Time travel
Time travel is an important plot device and theme of SF.
Definition
It's generally understood as a fictional conceit that differs from the normal course of existence over time, from the chronological, linear progression of objects, events and causality, which only varies at relativistic speeds approaching the speed of light that are hard to measure or appreciate on a human scale.
Time travel, then, refers to displacements in time that are not chronological and linear, or that are beyond a human scale of existence, such as with immortality.
There are countless variation on the theme of time travel. It can be travel forward to the future (faster than the aforementioned regular pace of existence over time), travel back to the past, or travel across dimensions to alternate timelines. Time travel in fiction can be achieved via fictional technology, via fictional scientific or supernatural phenomena, via magic, or simply used as an unexplained plot device.
The time machine, which is a device that allows its occupants or users to travel to different dates, is a specialised type of technology that is one of the classical tropes of science fiction. Famous time machine examples include the Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the DeLorean in Back to the Future, the Tardis in Doctor Who, and the time-turner in the Harry Potter series. The first three examples are explicitly vehicles, whereas the fourth is a portable device that affects its user(s).
The time traveller is correspondingly one of the classical character themes of SF.
List of works featuring time travel
- Katharine Burdekin's Proud Man (visitor from future to present-day Earth)
- Octavia Butler. Kindred (African American woman transported to slave-era American South)
- Catherine Ennis. To the Lightning (lesbian romance / Robinson Crusoe adventure)
- M.F.K. (Mary Frances Kennedy) Fisher. Not Now, but Now (1947) [time traveling bisexual woman]
- Julian May's Pleistocene Saga involves one-way travel to the Pleistocene Era on Earth
- David Morse, The Iron Bridge (1998) (Maggie Foster is sent back in time)
- Marge Piercy. Woman on the Edge of Time (time travel into the future and alternative futures)
- Joanna Russ. The Female Man (multiple time lines)
- Sheri Tepper. Beauty
- Connie Willis, The Doomsday Book
- "The Sticky Fingers of Time" (1997) - Hilary Brougher, director. USA. 35mm, 81-90 min. Starring Terumi Matthews & Nicole Saray.
- Doctor Who
- Being Erica (2009 TV series)