Study Questions on Time Travel
-
What is
the historical
pattern to the development of time-travel themes?
-
Early romances--
dreams, suspended
animation--> exploration of future LEM: joys of discerning
effects of new innovation)
-
Machinery/ exploration
(Age of
Wonder) --> explore time as if it were space (LEM: groteque and humorous
stories appear)
-
golden age-- plot
possibilities,
laws of time, philosophy behind time, paradoxes
-
age of acceptance--
time police;
institutions of time control (LEM: premises taken for granted;
simple pretext for sensational tales)
-
new wave (60's-70's)
sophisticated
inquiry into subjective nature of time travel. (LEM: Serious
considertion of chaos and subjective effects)
-
80's-90's --> more
extensive historical
detail
-
What are all
the different
methods of time travel used in SF?
-
dreams
-
machines
-
parallel worlds
-
Wells, "The Strange
Casae of Davidson's
Eyes" 1895
-
Leinster, "Sidewise
in Time" (1934)
-
Williamson, Legion
of Time
(1938) 2 alternate futures fighting
-
L. Srpage de Camp Lest
Darkness
Fall (1939) mutable past
-
Heinlein, "By his
Bootstraps"
(1941)
-
Lieber, The Big
Time
(1958)Change Wars
-
altrnate worlds
-
psychic abilities
-
What are the
different,
metaphorical definitions of the nature of time?
-
For Wells, time is
like a river;
you can dip into it, go back up and down it (single continum that you
can
step into and out of)
-
A more complicated
version would
see all kinds of streams, slip streams, etc.
-
Another would say we
are all in
the river and can't step out of it
-
Possibility tree
(alternate histories;
parallel worlds_
-
if time is a
continuum, there
is no free will
-
How are
time-travel
paradoxes treated by various authors? How does this develop
historically?
-
Why can't time
travel
exist? Hawkin says it can't because we haven't met a
time-traveller
yet. SF options include:
-
How do
different time-lines
relate to historical events?
-
What are the
basic
laws of time-travel?
-
can't bring stuff from
future
into present (it hasn't been invented yet)
-
can't change history
(but this
is violate ALL the time)
-
Stuff and people from
the past
CAN be brought into the presetn
-
Conservation of energy
(person
cannot stay in the past or bring another into future unless exchange is
made).
-
How are
characters
affected by time-travel?
-
What are the
different
philosophies of the nature of time expressed by time-travel?
-
What happens to
time;
can it be changed?
-
time is a personal
thing; you
can only change it for yourself
-
time can be changed,
so we have
to be very careful when we go back in time
-
What kinds of
themes
seem to be most common in time-travel stories?
-
What kind of
monitering
and protection of time-lines is posited?
-
Do you see any
thematic
similarities between "All you Zombies" and Starship Troopers or
Orphans of the Sky?