Future Times

Recent discussion of The Time Machine and of Poul Anderson's time travel fiction might lead to yet another rereading of Anderson's There Will Be Time. JB Priestley described The Time Machine as "that little masterpiece." This brief phrase is applicable to several fictional works, including CS Lewis' The Great Divorce, which applies a time travel idea to eternity, and There Will Be Time.

We can assess 100+ years of sf. Contrast the comparative straightforwardness of The Time Machine - into futurity and return - with the circular causality complexities of:

"By His Bootstraps" by Robert Heinlein;
The Technicolor Time Machine by Harry Harrison;
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers;
Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson;
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger;
The Corridors Of Time by Poul Anderson;
There Will Be Time by Poul Anderson.

Although Niffenegger's time traveler is not Wells' Time Traveler, her title acknowledges Wells.

Matheson and Niffenegger give us time travel within a single lifetime;

Wells and Heinlein give us travel to future periods;

Harrison and Powers give us travel to historical periods;

Anderson gives us travel to both historical and future periods, including a unique vision of time travelers moving forwards and backwards along the world lines of slower than light interstellar spaceships, thus returning to Earth before the launch of the first ship.