Jobs & Education0 min ago
Time travel
25 Answers
I love books about people travelling back in time, not particularly Science Fiction ones but novels, I once read a really good one about someone going back to the time of the great plague, can anyone recommend anything like this please (I've read the Time Travellers Wife). Thanks in advance
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No best answer has yet been selected by Babz. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Somewhere In Time (aka Bid Time Return) the basis for the film.
I'd like to point out that when a book includes any form of time travel or other SF conceit, it is Science Fiction whether the publishers, authors (yes, that's you Margaret Atwood and P.D. James), or it's readers want to pretend.
*End of rant*
I'd like to point out that when a book includes any form of time travel or other SF conceit, it is Science Fiction whether the publishers, authors (yes, that's you Margaret Atwood and P.D. James), or it's readers want to pretend.
*End of rant*
it's really only science fiction if science is involved - plausible machines that do the transporting, for instance. If it's all a dream, or you go by magic carpet, or any other physically implausible means, then it's usually labelled fantasy. Even though time machines themselves may sound implausible!
Thanks for that leMarchand, I'll look into that at my library. The point I was trying to make about not wanting SF is not that I think it's "nasty stuff" but that that I don't go for all the technical why's and wherefores of time travel, it just goes over my head. I just want to read about what happens when they get there, and get back. A good old fashioned love story or adventure story is what I'm after with no technical bits.
Sorry, Babz, realised (after I'd posted) that it probably sounded as if I was dissing you. It just gets my goat that there seem to be numerous bestsellers (like TT's Wife) that people read and enjoy, but had they been marketed as the SF they plainly are would never have bothered with. (I think there should be more punctuation in there somewhere...)
Anyway, "Somewhere" is incredibly romantic (and sad). Also, I haven't read any, but don't most of Barbara Erskine's books feature someone from present day ending up back in the past?
Anyway, "Somewhere" is incredibly romantic (and sad). Also, I haven't read any, but don't most of Barbara Erskine's books feature someone from present day ending up back in the past?
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Try this one Ive read it a few times and it fantastic, eyewitness acounts from great historical times and events written how they would appear in todays papers.
10/10 in my opinion.
http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/faber-book-of-reporta ge_1835.html
heres the google link you may find it cheaper.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=the+fab ier+book+of+reportage&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
Dave.
10/10 in my opinion.
http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/faber-book-of-reporta ge_1835.html
heres the google link you may find it cheaper.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=the+fab ier+book+of+reportage&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
Dave.
Yeah, I too was going to recommend Michael Chrichton's "Timeline" - a good exciting read. (Chrichton does spin a good yarn.)
Agree with poster above - the film is abysmal. I thought the film of Chrichton's "Sphere" wasn't a patch on the book either incidentally.
Anyway - back to the question: I remember enjoying good old H.G.Wells' "The Time Machine" when I was a kid. And regarding films of that, the older late fifties one is best, with Rod Taylor - quite close to the book. The recent one - adding romantic interest, and a murder - as if the book needed more action - is quite appalling.
Will think on...
Good luck!
Agree with poster above - the film is abysmal. I thought the film of Chrichton's "Sphere" wasn't a patch on the book either incidentally.
Anyway - back to the question: I remember enjoying good old H.G.Wells' "The Time Machine" when I was a kid. And regarding films of that, the older late fifties one is best, with Rod Taylor - quite close to the book. The recent one - adding romantic interest, and a murder - as if the book needed more action - is quite appalling.
Will think on...
Good luck!
Penelope Lively � A stitch in time. It was one of my favourites when I was young twelve / thirteen-ish. I hope that�s the title, anyway. If it's the one I'm thinking of (and she was definitely the author), it's about a young girl visiting her aunt's farm. Whilst walking round one of the unused wings of the old part of the building she walks into the past, without realising it the first few times. She�s going into England during the time of the persecution of the Catholics. It�s not about that, though, it goes more into what people did and ate at the time. For example, I didn�t know until I read it that people at the time didn�t use forks. Or (I was 13) that people would have had cloth made in the village and that our modern cloth would have looked really smooth and well made to them. Or that you could make a complete ass out of yourself if you were asked to go and get some mint and came back with a basketful of allsorts �cause you didn�t have a clue about herbs.
Not exactly time travel but a story told in two periods of time and linked is AS Byatt's 'Possession' One part of the story is about 2 poets who meet and have a secret affair in Victorian times, the second aspect of the story is 2 people in the present day who are independantly studying the 2 poets. It's a brilliant book
For something totally "different" and linking times from the C.19th to the post apocalyptic future, you really have to read David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" - an amazing novel that grips, intrigues, challenges and entertains. This is a new take on time travel as there is no technology here, just mystery.