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?