So You Created a Wormhole: The Time Traveler's Guide to Time Travel

by Phil Hornshaw, Nick Hurwitch

Welcome, intrepid temporal explorers, to the world's first and only field manual/survival guide to time travel!
DON'T LEAVE THIS TIME PERIOD WITHOUT IT!
Humans from H. G. Wells to Albert Einstein to Bill & Ted have been fascinated by time travel-some say drawn to it like moths to a flame. But in order to travel safely and effectively, newbie travelers need to know the dos and don'ts. Think of this handy little book as the only thing standing between you and an unimaginably horrible death-or being trapped forever in another time or alternate reality. You get:
Essential time travel knowledge:
Choosing the right time machine, from DeLoreans to hot tubs to phone booths-and beyond What to say-and what NOT to say-to your doppelganger Understanding black holes and Stephen Hawking's term "spaghettification" (no, it's not a method of food preperation; yes, it is a horrifically painful way to meet your end) The connection between Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, traversing wormholes and the 88 mph speed requirement The possible consequences of creating a time paradox-including, but not limited to, the implosion of the universe
Survival tips for nearly any sticky time travel situation:
How to befriend a dinosaur and subsequently fight other dinosaurs with that dinosaur Instructions to build your very own Rube Goldberg Time Machine Crusading-for fun and profit Tips on battling cowboys, pirates, ninjas, samurai, Nazis, Vikings, robots and space marines How to operate a microwave oven Enjoying the servitude of robots and tips for living underground when they inevitably rise up against us

Genres: Time Travel, Humor, Science Fiction, Fiction, Reference, Comedy, Science Fiction Fantasy

336 pages, ebook

First published April 3, 2012

About the author

Chrono-displacement Molecular Reassembly Psychosis Specialist and Test Subject Hostage Negotiator Phil Hornshaw moonlights as a technology blogger when he hangs up his time travel goggles. A sometimes fanatical consumer of television and film as well as part-time payer of attention to Science, he has known a fascination with time travel and its horrific effects on the human all his life. He currently lives in Los Angeles and spends much of his time working on various science-fictiony experiments in plot delivery systems with writing partner-best friend Nick Hurwitch.

Hornshaw works as a smartphone app-centric tech blogger for Appolicious.com and writes about video games for GameFront.com. He also has a (somewhat unhealthy) fixation with zombies, aliens and other horror-type...horrors, and has been known to write short stories, screenplays and the 140-character musings.

Reviews

[Phil Hornshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I co-wrote it, so you can go ahead and ignore that rating. But I liked writing it, so that counts for something, I hope.

[Mike Cope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, funny, full of humorous illustrations and rife with pop culture references. I'll be sure to pack it with my towel for my next temporal excursion.

[Dan Cassidy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The authors are not as funny as they think they are.

[Daria · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love time travel, humour and thick 'n' fast science fiction references, this is for you!

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big science fiction fan, so I was looking forward to this read. I was surprised to find it was just a continous stream of humorous pop culture references to time travel, with a little science thrown in. I found myself chuckling a few times, but most of the jokes seemed like things I had heard before, or could of made up myself, so I wasn't that impressed. Dinosaur riding? Really? It was a quick kinda fun read, but not something likely to linger long in my memory. Keep in mind two stars means "it was ok" not "it was awful."

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful unselfconscious look at the science of time travel and other things that might be useful when time traveling, like, oh say, history, and how to build a battery out of dinosaur poop. Obviously, this book is meant to be humorous and silly, but there are a few little gems about understanding some physics concepts like Special and General Relativity, the concept of Quantum Foam and of course wormholes. That being said, if you want to really learn about these things pick up a textbook. This is a humorous guide. That means it's written for laughs.

It's definitely a laugh a minute. What ever you do don't miss the footnotes. Well, most of them anyway. The authors attempt to channel Terry Pratchett here...and well they apparently learn how to use footnotes. No they're not quite as funny as Pratchett, but honestly that's kind of a high bar to hit. It was a lark and an honestly laugh-a-minute experience. Have fun reading it, you might just learn something, too!

[Bryan Knoelk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to enjoy. Clearly time travel is an important part of hard sci-fi but this book deals more with surviving genre fiction rather than time travel. The second half of the book reads like TV Tropes with a light schmear of time travel tips. The most informative section lists the four models of time travel: Wormholes, Relativity, Quantum Foam, and Black Holes. Also gives a decent breakdown of Einstein’s Relativities: General and Special.

[MK · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some funny parts for sure, especially in the first section. The second section, "How to Survive in ______ Time Period" really doesn't lend itself to reading cover to cover, but, as I borrowed it from the library, that's what I had to do, so I just skimmed those sections.

I'm not the target audience for this book, and they say so in the beginning. They say they're talking to males, and they expect there's only one female in the entire audience. And, you know, it kinda shows in the humor deployed - page 1 depicts a timeline based on the hairiness/'hairlines' of women's leg; page 3 talks about going back in time to "totally bone" the 8th grade math teacher, and ... ah, never mind, I don't feel like finding them all. Suffice to say, they are not talking to women, and they say so in another place, which I can't find right now (mentioning the single female person in their reading audience, at one point).

[A. Nixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. There's a great thread of humour throughout and I found myself cheering whenever there were (many) geeky references. I like that it treated all instances of time travel in film and literature as true as well as the future that it sketched out in a rather alarming amount of detail!

But at the same time, while I did enjoy this book, there were times when it was just too much. The last 100 pages seemed to stretch longer than I anticipated and I almost found myself just wanting it to end. That said, I didn't stop reading because I was enjoying it, it was just a longer read than I had anticipated.

Still, the illustrations were great fun and I can definitely see myself coming back to bits and pieces of it as a "reference guide" rather than something to sit and read through. I feel awfully ready to travel through time, I'm not going to lie.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't give the book five stars, because I simply have not encountered the perfect book yet. It is, however, better than the four stars I gave it. Wonderfully funny, with loads of sci-fi references. Some of the funniest lines in the book are found in the footnotes at the bottoms of most pages.
That said, I don't think this is a book for everyone. People who are dorks/geeks/nerds (like myself) will enjoy this book the most. If you watch or read little to nothing that references time travel, you won't understand any of the references the authors make. I mean, it IS a book on time travel, after all!

[Adam Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every wanted to travel through time? To see the entirety of human history? To face the inevitable robot uprising? To ride your very own dinosaur? Well wait no further, with this guide you too can be a master of time and space.

This book was interesting. There was less on actual time travel than there was on surviving in the various eras you might find yourself in, but still it was an interesting and humorous read with plenty of shoutouts along the way.

A good book for those interested in time travel.

***Reading Challenge 2015: A funny book***

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

This book is HILARIOUS.
Buuuut I only read about two-thirds of it. I got really bored in the [survival guides sorted by chronological era] part.
But yeah, the rest? READ IT! It's awesome.

[Robert Risher · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started out with some great laughs until I realized how much stupider I was getting by reading it. The humor devolved from quirky to irreverent to offensive, so I didn't make it all the way through to the end. Skip this one at all costs.

[JT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and helpful -- I'll never create a paradox again!

[Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome. That is all.

[Chris Archibald · Rating 4 out of 5]

good information with solid comedy

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would never leave my historical time period without this crucial handbook. First of all, it was instrumental in helping me design my time travel rocket (I used a modified 1954 Prairie Schooner) and second of all, it was a crucial guidebook to the future (and the past) laying out everything I needed to know to stay alive. I found the sections on who to mate with and appropriate weapons to take to be of particular use. Being that I am not actually originally from this time period, sadly many of the pop cultural references were beyond me (I see other reviewers loved them). But I am hoping as I travel to the 21st century more and more these will start to make me laugh. Hope springs eternal, I know.

For now, I use this book to avoid a hideous death. Speaking of which, the authors were timid a bit on traveling back into the past. It's true that this kind of travel is only for serious time travelers. The future is, as we time travelers always say, a piece of cake. But luckily by piecing together their advice, I have been able to use the book for past as well as future time trips. Also personally, having a backup time machine is probably less important as having a good pair of sneakers and avoiding predictability, but that's just my opinion. This book is awesome! Get a copy asap! And see you in the 15th century!!!

[Sanalith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humour books are often difficult for me to rate, and this one was no exception. At times, I felt like the authors were trying too hard to be funny, instead of just letting it happen, while other moments had be laughing out loud. Without a doubt, the best parts were the off-the-cuff references to time travel fandoms. Back to the Future, The Time Machine (and H.G. Wells in general), Star Trek, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Doctor Who all figured prominently throughout the book, which always just makes my inner geek excited. In the end, it's something I'd recommend to my fellow sci-fi fans, if for no other reason than the in jokes were absolutely the best parts of the story.

As a side note, the second half was much more enjoyable than the first, so if you find yourself getting a little stuck at the very beginning, try to push your way through. The first part discusses the actual mechanics of time travel, while the second takes you through history (and the future) and discusses how to survive, how to blend in, what things to take with you, how to repair broken time machines, and what you should avoid (such as the Black Death and the Robotocolypse).

And yes, it DOES culminate at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, as it should.

[Alli · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first part of the guide dealing with an overview of theoretical physics and time travel theories is worthwhile and a decent summary, but the authors think they're funnier than they are and every sexist joke proves it.

The Survival Guide portion was frustrating for historical inaccuracies (not just inserting wizards and dragons in the middle ages, I get that joke), and overall wasn't as entertaining as it set out to be. In part that was because of confusing formatting and an excessive number of footnotes that disrupted the reading experience more than it added to it.

Generally I found this book frustrating, but I will use the first portion for reference until I can find a better book to provide a general overview of time travel theory and then my copy will be dropped off at the nearest used bookstore.

(If there weren't so many sexist jokes, I would have given this three stars, but I assume the authors will just say that since I'm a woman I don't have a sense of humor.)

[Du · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I really wanted to like it and I wish I did. It was funny and humorous and everything its authors probably wanted it to be. But it was funny in a silly and mundane way, not in a with reading to remember way. I think there were too many pop culture references in it. It was "let's name drop every single time travel reference in pop movies and TV and the reader will love it".

It just didn't work for me. Wish it had.

On the plus side it was a very quick read. I read a few pages at night, and then picked it up this afternoon and finished it in a few hours. Amazing how fast you can read a book without substance.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Time travel is dangerous business, rife with opportunities to get eaten by a dinosaur, catch an alien STD, or destroy the universe with a paradox. Thus, a handbook such as this, covering methods of time travel, time machine options, and quick tips for surviving in various epochs of Earth’s history, ought to be very useful. However, it falls flat. The snarky humor and pop culture references just do not coalesce into an entertaining whole, possibly because of the endless footnotes interrupting the flow and underscoring how poorly organized the book is.

[Nate Van Coops · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend of mine gave this to me as a birthday gift and I loved it. I snorted from laughing on multiple occasions and felt like every pop culture and time travel reference was aimed straight at me. It's a book I can pick up and open to any page and feel entertained. Just as fun as The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbooks with even more laughs. It's destined to be loved by any sci-fi enthusiasts, especially those like me from the vicinity of the 80's, who grew up on Army of Darkness, Monty Python, and Back to the Future. Great gift for the Marty McFly in your family.

[Lincoln · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a humor book who treats movies as history of time travel and is brought laughter many times. I think a solid understanding of pop culture made the humor more relevant to myself. I am in my mid 30's and most of it was right up my alley with 80's and 90's movie references throughout. I also enjoyed the tongue in cheek footnotes that build on each other. I found myself chuckling and then reading it out loud to anyone who happened to be in earshot. I have never really read a book of this nature, a book that exists to simply be humorous, it was fun.

[David Brzezinski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time with this book. At times it wanted to be a pop culture reference to time travel, making references to Bill and Ted, H.G. Wells, Marty McFly, and The Doctor, but not enough to justify their inclusion. Other times, it wants to focus on the science, which often gets a bit heady and hard to follow. Most times, it wants to be funny, but I found most of the jokes falling flat. There are other books out there on this subject that are much better than this one.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quirky guide to time travel including how to build your own time machine, skills you need for different time periods like dragon fighting and knowing the symptoms of the black plague and what to do to avoid time paradoxes.

References several science fiction movie characters, tv shows and books related to time travel in any way. Speaks very reverently of Dr. Emmett Brown and his time traveling Delorian.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was in middle school and loved it. I was, and still am, fairly interested in the theory of time travel and this definitely furthered my interest through comedy and facts. It's a great read for anyone who loves the mystery of the 4th dimension and likes comedy along the way.

[Mike O'pecko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun. Really "enjoyed" robotapocylpse.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very clever idea that would have made a great article but failed in book length, as only a joke drug out too long can do.

[Oliver · Rating 1 out of 5]

NOT funny and utterly derivative.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful advice in case of time-travel misshaps.