Book lists – Best Time Travel Novels

Inspired by the list (below) that Jeff started off (and some others he has been running recently, such as heroic fiction) I thought I’d take a stab at doing some of my own on a smaller scale. I thought since Doctor Who and Life on Mars have been making me think about the nature of time again I’d start with a list of some of the best books dealing with time travel and I’d very much like folks to suggest other titles they think should go on the list, so these first ones are only a beginning, please do send in ideas.

Basic rule is that any book nominated must contain some method of actual time travel, be it by science, mental powers, magic, accident etc, or temporal exploration/manipulation (as in Clarke and Baxter’s Light of Other Days for example) or folks from one period mysteriously given a new life in another (as in Things Unborn) so, regrettably something like Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon or Ken MacLeod’s The Sky Ship which have related narratives running in two different time periods would not count because there is no travel between those periods. As with Jeff’s list it is open to any work which meets that criteria, regardless of whether most folk consider it to be ‘SF’ or not, as long as you consider it to be a good read worth recommending (because of the quality of writing or even just because of the imaginative ideas); if you have one you are not sure about then send it in anyway along with why you think it belongs on the list.

So the opening (short) list, which will hopefully grow (in no special order):

The Time Machine, H.G. Wells

The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter

The Light of Other Days, Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter

The Stainless Stee Rat Saves the World, Harry Harrison

The Technicolour Time Machine, Harry Harrison

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain

Behold the Man, Michael Moorcock

Time and Again, Jack Finney

Bring the Jubilee, Ward Moore

Timescape, Gregory Benford

Things Unborn, Eugene Byrne

Kindred, Octavia Butler

The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

Beauty, Sherri S Tepper

The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov

Time Enough For Love, Robert Heinlein

The Books of Magic, Neil Gaiman et al

The Guns of the South, Harry Turtledove

Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams