Time travel

[Babz]

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

[LeMarchand]

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*

[jno]

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!

[LeMarchand]

I'd still say that the fact that time travel is involved makes it SF, even if the mechanism (as in my recommendation) doesn't involve any sort of science.

Though my rant was more aimed at the literary snobs who don't want to be seen as having anything to do with that "nasty Sci Fi rubbish".

[Babz]

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.

[LeMarchand]

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?

[Babz]

It's Ok I didn't take offence :-) I've ordered two of Richard Matheson's books, Bid Time Return and What Dreams May Come and I'll have a look at Barbara Erskine books too, thanks again.

[pips1]

Somewhere in Time is the best film I have seen, I could watch it over and over! Enjoy!!

[webbo3]

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.

[delboy3]

Although there's a bit (ok, a lot) of implausible science involved, Michael Crichton's 'Timeline' is a romantic action yarn set mostly in medieval France. Well worth a read - but avoid the film version!

[Babz]

Thanks very much to you all, I now have a good reading list.

Babz

[slipnslide]

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!

[NiceCupOfTea]

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.

[Sir Alec]

I loved the Time Travellers Wife. I didn't enjoy The Time Machine as much, as I found some of it quite depressing. I don't usually prefer a film to a book, but in this case I did.

[Babz]

Thanks again, I like the sound of that book Cupoftea. I much prefer a book to a film, I watch very little TV but I love to lose myself in a book.

It's been a wonderful response, thanks very much to everybody.

[Hellyon]

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

[SpeechCoach]

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.

[Babz]

Thank you, two more for the list.

[dingaling]

Cross stitch by Diane Gabaldon, guarantee you will fall a little in love with Jamie! The heroine walks thro' the standing stones in Scotland and straight into the Battle of Culloden! It is the first book of about four I think. I also loved Somewhere in Time ( and the film) Shirl

[Babz]

Ah yes I've read Cross Stitch, Dingaling, and the one after that, you're right Jamie is/was lovely.