Timetravel books

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krwhiting

Well-Known Member
Jan 5, 2015
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Have you ever noticed how every sci-fi series eventually gets into time travel? Star Trek, Stargate, X-Files, Twilight Zone, etc. I've sometimes wondered if it wasn't the sci-fi version of jumping the shark, but all of those series went on to make great shows after their forays into time travel.

Two things about time travel: 1. it's almost impossible to comprehend. We consist in a linear flow of time. Everything we know, we know that way. Actually moving oustide of it would, I think, be incomprehensible to us. We write sci-fi that continues to treat time in a linear fashion without thinking that we've just made it un-linear by the fact of traveling through it. My memories no longer match up on a linear line with others, but instead, I have un-linearity. 2. We know it never happens, as Heinlein said, because we aren't deluged with time travelers from the future. Like in The Big Bang Theory when Sheldon waits for himself to appear from the future and he doesn't.

I really like the Simpsons where Homer kept going back to prehistoric times though. Laughed and laughed and laughed. "Doh! I'm gonna pay for that one!"

Kelly
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
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Mathieson's Somewhere in Time was very well done (book, not movie, though that was okay, too).
No wonder i didn't recognise the title. Original title was Bid Time Return. After it was made into a movie it was reprinted under the movies title, Somewhere in time, which is confusing. I simply can't understand why they must change titles all time back and forth with american and british copies or after a movie based on the book. So confusing. Suddenly you might have three copies of one book but under different titles. Why!!!!?????
 

goathunter

Well-Known Member
May 9, 2008
310
495
No wonder i didn't recognise the title. Original title was Bid Time Return. After it was made into a movie it was reprinted under the movies title, Somewhere in time, which is confusing. I simply can't understand why they must change titles all time back and forth with american and british copies or after a movie based on the book. So confusing. Suddenly you might have three copies of one book but under different titles. Why!!!!?????

In case your question wasn't rhetorical: Publishers want to sell books. When a movie does well, they want to sell more copies of the book. Republishing Bid Time Return after the movie came out wouldn't sell copies. Republishing it as Somewhere in Time did. And American and British publishers change titles because they think they know what titles will sell the most copies. It's why in the UK, the book was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and in the U.S., it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In the U.S., most people had never heard of a philosopher's stone; a philosopher is someone who studies philosophy, which has nothing to do with a philosopher's stone. So the U.S. publisher changed the name for broader appeal to U.S. buyers.

Speaking of Bid Time Return, I stumbled over this British paperback cover, which is a dreadful cover for the book.

8367689981_ec3a4c7de3_b.jpg


Hunter
 
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Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
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In case your question wasn't rhetorical: Publishers want to sell books. When a movie does well, they want to sell more copies of the book. Republishing Bid Time Return after the movie came out wouldn't sell copies. Republishing it as Somewhere in Time did. And American and British publishers change titles because they think they know what titles will sell the most copies. It's why in the UK, the book was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and in the U.S., it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In the U.S., most people had never heard of a philosopher's stone; a philosopher is someone who studies philosophy, which has nothing to do with a philosopher's stone. So the U.S. publisher changed the name for broader appeal to U.S. buyers.

Speaking of Bid Time Return, I stumbled over this British paperback cover, which is a dreadful cover for the book.

8367689981_ec3a4c7de3_b.jpg


Hunter
It certainly is horrible. My copy looked like this
upload_2015-1-19_14-50-43.jpeg
 
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Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
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A good timetravel story is The Lincoln Hunters by Wilson Tucker. It is about some poeple from ca 2570 that goes back to 1856 to search for the famous lost speech of Lincoln. A historical search you can say. They come from a rather hard controlled world where the memories of what took place back then is more legends than history. Somehow he manages to give a good picture of both the future and 1856 when Lincoln is on the threshold to great things. As the story unfolds we'll see that it is never simple and easy with timetravel.