This weekend was the opening of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and since I'm one of the few people in the world who can say it's his job to watch anime, I went to check it out. It was excellent, with many twists and turns that Haruhi fans will surely enjoy. I'm a big fan of hardcore science fiction stories, and have read just about every book about time travel ever written, from Guns of the South to The Time Ships to Time After Time and even To Say Nothing of the Dog. It struck me while watching the Haruhi film that Western-style stories about time travel (or time dilation in space) are relatively rare, and the anime series that do deal with these themes have clear Western inspirations. In the case of Haruhi, many of the "future Mikuru" ideas are lifted from the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons (this is actually the book Yuki gives to Kyon in episode 3), and the Haruhi-as-Godhead story harkens back to the classic Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." Gunbuster is essentially an homage to the awesome SF books Ender's Game and The Forever War, with skimpy uniforms added for fan service. When Japanese do create "timeslip" stories, they tend to be simpler, about a character who goes back in time to buy a red straw hat for his future girlfriend, or the well-trodden genre of modern Japanese person going back to Japan's "Warring States" historical period. Western time travel stories are sweeping tales about Deloreans man's mastery of technology and looking at society through different lenses, while Japanese time travel tends to be a device to put dramatic pressure on different characters.
So, what time travel books have you read that you can share with us in the comments?
Haruhi Suzumiya is back in a new movie, and it's pretty bad-ass.
18 comments:
While not technically a time travel story, the Hitchhiker's Guie to the Galaxy series is pretty good. That, and the television show Lost is doing some pretty good things with time manipulation.
If I remember correctly, there was some time-travel in the later books in the Dragonriders of Pern series.
Also, I have a question about buying movie tickets in Japan. I've seen that tickets can be pre-sold, but I have no idea where to buy such tickets. Do you have to go to the theater where the movie will be showing? Or can you buy them at a convenience store? Or is there some other method? ^^; I ask because I too want to go see the Haruhi movie, and there's other upcoming movies that I want to see as well.
Then I assume that you love "The Girl who leapt thru time"(時をかける少女); both anime and the original '86 movie
Cant come up with any books but its good to hear the new Haruhi movie is bad-ass. I cant wait for it to get some kind of release here in the states.
Also...good analogy about Haruhi and "Its a good life". I too have thought about that. Now as long as she doesn't wish anyone out into the cornfield.
Ah, Hitchhiker, that made the 80s for me.
Stephen, yes, all the Pern books are rife with time travel. I'd forgotten about those. Makes me watch to read them again...
You can pre-reserve tickets through Movix.co.jp's website, but I usually just go. There were like 20 people in the theatre, I knew it wouldn't be too full to be inconvenient.
Coffeebugg, yes, TokiKakeShojo is cool, I'm looking forward to the upcoming live-action movie too.
Tatsuki, if you have a million hours of free time, go read the TV Tropes page on Haruhi, they deconstruct it nicely. But be warned, you can waste your life away on that site.
I have some experience with a time travel pencil-and-paper roleplaying game called Continuum. The idea is basically that transhumans from the future recruit people from all different time periods to prevent (and fix) paradoxes caused by villains.
Continuum has rules for some fun time travel tricks. Remember the bit in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure where Ted plans to go back in time and steal his dad's keys and leave them in jail so he can break himself out? Yeah, you can do that in Continuum.
Glad to hear the Haruhi movie was good.
I love a good time travel story and I can tell by which books you mention, your a true SF reader. Two of my favorite SF authors - Connie Willis and Kage Baker - use time travel alot. You already mentioned To Say Nothing of the Dog by Willis so let me say that she has a brand new time travel novel that just came out - Blackout - my own copy is on it's way from Amazon. Kage Baker's Company series included indestructible, immortal humans and time travel; it was loads of fun and had great characters.
Have you read Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee"? It's not hard SF but it is a well written novel.
Of course, the biggest problem in writing a time travel story is making the logic work out. I think that Jack Chalker's "Downtiming the Nightside" is close to the best I've read in terms of handling that, as well as in telling a compelling story about a fascinating character. Much recommended!
Man, how could I have forgetten? If it's time travel, you can't forget Doctor Who! There's a recent special titled "The Waters of Mars" (you can probably find it on a torrent) that deal with the philosophy of changing history. That, and the TARDIS beats any other temporal displacement device hands down (DeLorean, I'm looking at you...)
Probably my favorite time-travel story is "Time and Again", by Jack Finney.
A recurring theme in Finney's stories is how reality is a sort of collective delusion, and if one could somehow free oneself of that delusion, and consciously choose another sort of delusion to believe in, one can change one's reality.
In "Time and Again", our hero is looking for a job in early '70s New York City, somehow falls in with a super-secret Federal project involving time-travel by hypnosis, and actually masters the technique. He then proceeds to have various adventures in the New York City of 1882, and winds up having to choose between life and love in 1972 versus life and love in 1882.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney
Two stories by Finney that don't deal in time-travel as such, but do delve into notions of reality being a collective delusion are "Of Missing Persons" and "I'm Scared". "Of Missing Persons" is especially haunting, dealing as it does with what the protagonist could have had, had he only not given up hope too soon.
And I've rattled on long enough. Thanks for the soapbox, Peter.
After reading this post: I wonder...
Is it just coincidence that Hiro's power on Hero's is time travel and his story arc's involve returning to the past to rectify wrongs?
Cool, Hale, thanks.
Another story I read recently was John Varley's Mammoth, which was interesting in its simple approach. Way less complex than his also excellent Millenium, another favorite. I love the "world supercomputer and robot" allegory for God and Jesus, at the end.
Thomas, yes, I am wowfully behind in my Doctor Who, having not watched it properly since I was a boy. Got to get back into that...
One thing that occurred to me was that time travel stories are often a way to "cheat," having people from the future come to the present so you can avoid having expensive sets, which I believe Star Trek perfected. In animation, you can show anything so they never developed this approach to storytelling. That theory might well be wrong, but it feels right.
For me, there is only one proper time/travel story: H.G. Wells, The Time Machine. Many movies have been based on this old story, but they all fail miserably to capture the Victorian nightmare that is the original work. 32,000 words of genius, written at the very infancy of modern science (1895).
Robert A. Heinlein's "-All You Zombies-"
Timo, yes amazingly I've never read it, tho I bought it in the U.S. last time, so I'll rectify that soon. I've read a bunch of HG Wells but found I preferred Jules Verne (who is da man) for readability.
There's a pair of Heinlein stories that I read in the same collection when I was about 10 that really stand out for me. One is "All you Zombies", which sara mentioned. The other is "By His Bootstraps."
As Timo has already suggested, H.G. Well's "The Time Machine" (the book, not any of the movies) is THE classic to go by.
But for me, one of my favorites time travel stories is Asimov's "The End of Eternity", a prequel to the Foundation's series.
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