. Or else Baen. Got that memory thing going this morning - crs disease.

http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/view_book/859

Maybe it would be a nice idea to make a list about "Time Travel" on Feedbooks ?

Maybe it would be a nice idea to make a list about "Time Travel" on Feedbooks ? Great idea Hadrien

Thx guys every suggestion taken on board :book2:

Great idea Hadrien

Thx guys every suggestion taken on board :book2:

Here it is: http://www.feedbooks.com/list/view/13

I also found "Key out of time" from Norton. If you see any other book about time traveling on Feedbooks, or any additional public domain books, I can easily add them to the list (pretty useful way to group books together).

A great collection of time travel stories (mostly longer ones, actually) is "The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century: Stories by Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Finney, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin" edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg. It's available at the Connect Store.

If you also like anachronism stories, you might like Jerry Pournelle's Janissaries. It is not time travel, but has a similar feel (some modern soldiers are transported to a world that has been previously populated by batches of humans from earlier phases of Earth's history, and for some reason they haven't progressed).

Ubik by Philip K Dick is built in a twisted time scheme. There was a discussion on his works here (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12199&highlight=ubik).

How about the first one I ever read :) "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court"
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/t#a53

or Poul Anderson's Time Patrol novels.. can find at Baen Free Books
except this particular one and the others in the series are 5 bucks. In fact, you can find quite a few of the books there cheaply, like the Andre Norton ones someone else listed.
http://www.baen.com

My favorite though is still Connie Willis and "To Say Nothing of the Dog" which someone else suggested. A number of hers deal with time travel. The Doomsday Book is another, dealing with the plague in the middle ages England.

"Planet Of The Apes" by Pierre Boulle was actually a far better book than the cheesy movie it has long been.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (of the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer) is fascinating. The main char dies and winds up somewhere populated by everyone who has ever died on earth. It's different :)

Gordon Dickson's Time storm
Robert Adam's Castaways In Time
Julian May's The Many Colored Land
Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/139

Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Land That Time Forgot
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/551

David Drake's Time Safari
R A MacAvoy's The Book of Kells
Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Realtime (bobbling forward not backward like most) Can also be found in the omnibus "Across Realtime" with a short story and another time travel novel of his.

Joshua Dann's Timeshare, easy to read escapist :)

This title may be copyrighted and has been temporarily removed.

Don

___________________________--


Did someone say robert heinlein's ALL YOU ZOMBIES was not in ebook format?

i have a copy i scanned in a while back

hope its ok to post it

Did someone say robert heinlein's ALL YOU ZOMBIES was not in ebook format?

i have a copy i scanned in a while back

hope its ok to post it

I really doubt that this is legal.

Did someone say robert heinlein's ALL YOU ZOMBIES was not in ebook format?

i have a copy i scanned in a while back

hope its ok to post it

This is almost certainly not legal. You need to take it down.

Thanks for posting it, though. :grin2:

I'm partial to Keith Laumer and he has quite some great time stories. The best of them is probably The Dinosaur Beach, available in Odyssey collection:
http://www.webscription.net/p-301-odyssey.aspx
The Lighter Side has several of more light-hearted stories. I especially liked The Great Time Machine Hoax.
http://www.webscription.net/p-249-the-lighter-side.aspx
Then there's the Imperium series:
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/13-TheBalticWarCD/TheBalticWarCD/Imperium/

Did someone say robert heinlein's ALL YOU ZOMBIES was not in ebook format?

i have a copy i scanned in a while back

hope its ok to post it

No it is NOT OK to post it. We do not "do" stealing books here. This is a strictly legit site.

Zelazny's Roadmarks is also a time travel story. Sorta.

Clifford Simak also wrote a number of short stories that involved time travel, though the titles don't come to me offhand.

Another Heinlein time travel story is the novel The Door into Summer, which is one of my all-time favorites. (I can't imagine how I forgot to list it earlier!)

So many books, so little time.....

:mrrox:

Best time travel book ever bar none is "The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold of 'the trouble with tribbles' fame

Best time travel book ever bar none is "The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold of 'the trouble with tribbles' fame

It's very good yes, but clearly very heavily influenced by "All You Zombies", which was in turn a development of Heinlein's earlier story "By His Bootstraps".

i am very sorry DON or mobile read administrators i did not realise i had broken copywrite since i wrote it in myself and it is not in ebook format.

will not happen again

it is a great book though

love time travel books

Let's not forget the great classic short stories:
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury and Vintage Season by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore.

Nobody mentioned the enormous library of Doctor Who books. I mean he *is* a time and space traveller. :smack:

I liked "The Anubis Gate," thouugh I'm not sure if it's available as an eBook. Fun read (read it twice)!

Don't forget Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!

Timeline by Michael Crichton
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter (a sequel to H.G. Wells' Time Machine)
Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle
A World Out of Time by Larry Niven
Lest Darkness Fal by L Sprague DeCamp (a history professor is swept back in time and has a chance to save the Roman Empire)

These aren't really SciFi:
Time and Again by Jack Finney
Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

Spider Robinson wrote a great short story about someone going back in time to prevent Heinlein from contracting tuberculosis-- to prevent the invention of science fiction! Things don't work out as planned, of course. ;)

I can't find it right now, but I did find a really great story he wrote about copyright law. It won a Hugo award. I can't believe I hadn't read it before today. http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html

Hah, I've read so many in this genre (one of my favorites!), but I cannot seem to recall any off the top of my head. There have been quite a few good ones, and several slow ones to boot, such fun to read and imagine. I know a few people here have recommended Heinlein, most of his books have been fairly tough reads for me, as they just don't seem to pick up enough momentum for my taste. I've read a few Simak books when I was younger, but they also don't seem to grab me too much nowadays, I guess I've switched over to hard SF that makes plays off of existing technology so it's difficult to really enjoy very old novels (I guess classic SF) when they're tech is so different from the newer stuff or maybe it's their writing styles or maybe something simpler, such as my literary tastes have changed?

Good thing there are so many to chose from, don't have to stick with something that doesn't grab my interest! :)

Spider Robinson wrote a great short story about someone going back in time to prevent Heinlein from contracting tuberculosis-- to prevent the invention of science fiction! Things don't work out as planned, of course. ;)

I can't find it right now, but I did find a really great story he wrote about copyright law. It won a Hugo award. I can't believe I hadn't read it before today. http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html


The Return of William Proxmire

I think it's the best alternate history story ever.

You can find it in either Playgrounds of the Mind, or N-Space. I forget which one.

Spider Robinson wrote a great short story about someone going back in time to prevent Heinlein from contracting tuberculosis-- to prevent the invention of science fiction! Things don't work out as planned, of course. ;)

I can't find it right now, but I did find a really great story he wrote about copyright law. It won a Hugo award. I can't believe I hadn't read it before today. http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html


The Return of William Proxmire

I think it's the best alternate history story ever.

You can find it in either Playgrounds of the Mind, or N-Space. I forget which one.

This is a great topic! I can't wait to track some of these down in e-book or otherwise.

I don't know about e-book availability, but I recommend the following time travel stories:

Time Out of Mind by Pierre Boulle (Anthology of short stories, Time Out of Mind is one of the stories)

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (short story - I see Ben recommended this already)

I also liked the Time Traveller's Wife.

Betty

This is one of the best sites I have found dealing with Tiime Travel/Alternate History. I have been going here for years and always find great insights, reviews and ideas for new books.
Try it. http://www.uchronia.net/

...I also liked the Time Traveller's Wife...

Betty

...by Audrey Niffenegger. I had forgotten about that one. She was recommended by the Royal British Association of Librarians... if I got that right.

My personal favorite time travel stories are The Man Who Folded Himself and End of Eternity.

This is one of the best sites I have found dealing with Tiime Travel/Alternate History. I have been going here for years and always find great insights, reviews and ideas for new books.
Try it. http://www.uchronia.net/

Thx for the link :2thumbsup

There's the Conrad Stargard series, which begins with The Cross Time Engineer. Here's the description from Amazon: One moment Conrad Schwartz was suffering from a severe hangover as he hiked through the mountains of present-day Poland, the next he was running for his life from an angry Teutonic knight. Things went downhill from there, and he finally had to face the disheartening fact he had somehow been stranded in 1231 A.D. He would have been happier if he had known less history. But there was very bad news in his new future, so he set out to turn Medieval Poland into the most powerful country in the thirteenth century. It wouldn't be easy. He would be investigated by the Inquisition, be knighted, round up vassals, build a city, survive armed combat with the Champion of the Teutonic Knights, invent the steam engine and cloth factories, establish universal education, and organize an army. He needed the army most of all, because he knew that the Mongol hordes would attack in only ten years and destroy Medieval Poland-and that would really mess up Conrad's life.

And I'm thinking of some other series, but the authors' names and the books' titles aren't coming to mind at the moment. I'll get back to you

I really enjoyed the collaborative efforts of Robert Asprin and Linda Evans in the Time Travel sub-genre. The four book Time Scout series is quite good (if you don't mind a few logistical holes that are kinda glossed over -- I didn't notice most of them until I was re-reading the books).

The titles are Time Scout, Wagers of Sin, Ripping Time, and The House That Jack Built. The last two are available as e-books from Baen. I've asked if they plan to release the first two as e-books as well, and the reply was to the effect of: "maybe eventually." The last two also deal with Jack the Ripper, so if you're interested in that topic .... It's fiction of course, but it's still quite an interesting fictional take on that mystery.

Another, totally separate time travel novel by those same two authors (also e-available from Baen) is a book called For King and Country. A very good read, that one.

Also possibly of interest is the Dragon Knight series by Phillip K. Dick. The first one is The Dragon And The George, I'll let you consult Amazon for the rest of the titles. I don't believe those are e-available, though (I'd like to find out I'm wrong!)

And of course, Michael Creighton's Timeline and Sphere are good reads (much better than the movies), and they both pre-date his politicized period. I don't know if those are e-vailable or not. :shrug:

I really enjoyed the collaborative efforts of Robert Asprin and Linda Evans in the Time Travel sub-genre. The four book Time Scout series is quite good (if you don't mind a few logistical holes that are kinda glossed over -- I didn't notice most of them until I was re-reading the books).

The titles are Time Scout, Wagers of Sin, Ripping Time, and The House That Jack Built. The last two are available as e-books from Baen. I've asked if they plan to release the first two as e-books as well, and the reply was to the effect of: "maybe eventually." The last two also deal with Jack the Ripper, so if you're interested in that topic .... It's fiction of course, but it's still quite an interesting fictional take on that mystery.

Another, totally separate time travel novel by those same two authors (also e-available from Baen) is a book called For King and Country. A very good read, that one.

Also possibly of interest is the Dragon Knight series by Phillip K. Dick. The first one is The Dragon And The George, I'll let you consult Amazon for the rest of the titles. I don't believe those are e-available, though (I'd like to find out I'm wrong!)

And of course, Michael Creighton's Timeline and Sphere are good reads (much better than the movies), and they both pre-date his politicized period. I don't know if those are e-vailable or not. :shrug:

There is a fifth one in the Time Scout series called ' License Invoked' :thumbsup:

There is a fifth one in the Time Scout series called ' License Invoked' :thumbsup:I didn't think that was part of the same series ... I thought it dealt with magic and dimensional rifts, rather than time travel ....

I guess I need to have another look at it. :)

I really enjoyed the collaborative efforts of Robert Asprin and Linda Evans in the Time Travel sub-genre. The four book Time Scout series is quite good (if you don't mind a few logistical holes that are kinda glossed over -- I didn't notice most of them until I was re-reading the books).



Nate, I tried those & just couldn't get into them. But then I hate Ray Bradbury's work too & others love it. Just one man's opinion. BTW I like the time travel idea in stories. Andre Norton wrote some of the best IMHO.

To each his own, Slayda. Personally I'm glad I'm not expected to like what everyone else likes. :nice:

You might find For King and Country more to your taste (but you also might not), it's a much more serious story than the Time Scout ones. Baen has a couple of free chapters (http://webscriptions.net/chapters/0743435397/0743435397.htm) up on the Webscriptions site, so you can sample it for free, if you care to. :pleased:

I really enjoyed the collaborative efforts of Robert Asprin and Linda Evans in the Time Travel sub-genre. The four book Time Scout series is quite good (if you don't mind a few logistical holes that are kinda glossed over -- I didn't notice most of them until I was re-reading the books).

The titles are Time Scout, Wagers of Sin, Ripping Time, and The House That Jack Built. The last two are available as e-books from Baen. I've asked if they plan to release the first two as e-books as well, and the reply was to the effect of: "maybe eventually." The last two also deal with Jack the Ripper, so if you're interested in that topic .... It's fiction of course, but it's still quite an interesting fictional take on that mystery.

Another, totally separate time travel novel by those same two authors (also e-available from Baen) is a book called For King and Country. A very good read, that one.

Also possibly of interest is the Dragon Knight series by Phillip K. Dick. The first one is The Dragon And The George, I'll let you consult Amazon for the rest of the titles. I don't believe those are e-available, though (I'd like to find out I'm wrong!)

And of course, Michael Creighton's Timeline and Sphere are good reads (much better than the movies), and they both pre-date his politicized period. I don't know if those are e-vailable or not. :shrug:

I believe The Dragon and the George is by Gordon Dickson rather than Philip K. Dick.

To each his own, Slayda. Personally I'm glad I'm not expected to like what everyone else likes. :nice:

You might find For King and Country more to your taste (but you also might not), it's a much more serious story than the Time Scout ones. Baen has a couple of free chapters (http://webscriptions.net/chapters/0743435397/0743435397.htm) up on the Webscriptions site, so you can sample it for free, if you care to. :pleased:

Thanks, Nate. I'll take a look. I had read some of Linda Evans that I liked. That's why I tried their Time Scout series.

I believe The Dragon and the George is by Gordon Dickson rather than Philip K. Dick.And I believe you are absolutely correct, BenG. :smack:

Thanks, Nate. I'll take a look. I had read some of Linda Evans that I liked. That's why I tried their Time Scout series.You're welcome, Slayda. :pleased:

Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog is a great time travel story, and funny as heck too. The title comes from Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)
I really enjoyed that one too. Another one of hers that I read a long time ago is "The Doomsday Book" which takes place mostly in the time of the great plague. Willis writes entertaining fiction that can be enjoyed by many. My daughter read "Doomsday" in the third grade. Willis is humorous and can handle devilishly complicated plot ideas quite well. She also does not fill her books with British idioms like some UK writers; a great relief to US readers.

Willis is humorous and can handle devilishly complicated plot ideas quite well. She also does not fill her books with British idioms like some UK writers; a great relief to US readers.Since Willis is not British, this should come as no surprise.

(I've met her. She's a very fine lady.)
______
Dennis

H. Beam Piper's Paratime stories might be of interest to you. Try Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. They are not, strictly speaking, time travel stories, as they involve travel to alternate histories,They are indeed time travel, but sideways, rather than forward or back.
______
Dennis

Since Willis is not British, this should come as no surprise.
Dennis
I am surprised. Both of her novels I read were set in England. That makes her work seem even more amazing! Her research goes into great depth.
Connie Willis has won six Nebula and Six Hugo Awards(more than any other science fiction writer) and the JohnW. Campbell Memorial Award for her first novel,Lincoln's Dreams. Her novel Doomsday Book won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, and her first short-story collection, Fire Watch, was a New York Times Notable Book.
From this site (http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/5595/willis/willis.html). See also this site (http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/sf/books/w/willis.htm).

http://www.locusmag.com/2003/Issue01/willis.jpg

I am surprised. Both of her novels I read were set in England. That makes her work seem even more amazing! Her research goes into great depth.She's American. She lives in Colorado with her husband Courtney, who is a physics professor at UNC. (She tells a funny story about Tolkien being responsible for her marriage. Many years ago as a college student, she took a flight to tell the guy she was dating she was breaking up with him. She took "The Lord of the Rings" to read while traveling. By the time her plane landed and her boyfriend picked her up, she'd forgotten completely about her reason for going, and all she could say was "Oh, Frodo and Sam are in deep trouble, and I don't trust that Gollum at all..." 40 years later, they're still together. :))

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Willis
http://www.sftv.org/cw/
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/5595/willis/willis.html
______
Dennis

Although 1632 is not a conventional time travel, it kinda is. A section of modern day USA gets kicked back to 1632 Germany. There are several ebooks in this series at www.baen.com (http://www.baen.com/) by Eric Flint.

You might also want to check out "Time Traders" + it's sequel at Baen. "Time Traders" is in their Free Library section.

Could you list all books in the series please?
Thanks.

Does anyone know if 1632 is available formatted for the Sony Reader? It'll save me from having to tinker with the RTF file.

If you are a budding historian, "Time and Again" by Jack Finney is hard to beat.

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Again-Jack-Finney/dp/0684801051

Could you list all books in the series please?
Thanks.1632, 1633, 1634: The Baltic War, 1634: The Galileo Affair, 1634: The Ram Rebellion, 1635: The Cannon Law. There are also several volumes of "The Grantville Gazette", fan written stories in the 1632 universe.

The entire series is available either through the Baen Free Library, either from the website, or on one or another of the CDs bound into various Baen hardcovers.

The concept is that the West Virginia mining town of Grantville is caught in a cosmic accident and dropped into Germany during the 30 Year's War.

The Free Library is here: http://www.baen.com/library/

ISO images and Zipped collections of the various CDs issued thus far are here: http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

Edmond Hamilton used a similar device in _City at the End of Forever_, in which an American town is catapulted into the future by a hit from a nuclear bomb. You can get it here:
http://manybooks.net/titles/hamiltoneother05cityworldsend.html
______
Dennis

Does anyone know if 1632 is available formatted for the Sony Reader? It'll save me from having to tinker with the RTF file.You'll have to tinker. Baen titles are made available in HTML, Rocket/Ebookwise, Mobipocket, RTF, and Microsoft Reader formats.
______
Dennis

Others have reported good, (very) low effort success with using HTML2LRF on the Baen HTML versions. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on my list of "to dos."

lit2lrf works great on Baen books.

Edmond Hamilton used a similar device in _City at the End of Forever_, in which an American town is catapulted into the future by a hit from a nuclear bomb. You can get it here:
http://manybooks.net/titles/hamiltoneother05cityworldsend.html
______
Dennis
And you can get this book here on MobilRead as I've just formatted it for the Sony Reader and MobiPocket.

LRF: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13784

Mobi: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13785

It so blows away the poorly formatted copies at Manybooks.

Does anyone know if "The Man Who Folded Himself" is available in ebook format? I looked quickly, but didn't find anything.

Does anyone know if "The Man Who Folded Himself" is available in ebook format? I looked quickly, but didn't find anything.

It is on the Darknet.

It is on the Darknet.

Don't forget to take a torch. It is pitch dark there. Beware of pitfalls!

Yeah, you're likely to be eaten by a grue. ;)

Agreed. Best "time travel paradox" book ever!

All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein

Is it a long book?

All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein

Is it a long book?No, it's a short story.
______
Dennis

You might also want to check out "Time Traders" + it's sequel at Baen. "Time Traders" is in their Free Library section.
I am reading Time Traders I and it does start off a little slow, but it's picked up and it's good. I recommend it. Bu give it time to get into it.

I have been reading time travel novels since 1954 and continue to be a huge fan of it. In the last fifty years I have seen titles change from "New Release" to "Classic". Here are just a few:

Time Machine
A Sound of Thunder
Replay
Time and Again

There are some newer novels which in time will eventually be deemed classics as well in the not too distant future.

Lightning
STR8 BOLT
The Time Travelers Wife
Timeline
Timescape

It's just a matter of time.

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter (a sequel to H.G. Wells' Time Machine)

:2thumbsup Get's my vote - it's brilliant!!

Michael Moorcock's 'Dancers at the End of Time' series
Stephen Fry 'Making History'

Both very good, but for different reasons.

While not dealing with time travel in the same sense as most of the recommendations so far, Verner Vinge's The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime have interesting time-related storylines.

"The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman is a sort of time travel story in the sense of time dilation by space travel, and it is one of the best sci fi novels ever written. I highly recommend it.

My favorite: Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. I always wanted to meet Montana Wildhack. :)

"The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman is a sort of time travel story in the sense of time dilation by space travel, and it is one of the best sci fi novels ever written. I highly recommend it.

I'll second that, interesting take on one-way time travel.

Short story wise I would like to suggest L. Sprague de Camp's
"A gun for Dinosaur" I think it is available at Fictionwise.

Oh my .... you mean I get to be the first person to mention the

Outlander series, by Diana Gabaldon?

Yumm! Not free, but I read them all in ebook format on my Palm pda. The premise is that a gal steps through some UK standing stones at the right (or wrong) time of year, and lands in 1743, in Jacobite England. Not overly SF, but heavy on the history and romance. Heck, even my husband devoured them as avidly as I did!

Diana Gabaldon:
Outlander
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Fiery Cross
A Breath of Snow and Ashes

I can't believe no one mentioned Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series. Maybe someone did and I missed it. If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett, Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams, then you'll love Fforde's work. Time travel plus laugh till it hurts.

Thursday Next:
The Eyre Affair (2001)
Lost in a Good Book (2002)
The Well of Lost Plots (2003)
Something Rotten (2004)
First Among Sequels (2007)

For me, Heinlein and always Heinlein…

One of the best: “Farnham's Freehold”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham%27s_Freehold

Best,

For me, Heinlein and always Heinlein…

One of the best: “Farnham's Freehold”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham%27s_FreeholdI concur on Heinlein, but we part company on Farnham's Freehold. I consider that one of his weaker novels for structural reasons.

Consider the premise: a group of suburban folks find themselves catapulted 50,000 years into the future, courtesy of a direct hit from a nuclear weapon in the early stages of WWIII. After various adventures, they find a way to travel back in time to the present that they left, and we see them sitting in a house at the top of a hill surrounded by barbed wire, trading for books, and looking for partners for bridge.

The sojourn in the future gave Heinlein the soapbox he could stand on to make caustic commentaries about the likely future results of current trends, but the method he used to get there left a bit to be desired. (Fritz Lieber covered that same territory in one of his works, and handled it better.)

I wondered about the situation at the end, with his protagonists safely back in their own time and doing about as well as could be done in a post-nuclear holocaust world. I wondered how they got there. What were things like after the Bomb? How did they re-establish themselves in the resulting chaos in relative comfort and security? I wish Heinlein had written that book, rather than the one he did.
______
Dennis

I will not discuss this of course, as in reading it’s always one preference and that suffices me.

I just let 2 ideas on the table:

1 - with Heinlein the “adventures” are not important the people and the message are;
2 - you say “After various adventures, they find a way to travel back in time to the present that they left”… the thing is they did not come back to the same place they left, did they?!!!!...

I’, very happy to find a Heinlein’s fan - probably my problem is that I can find almost no book from Heinlein who is not to the highest level.

Best regards,

I will not discuss this of course, as in reading it’s always one preference and that suffices me.

I just let 2 ideas on the table:

1 - with Heinlein the “adventures” are not important the people and the message are;That's a two edged sword.

Consider H. G. Wells. He was a Fabian Socialist. As he went on, he became more concerned with pushing a Socialist agenda, and less concerned with telling a story. His work became progressively less readable in consequence.

The message is indeed important, but how you can convey it can be the difference between whether or not anybody heeds it.

People read stories. Propaganda is another matter.

2 - you say “After various adventures, they find a way to travel back in time to the present that they left”… the thing is they did not come back to the same place they left, did they?!!!!...Doesn't matter.

At the end of the book, they are ensconced in their house on a hill, as well off as one can be in a country after a nuclear war. We see nothing of how they achieved that. We go directly from getting back from the future to (relatively) happy ending. There's a great story to be told about exactly how people would survive, dig out from under, and begin the task of rebuilding a society after a nuclear dust up. Heinlein could have done wonders with it. That wasn't the story he wanted to tell, alas.

The late Damon Knight commented "If it reads like it could have been set in Australia, it probably should have been!" Something like that applies here. Heinlein wanted to tell a particular story, but used a clumsy framing device to do so. It's the fact that he was so good a writer in other efforts that makes it so annoying when he slips.

I’, very happy to find a Heinlein’s fan - probably my problem is that I can find almost no book from Heinlein who is not to the highest level.I can. _Fifth Column_, based on a John W. Campbell outline. It's a tribute to RAH's skill that it's readable at all, given what he had to work with. I'm less than thrilled with _Beyond This Horizon_, too, among others.
______
Dennis

I agree with DMcCunney about the weakness of these particular Heinlein works. Heinlein will always be one of my favorite authors, but, to paraphrase one of his own characters, "Even the immortal Bob had his off days." (From Starman Jones, though the original reference was to William Shakespeare.)

I concur on Heinlein, but we part company on Farnham's Freehold. I consider that one of his weaker novels for structural reasons.

Consider the premise: a group of suburban folks find themselves catapulted 50,000 years into the future, courtesy of a direct hit from a nuclear weapon in the early stages of WWIII. After various adventures, they find a way to travel back in time to the present that they left, and we see them sitting in a house at the top of a hill surrounded by barbed wire, trading for books, and looking for partners for bridge.

The sojourn in the future gave Heinlein the soapbox he could stand on to make caustic commentaries about the likely future results of current trends, but the method he used to get there left a bit to be desired. (Fritz Lieber covered that same territory in one of his works, and handled it better.)

I wondered about the situation at the end, with his protagonists safely back in their own time and doing about as well as could be done in a post-nuclear holocaust world. I wondered how they got there. What were things like after the Bomb? How did they re-establish themselves in the resulting chaos in relative comfort and security? I wish Heinlein had written that book, rather than the one he did.
______
Dennis

I'm a big Heinlein fan
but Farnhams Freehold is a
racist piece of thrash
"By his Bootstraps"
also by Heinlein is one
of the best time travel stories ever

I'm a big Heinlein fan
but Farnhams Freehold is a
racist piece of thrash
"By his Bootstraps"
also by Heinlein is one
of the best time travel stories ever

Racist? Whom does Heinlein discriminate there?
I am curious, I have not read this book.

Racist? Whom does Heinlein discriminate there?
I am curious, I have not read this book.

I wouldn't call it racist, but I do agree that it's not his best. Heinlein went for a cheap shock of cannibalism rather than trying to do a real social commentary on our times.

But in his defense, we don't know if he developed that part of the story by himself, or if he was pushed into it by his editor. I think it was the latter.

I can't believe no one mentioned Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series. Maybe someone did and I missed it. If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett, Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams, then you'll love Fforde's work. Time travel plus laugh till it hurts.
Fforde's work has been mentioned in this thread :
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13273

As a great fan of this work, though, I'm always happy when someone mentions him ;-)

Has anyone in this thread recommended Connie Willis' book "To Say Nothing of the Dog"? A wonderful time travel book, with time travelers returning to Victorian England (among other times and places) to retrieve "the Bishop's Birdstump" from Coventry Cathedral. Except they don't know what the I^*&*&(T the darn thing is! And they're spaced out from too many time-travel jaunts in too little elapsed (personal) time. And the briefing was bollixed up. And...

A splendid book. Side-splittingly funny. And even more so if you've read "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome. (And if you haven't, you should. My sister described him to her children as "the Victorian's Dave Barry." Another hysterically funny book.)

Xenophon

"To Say Nothing of the Dog" really is a fantastic book !
In totally another style, I recently appreciated Jon Courtenay Grimwood's "Stamping Butterflies" which should qualify as Time Travel.

Racist? Whom does Heinlein discriminate there?
I am curious, I have not read this book.

Interesting review here:

http://www.troynovant.com/Stoddard/Heinlein/Farnhams-Freehold.html

A splendid book. Side-splittingly funny. And even more so if you've read "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome. (And if you haven't, you should. My sister described him to her children as "the Victorian's Dave Barry." Another hysterically funny book.)And also read _Three Men on the Bummell_, a more or less sequel.

Both are available in the Uploads section.
______
Dennis

Interesting review here:

http://www.troynovant.com/Stoddard/Heinlein/Farnhams-Freehold.html

Thanks.
Gotta read it.

This thread got me interested ... gonna start with Heinlein's "All You Zombies".
Good thing Mobipocket for Symbian can read HTML files!

Interesting review here:

http://www.troynovant.com/Stoddard/Heinlein/Farnhams-Freehold.html
I'm inclined to agree with the reviewer's interpretation. (But I still didn't like the book-- I think I just didn't like any of the characters enough, and I thought the ending was rather lame.)

I'm inclined to agree with the reviewer's interpretation. (But I still didn't like the book-- I think I just didn't like any of the characters enough, and I thought the ending was rather lame.)I concur with the review as well.

You can draw an interesting parallel with Norman Spinrad's _The Iron Dream_. The Iron Dream is an interesting alternate history novel. The conceit is that it was written in a history in which Adolph Hitler emigrated to the United States instead of becoming leader of Nazi Germany, and the book is a pulp SF novel supposedly written by the alternate Hitler.

It takes place in a post nuclear holocaust world, where the protagonist rises to leadership of his country, and leads it in a successful campaign against the various mutants left over from the holocaust and their masters, the evil Doms, thus saving his world for true humanity. In the early stages, it's a classic pulp SF action/adventure tale, and you root for the noble hero as he struggles against the forces of darkness. But this is a book written by Adolph Hitler, from Hitler's warped perspective, and as the story progresses and the ideology comes to the forefront, you start to realize the slippery slope you are standing on, and just what you've bought into.

I think Spinrad's handling of the idea is more effective than Heinlein's, but he's traveling similar moral ground.
______
Dennis

Hi

Amazing how these forums are great!

This talking about Heinlein and the personal (so opposite sometimes) opinions about the book is wonderful, and if I can not less agree with the mazzeltjes “…Farnhams Freehold is a racist piece of thrash…”, I could not thank him more for pointing to the review, this one yes, I identify myself completely with.

I’m very pleased that this has even let people thinking about reading the book… what more one could ask?

For the ending part of the book, let me say again: “they did not come back to the same world, did they”?

Just bringing a bit more heat to the fire: what you thing about “Starship Troopers”?

Best regards,

Hi

Amazing how these forums are great!

This talking about Heinlein and the personal (so opposite sometimes) opinions about the book is wonderful, and if I can not less agree with the mazzeltjes “…Farnhams Freehold is a racist piece of thrash…”, I could not thank him more for pointing to the review, this one yes, I identify myself completely with.

I’m very pleased that this has even let people thinking about reading the book… what more one could ask?

For the ending part of the book, let me say again: “they did not come back to the same world, did they”?

Just bringing a bit more heat to the fire: what you thing about “Starship Troopers”?

Best regards,

Brilliant piece of cold war xenophobic thinking on top
interesting philosophical and moral discussion underneath
The movie slaughters the novel
Heinlein in fine preachy mood
To get an idea of the main themes in Heinlein's work read:
For us the Living(1939)

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/newsFUTL.html

Just bringing a bit more heat to the fire: what you thing about “Starship Troopers”? the movie?
one of verhoven's best movies. cynical, action-packed, intelligent and funny.
book: no idea, didn't read it.

the movie?
one of verhoven's best movies. cynical, action-packed, intelligent and funny.
book: no idea, didn't read it.

Burn the Heretic! Burn Him!

Joking aside, the movie tried really hard to not butcher the book. The book was still butchered.

Burn the Heretic! Burn Him!

Joking aside, the movie tried really hard to not butcher the book. The book was still butchered.I wouldn't say the movie tried hard not to butcher the book. It couldn't have avoided doing so. Verhoven and Heinlein were not only not on the same page in their views of the topic, they weren't even in the same book.
______
Dennis

the movie?
one of verhoven's best movies. cynical, action-packed, intelligent and funny.
book: no idea, didn't read it.Read the book, and your opinion of the movie may alter.

I though Verhoven's film was mind-numbingly stupid. My opinion might differ if I hadn't read the book, but I suspect I wouldn't have found it a lot better.
______
Dennis

Brilliant piece of cold war xenophobic thinking on top
interesting philosophical and moral discussion underneath
The movie slaughters the novel
Heinlein in fine preachy moodFrom where I sit, it's a coming-of-age story.

Spoiled rich kid Johnny Rico learns to grow up and take responsibility, as a member of the Mobile Infantry, against the backdrop of an interstellar war.

Johnny's moral development can be charted by the different answers he gives to the question of why the Mobile Infantry fights at different stages in the book.

I think Heinlein originally intended this for the Juvenile/YA series he was doing for Scribners, but it was a bit too grown up for what they wanted.

To get an idea of the main themes in Heinlein's work read:
For us the Living(1939)

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/newsFUTL.htmlBetter, don't read it. It's an early formerly unpublished work, and there are good reasons it was unpublished.

The Heinlein Society tends toward hagiography in their treatment of RAH, and I doubt they think he ever wrote a bad word. I met him, and I don't think he'd agree with that glowing assessment. He was a working professional writer, and even the books at the end of his career are interesting, if flawed, because it was obvious he was reaching for something new, and trying to take the next step in his development.

Read "We, the Living" last, if you read it at all. Read it first, and you might be put off of reading anything else RAH wrote.
______
Dennis

I wouldn't say the movie tried hard not to butcher the book. It couldn't have avoided doing so. Verhoven and Heinlein were not only not on the same page in their views of the topic, they weren't even in the same book.
______
Dennis

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Could not agree more, the book and the movie have nothing to do with each other.
I think if Heinlein was alive he would do some really bad thing to Verhoeven.

BTW: one of the biggest worst assassinations of a book I have ever seen.
I more or less respected the guy (Verhoeven) from his good movie “Turkish Delight” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070842/), but after this… no more.

Finished Farnham’s Freehold.
Not bad. Some interesting notions and ideas, although I could not stand the protagonist, big bully, Hugh.
I agree with Nate the great that cannibalism was out of place.

what ... nobody mentioned yet "The End of Eternity" by Asimov?
Highly recommanded - although years after reading too many of his books my love for him cooled down a bit.

alessandro

... or, what about (after removing a lot of dust from it) "The Big Time" by Fritz Leiber?
A great (Hugo 1958) novel placed in a night club out of time, for tired time travelers

alessandro

... or, what about (after removing a lot of dust from it) "The Big Time" by Fritz Leiber?
A great (Hugo 1958) novel placed in a night club out of time, for tired time travelers

alessandro
Well, for more than tired time travellers.

The Big Time is set against the background of the Change War, as the Snakes and the Spiders, two far future civilizations, attempt to change the past to make things come out as they prefer. The nightclub is a rest stop for agents of the Spiders between missions. We never really see Snakes or Spiders, and see things only from the view of the Spider's agents, who aren't always entirely certain what they are doing or why. I think that's intentional: how many grunts on the line ever have a clear appreciation of the causes or stakes of the war they are fighting, or the part they are playing in it? That comes after, if at all, assuming they survive.

For another take on the topic, see J. R. Dunn's _Days of Cain_. Monitor Gaspar is a present time agent of the Moiety, a very far future civilization. Gaspar's job is to monitor the time line and prevent attempts to change history. His job is complicated when he is assigned to stop a rogue female Moiety agent. The agent has decided that since the capability to change history exists, the Moiety should endeavor to do so, to retroactively prevent various great atrocities.

She has decided the tipping point is the Holocaust, and plans, with the help of recruited followers and forbidden future weapons, to deal a decisive crippling blow to Nazi Germany well before the end would normally happen. Gaspar's mission is complicated by his developing feelings for her, and after seeing first hand the horrors done by the Nazis, a suspicion that she is right in her thesis that the Moiety is immoral for not intervening.

At the end, we discover more about the Moiety, and why they wish to see history unchanged, atrocities and all. The reasons are far greater than a simple "don't change what led to us", but don't please Gaspar, and may not please you.
______
Dennis

I'm late to the thread, but here's some odds and ends. Each is a failure as a time-travel story (from a readability aspect), but worth a gander if the underlying mileau appeals...

Horror - H.P. Lovcraft's The Shadow Out Of Time. Literally Lovecraft meets JW Campbell. It's a time travel horror story. Available in the Lovecraft collection here at MR.

19th century Utopian fiction. If you liked Looking Backwards by Bellamy, try The Crystal Button by Chauncey Thomas. If you can't put your head back into the 19th century mindset, don't try reading it, it'll be dull as dishwater. Free e-book (in TXT and HTML) at Project Gutenberg Australia (scanned, OCR-proofed, and uploaded by yours truly.)

A minor Heinlein short story, not mentioned yet, called Elsewhen. I find the story weak, but the underlying idea endlessly fascinating. There's a great novel (or novels) buried in there for some writer to write someday....

The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card is a fairly interesting time travel story, though I felt it ultimately fell short on addressing the most intriguing questions it posed.

In particular, Card sets up a moral dilemma: is the misery of countless generations justified by the resulting society? If the resulting society develops technology which would change that prior misery, but would result in the extinction of that future society (disregarding the paradox involved), do they have a moral justification to do so?

However, ultimately Card's future society realizes they are going to starve anyway, so the question of their continued survival is moot and the moral dilemma disappears. I thought this was an extremely weak direction for the story to take. I really can't understand why Card went that way. It didn't fit the rest of the story at all. I'm tempted to suspect editorial interference of some kind, though Card is such a "big name" that it might have been interference from someone other than a professional editor-- a close friend, etc.

On a lighter note, I've forgotten, did we already cover Niven's Rainbow Mars in this thread? Really a collection of extremely silly time travel stories, loosely strung together into a book. Great fun. :D

The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card is a fairly interesting time travel story, though I felt it ultimately fell short on addressing the most intriguing questions it posed.

In particular, Card sets up a moral dilemma: is the misery of countless generations justified by the resulting society? If the resulting society develops technology which would change that prior misery, but would result in the extinction of that future society (disregarding the paradox involved), do they have a moral justification to do so?

However, ultimately Card's future society realizes they are going to starve anyway, so the question of their continued survival is moot and the moral dilemma disappears. I thought this was an extremely weak direction for the story to take. I really can't understand why Card went that way. It didn't fit the rest of the story at all. I'm tempted to suspect editorial interference of some kind, though Card is such a "big name" that it might have been interference from someone other than a professional editor-- a close friend, etc.
Or perhaps Card either didn't realize the real question he was asking, or simply didn't have an answer, or perhaps decided any answer he might propose would ultimately be unsatisfying to too many readers.

That's the problem with those big moral quandaries: how do you resolve them?

In James Blish's _A Case of Conscience_, an interplanetary expedition has discovered an alien race who apparently without original sin. This is a real quandary for the Jesuit priest aboard, for by his theology, if truly without original sin, they must be a creation of Satan, and therefore evil, yet they are outwardly as thoroughly admirable a race as might be imagined. Blish sidesteps answering the question by having the alien race destroyed, leaving the question unanswerable.

For another take, we have Ursula K. Leguin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". Leguin postulates a future society which is a utopia, free from want, fear, illness, and war, save for one small, sick, helpless child, whose misery somehow permits all else. Every year, some folks leave Omelas, to exist in what is apparently far less pleasant circumstances, because they can't live pleasant lives based on another's suffering. But Leguin isn't trying to answer the question she seems to be asking. If you think she's coming down on a particular side, read the story again.

Her real question, I think, is "What, exactly, is moral behavior?", and her answer is that each of us must decide for ourselves what the questions are and what our answers must be.
______
Dennis

Or perhaps Card either didn't realize the real question he was asking, or simply didn't have an answer, or perhaps decided any answer he might propose would ultimately be unsatisfying to too many readers.

That's the problem with those big moral quandaries: how do you resolve them?

I agree that it's a problem, and they don't have to be resolved. I just felt that Card spent most of the book setting up this particular question, and then didn't address it. (I've read the Blish book, and I've heard of that Le Guin book, though I haven't read it yet. I probably should.)

I think one can tell a story that asks a moral question without answering it. And I don't have a problem with stories that really show how one way of trying to resolve a moral question falls out, and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions on whether the outcome is satisfactory or not. I just think it's jarring to the reader to set up a story in which it looks as though a moral question is going to be dealt with-- even unsatisfactorily-- and then abandon it. :shrug:

I agree that it's a problem, and they don't have to be resolved. I just felt that Card spent most of the book setting up this particular question, and then didn't address it. (I've read the Blish book, and I've heard of that Le Guin book, though I haven't read it yet. I probably should.)
"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" is a short story, in her collection "The Wind's Twelve Quarters".

I think one can tell a story that asks a moral question without answering it. And I don't have a problem with stories that really show how one way of trying to resolve a moral question falls out, and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions on whether the outcome is satisfactory or not. I just think it's jarring to the reader to set up a story in which it looks as though a moral question is going to be dealt with-- even unsatisfactorily-- and then abandon it. :shrug:
Oh, agreed. I think it's a failure for the reasons that you do. It's structurally unsound. It's like the old adage about the theater: "If you place a gun in a dresser drawer in the first act, you must pull it out and shoot someone with it by the third act." If you fail to do so, it's a fundamental error in drama -- why have the gun in the first place?

I think Card painted himself into a corner, then chose to blithely ignore the fact.
______
Dennis

All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein

Is it a long book?

The whole text of this story is linked to at the bottom of the wikipedia artical, which is how I made it a lrf file last month: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Zombies%E2%80%94

The BBC offers several Dr. Who e-books for free here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/ebooks/

I have been reading time travel novels since 1954 and continue to be a huge fan of it. In the last fifty years I have seen titles change from "New Release" to "Classic". Here are just a few:

Time Machine
A Sound of Thunder
Replay
Time and Again

There are some newer novels which in time will eventually be deemed classics as well in the not too distant future.

Lightning
STR8 BOLT
The Time Travelers Wife
Timeline
Timescape

It's just a matter of time.

Is that Lightning you mentioned there the one by Dean Koontz?

If so, it's a really good read. I've got it in paperback.

There is Alexander Key's Sword of Aradel.

Thought of a few more,

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

The Time Axis by Henry Kuttner

In The Garden of Iden by Kage Baker (this is one of 4 or 5 time travel books by Baker in a series)

How about the first one I ever read :) "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court"
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/t#a53

or Poul Anderson's Time Patrol novels.. can find at Baen Free Books
except this particular one and the others in the series are 5 bucks. In fact, you can find quite a few of the books there cheaply, like the Andre Norton ones someone else listed.
http://www.baen.com

My favorite though is still Connie Willis and "To Say Nothing of the Dog" which someone else suggested. A number of hers deal with time travel. The Doomsday Book is another, dealing with the plague in the middle ages England.

"Planet Of The Apes" by Pierre Boulle was actually a far better book than the cheesy movie it has long been.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (of the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer) is fascinating. The main char dies and winds up somewhere populated by everyone who has ever died on earth. It's different :)

Gordon Dickson's Time storm
Robert Adam's Castaways In Time
Julian May's The Many Colored Land
Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/139

Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Land That Time Forgot
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/551

David Drake's Time Safari
R A MacAvoy's The Book of Kells
Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Realtime (bobbling forward not backward like most) Can also be found in the omnibus "Across Realtime" with a short story and another time travel novel of his.

Joshua Dann's Timeshare, easy to read escapist :)

The Didymus Contigency by Jeremy Robinson, I am not much for religion type stuff normally but I thoroughly enjoyed this. No idea if it is available as an E-book though, I own the TPB.

You might try The Accidental Time Machine by Haldeman. Haven't read it yet but it's on my wish list. Here's the synopsis

Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself--or so he thinks.

I can also second slayda's recommendation on 1632. Although the time travel takes place in the first chapter. It's a very interesting read and, at least at one time, it was a freebie.

I understand Flint wrote this as a one off, but it was so popular, he's written several more in the series.

You might try The Accidental Time Machine by Haldeman. Haven't read it yet but it's on my wish list. Here's the synopsis

Grad- school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when he inadvertently creates a time machine. With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who left him for another man, Matt has nothing to lose in taking a time-machine trip himself--or so he thinks.

I actually came to this thread right now to suggest just that book.

I have read it, it was actually my first Haldeman. I absolutely loved it and i have read many of his other novels. not the best book I have read by him, http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=Andybaby&deepsearch=haldeman , but one of the better books i have read.

I can also second slayda's recommendation on 1632. Although the time travel takes place in the first chapter. It's a very interesting read and, at least at one time, it was a freebie.

I understand Flint wrote this as a one off, but it was so popular, he's written several more in the series.

That is an exceptional understatement. There are I believe 7 novels, as well as 21 anthology collections set in that universe.