In the vast realm of science fiction literature, few concepts captivate the imagination as profoundly as the exploration of time travel. The ability to transcend temporal boundaries, leap through centuries, and witness the ripple effects of one’s actions on the fabric of existence has been a perennial fascination for both writers and readers alike. As we delve into the intricate and mind-bending landscapes of Sci Fi Time Travel, we find ourselves immersed in narratives that challenge our understanding of reality, question the consequences of our choices, and, above all, transport us to worlds where the past, present, and future collide.
In this literary odyssey, we invite you to join us on a mesmerizing adventure through the corridors of time, exploring 27 outstanding Sci Fi Time Travel books that masterfully navigate the complexities of time travel. From classic tales that laid the foundation for the genre to contemporary works that push the boundaries of imagination, each book on this list offers a unique perspective on the temporal enigma, promising readers an unforgettable journey across epochs and dimensions.
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List of Books About Sci Fi Time Travel
Prepare to witness paradoxes unfold, timelines intersect, and the very fabric of reality unravel as we embark on a literary exploration that transcends the constraints of our everyday existence. These Sci Fi time travel books not only showcase the creativity of their authors but also invite us to ponder the profound implications of tampering with the chronological tapestry of the universe.
So, fasten your seatbelts and adjust your temporal coordinates, for the pages ahead are filled with adventures that defy the laws of time and space. Welcome to “Chronicles Across Time,” where each book is a portal to a different era, a thrilling testament to the limitless possibilities that unfold when the realm of science fiction and the mysteries of time entwine.
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
Outlander – Diana Gabaldon
One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read!
Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743.
Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.
Hyperion – Dan Simmons
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.
On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August – Claire North
Wildly original, funny and moving, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is an extraordinary story of a life lived again and again from World Fantasy Award-winning author Claire North.
Harry August is on his deathbed. Again.
No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.
Until now.
As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. “I nearly missed you, Doctor August,” she says. “I need to send a message.”
This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
Late one night, three otherworldly creatures appear and sweep Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O’Keefe away on a mission to save Mr. Murray, who has gone missing while doing top-secret work for the government. They travel via tesseract–a wrinkle that transports one across space and time–to the planet Camazotz, where Mr. Murray is being held captive. There they discover a dark force that threatens not only Mr. Murray but the safety of the whole universe.
Doomsday Book – Connie Willis
For Kivrin, preparing to travel back in time to study one of the deadliest eras in humanity’s history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.
But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.
The End of Eternity – Isaac Asimov
Due to circumstances within our control . . . tomorrow will be canceled.
The Eternals, the ruling class of the Future, had the power of life and death not only over every human being but over the very centuries into which they were born. Past, Present, and Future could be created or destroyed at will.
You had to be special to become an Eternal. Andrew Harlan was special. Until he committed the one unforgivable sin—falling in love.
Eternals weren’t supposed to have feelings. But Andrew could not deny the sensations that were struggling within him. He knew he could not keep this secret forever. And so he began to plan his escape, a plan that changed his own past . . . and threatened Eternity itself.
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love. “Niffenegger’s inventive and poignant writing is well worth a trip” (Entertainment Weekly).
The Time Machine – H.G Wells
The H.G. Wells classic that helped launch the time travel genre.
The Time Traveller, a dreamer obsessed with traveling through time, builds himself a time machine and, much to his surprise, travels over 800,000 years into the future. He lands in the year 802701: the world has been transformed by a society living in apparent harmony and bliss, but as the Traveler stays in the future he discovers a hidden barbaric and depraved subterranean class.
Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.
“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”
Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.
To Say Nothing of the Dog – Connie Willis
From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel.
Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He’s been shuttling between the twenty-first century and the 1940s in search of a hideous Victorian vase called “the bishop’s bird stump” as part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid.
But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but also to prevent altering history itself.
This Is How You Lose the Time War – Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?
Recursion – Blake Crouch
Reality is broken.
At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself.
In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth—and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back.
Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy—before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.
Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – Douglas Adams
Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability.
Among Arthur’s motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who’s gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food speaks for itself (literally).
Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that The Hitchhiker’s Guide deleted the term “Future Perfect” from its pages, since it was discovered not to be!
The Time Ships – Stephen Baxter
The Time Traveller has abandoned his charming and helpless Eloi friend Weena to the cannibal appetites of the Morlocks, the devolved race of future humans from whom he was forced to flee. He promptly embarks on a second journey to the year AD 802,701, pledged to rescue Weena. He never arrives! The future was changed by his presence… and will be changed again. Hurled towards infinity, the Traveller must resolve the paradoxes building around him in a dazzling temporal journey of discovery. He must achieve the impossible if Weena is to be saved.
The Anubis Gates – Tim Powers
Brendan Doyle, a specialist in the work of the early-nineteenth century poet William Ashbless, reluctantly accepts an invitation from a millionaire to act as a guide to time-travelling tourists. But while attending a lecture given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1810, he becomes marooned in Regency London, where dark and dangerous forces know about the gates in time.
Caught up in the intrigue between rival bands of beggars, pursued by Egyptian sorcerers, and befriended by Coleridge, Doyle somehow survives and learns more about the mysterious Ashbless than he could ever have imagined possible…
Time Enough for Love – Robert A. Heinlein
The capstone and crowning achievement of the Future History series, from the New York Times bestselling Grand Master of Science Fiction…
Time Enough for Love follows Lazarus Long through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds. Heinlein’s longest and most ambitious work, it is the story of a man so in love with Life that he refused to stop living it; and so in love with Time that he became his own ancestor.
Time and Again – Jack Finney
The 50th anniversary edition of the beloved classic that Stephen King has called “THE great time-travel story.” Featuring a brand-new introduction by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion, Blake Crouch.
When advertising artist Si Morley is recruited to join a covert government operation exploring the possibility of time travel, he jumps at the chance to leave his mundane 20th-century existence and step into the past. But he also has another motivation for going back in time: a half-burned letter that tells of a mysterious, tragic death and ominously of “fire which will destroy the whole world.”
Traveling to New York City in January 1882 to investigate, he finds a Manhattan teeming with a different kind of life, the waterfront unimpeded by skyscrapers, open-air markets packed with activity, Central Park bustling with horse drawn sleighs—a city on the precipice of great things. At first, Si welcomes these trips as a temporary escape but when he falls in love with a woman he meets in the past, he must choose whether to return to modern life or live in 1882 for good.
All You Need Is Kill – Hiroshi Sakurazaka
When the alien Mimics invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor called a Jacket and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to be reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On his 158th iteration, he gets a message from a mysterious ally–the female soldier known as the Full Metal Bitch. Is she the key to Keiji’s escape or his final death?
11/22/63 – Stephen King
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.
Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.
Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life – a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
The Accidental Time Machine – Joe Haldeman
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.
The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde’s beloved New York Times bestselling novel introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England—from the author of The Constant Rabbit
Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde’s Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde’s ingenious fantasy—enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel—unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.
The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. What if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist. She must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
The Door into Summer – Robert A. Heinlein
Brilliant engineer Dan Davis finds himself hoodwinked by his greedy business partners and forced to take the Long Sleep. Placing him in suspended animation for 30 years. But his partners never anticipated the existence of time travel, enabling Dan to exact his revenge and alter his own future…
Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.
Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question. What would you change if you could travel back in time?
Wrong Place Wrong Time – Gillian McAllister
Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened?
It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more dangerous when Todd finally emerges from the darkness. As Jen watches through the window, she sees her funny, seemingly happy teenage son stab a total stranger.
She doesn’t know who the victim is, or why Todd has committed such a devastating act of violence. All she knows is that her life, and Todd’s, have been shattered.
After her son is taken into custody, Jen falls asleep in despair. But when she wakes up…it is yesterday. The murder has not happened yet—and there may be a chance to stop it. Each morning, when Jen wakes, she is further back in the past, first weeks, then years, before the murder. And Jen realizes that somewhere in the past lies the trigger for Todd’s terrible crime. It is her mission to find it, and prevent it from taking place.
Both the story of a mother’s love and the sacrifices she will make for her child. A thriller with a brilliant twist, Wrong Place Wrong Time is a one-of-a-kind novel that begs to be read in one sitting.
Other Genres To Try if you like Books about Sci Fi Time Travel
If you find yourself captivated by the mind-bending allure of sci fi time travel, other genres offer intriguing explorations of these concepts. Here are a few genres you might want to explore:
Epic Fantasy: Epic fantasies traverse expansive kingdoms, showcasing heroic quests, mythical creatures, and intricate political landscapes. Authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and Brandon Sanderson masterfully paint vivid universes that echo the scale and depth of space opera sagas. It’s easy to see why fans of sci fi time travel may enjoy these novels.
Military Science Fiction: If the strategic battles and interstellar skirmishes of future space wars intrigue you, this subgenre focuses on warfare in space. Delving deep into the tactics, technology, and ethics of futuristic combat.
Hard Sci Fi: Delve into the world of hard science fiction for stories grounded in scientific principles and plausible extrapolations of current technology. These novels often explore futuristic advancements and their potential impact on society. Thus making them a compelling choice for those fascinated by the scientific underpinnings of time travel.
Dystopian Fiction: Dystopian fiction imagines bleak futures where societal structures have crumbled or undergone radical transformations. This genre delves into the consequences of unchecked power, societal collapse, and the struggle for survival. Readers who appreciate the consequences of tampering with timelines might find dystopian fiction particularly intriguing.
Solarpunk Fiction: Embrace optimistic visions of the future where renewable energy, sustainability, and ecological balance shape societies. Solarpunk offers a refreshing contrast to dystopian narratives.
By exploring these genres, you can embark on a diverse literary journey that extends beyond the confines of time travel. All the while still satisfying your appetite for imaginative and thought-provoking storytelling. All of these books have themes reminiscent to that of Sci Fi Time Travel!
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes time travel such a popular theme in science fiction literature?
Time travel captivates readers by allowing them to explore the consequences of altering the past and shaping the future. It raises intriguing questions about fate, free will, and the nature of causality, making it a rich and thought-provoking theme.
Are there any time travel books that explore the ethical implications of altering the past?
Novels like Connie Willis’ “Doomsday Book” and Audrey Niffenegger’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” delve into the ethical dilemmas of tampering with historical events. Furthermore, the impact it can have on individuals and societies.
Are there any classic time travel books that paved the way for the genre?
Classics like H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” (1895) and Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” (1952) are foundational works. These laid the groundwork for time travel storytelling. These early works introduced readers to the concept and its narrative possibilities.
What subgenres exist within time travel literature?
Time travel literature spans various subgenres, including historical time travel, where characters visit specific historical periods. Dystopian time travel. Exploring future consequences. Comedic time travel, blending humor with temporal escapades. Each subgenre offers a unique perspective on the theme.
Whether you’re a seasoned science fiction enthusiast or a newcomer to the genre, the beauty of time travel literature lies in its ability to captivate readers across diverse interests. We encourage you to explore the recommended genres. To discover new authors. And continue your journey through the vast and ever-expanding landscape of speculative fiction.
So, as you close the pages of these sci fi time travel books, may the echoes of time linger in your thoughts, and may the stories you’ve encountered leave an indelible mark on your literary exploration. The adventure through time continues, and the possibilities are as boundless as the universe itself. Happy reading, time travelers!
