Time Travel: Recent Trips

by Paula Guran (Editor), Kage Baker (Contributor), Elizabeth Bear (Contributor)

The idea of time travel has been with us since ancient times; now, the concept of time travel seems . . . almost . . . plausible. Today, tales of chrononauts are more imaginative and thought provoking than ever before: new views, cutting-edge concepts, radical notions of paradox and possibility-state-of-the-art speculative stories collected from those written in the twenty-first century. Forward to the past, back to the future-get ready for a fascinating trip!

Genres: Time Travel, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fantasy, Fiction, Ebooks

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Paula Guran is senior editor for Prime Books. She edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. She is also senior editor of Prime's soon-to-launch digital imprint Masque Books. Guran edits the annual Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series as well as a growing number of other anthologies. In an earlier life she produced weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications.

Reviews

[Althea Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extensive anthology featuring recently-published (within the last decade) short fiction with a time travel theme. No real clunkers here; it's a grouping of overall strong stories by deservedly-well-respected authors in the genre.

**** “With Fate Conspire,” Vandana Singh
One woman has been plucked from a refugee camp, due to her rare ability, a fluke of the brain, to use a scientific device which allows a viewer to glimpse a past time. The scientists think she's observing a famous poet. In reality, she's obsessed with watching a seemingly ordinary housewife. Outside the ivory tower which has become her prison, an apocalyptic world is teeming. What does poetry matter when everything is doomed?
This is impressively good. I would've liked maybe just a hint more resolution at the end, though - something to tie in how the use of the machine might affect the future, and why...

**** “Twember,” Steve Rasnic Tem
A strange apocalypse... 'Icebergs' of detritus randomly appear and slide across the landscape, leaving mixed-up flotsam of different times in their wake. No one knows why or how this is happening... the changes they leave are dismissed by authorities as 'cosmetic.' However, the 'changes' have wreaked destruction on one family... A mood piece, full of angst and ennui... I very much liked it.

***** “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary,” Ken Liu
Ken Liu starts with an idea first, and creates a story around it. Here, as usual, he does a mind-blowingly good job of it.
The point of this story is to draw attention to the atrocities committed by Japan's 'Unit 731' in Pingfang, preceding and during WWII, and uses that era as a jumping-off point to explore the different (and largely avoidant) attitudes that humans take when dealing with almost unimaginable horrors of the past.
The science-fictional premise is that two scientists have made a discovery of particles, that, when captured, and give one witness - and one only, ever - the experience of being transported to a specific time and place. After their experience, he hopes to gain closure for the families of the victims and have their eyewitness testimony shut down denialists.
This is long for a 'short story' - over 50 pages. From a 'fictional narrative' perspective, some of the middle section gets a bit waterlogged with the inclusion of facts and historical details; feeling more like an essay. However, as a piece of writing, it deserves fully five stars, for its unflinching (and, at times, extremely disturbing) look at the evil that humans are capable of, and how we all are capable of complicity. Unexpected shifts in perspective and insights raise this above many other writings on similar topics.

**** “The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park,” Kage Baker
Read previously in, "In the Company of Thieves." The Company's immortality process has gone wrong, and the subject has been rendered something very like what, in the 21st century, we call 'autistic.' The Company puts their failed agent to work as a kind of camera, recording images of a San Francisco park for interested parties in other times and places. However, although he's not socially functional, he forms a kind of connection with a woman he sees day after day, who's obsessed with the small but hopeless cause of restoring the historical flower beds of the park... Set on a much smaller scale that most of Baker's Company tales, this is a delicate, sensitive and touching story.

*** “Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous,” Dale Bailey
A 'Jurassic Park'-style excursion may not be the best substitute for marital counseling. I really liked the ending...

*** “Blue Ink,” Yoon Ha Lee
Interesting and rather original idea for fantasy: what if, when the mysterious figure arrives, telling you that in the great and final conflict, everything depends on you... and you just say, "no thanks, not interested"?

** “Two Shots from Fly’s Photo Gallery,” John Shirley
This is a perfectly fine story, and others may enjoy it. Personally, I think I'm just feeling bored with 'The Gunfight at the OK Corral' and mixing it in with issues of domestic abuse and depression visited unto the next generations didn't make it more interesting to me. I also found the issues faced by the time traveller here to be... just fairly ordinary.

*** “The Mists of Time,” Tom Purdom
How much is our view of history affected by our focus? Sometimes, it's all about what one chooses to look at. Here, we meet a man who wants to go back in time and create a documentary about his heroic ancestor, a ship's captain renowned for freeing slaves during the time of Napoleon. The award-winning filmmaker hired to direct the project, however, is more interested in the plight of the slaves, and takes a cynical attitude toward their 'rescuers.' And the point of view of the captain himself does not align perfectly with either vision...

*** “The King of Where-I-Go,” Howard Waldrop
Bradbury-esque, nostalgic piece about a boy growing up in the 1950's - and blaming himself for his sister's polio. Later, he may have the chance to go back in time and do something about it... And... does he? I guess. Did I miss something here? I thought for sure he was going to try to go back in time and vaccinate her. I guess something happened, since she ends up never having had polio, but... yeah, I guess I missed it.

*****“Bespoke,” Genevieve Valentine
A new take on 'The Butterfly Effect.'
Time travel is a popular entertainment for the wealthy - and of course, they need the perfect, hand-tailored and chronologically appropriate outfits for their jaunts. Thus, the two seamstresses we meet here are employed...
I loved this story - it's truly, apocalyptically horrific, but all the dreadful things are lurking around the edges.

**** “First Flight,” Mary Robinette Kowal
Sentimental, but effective. An elderly woman travels back in time to document the first flight of the Wright Brothers. (The premise here is that one can't actually travel further back than the time of your birth; so a centenarian is much in demand...) This particular old lady isn't quite wh0 these researchers might have picked, had they had their druthers. She's got a mind of her own, and her own way of doing things. Will her honesty really be the best policy?
A sweet tale, not without humor - and I have to admit I teared up a little bit at the end.

*** “The Time Travel Club,” Charlie Jane Anders
The Time Travel Club is a small group of misfits and fantasists who get together in a church basement after the local AA meeting's time slot... But how will the club react when a strange woman in an absurd disguise joins them, claiming to have discovered a way to build a real time machine?

*** “The Ghosts of Christmas,” Paul Cornell
Given the opportunity, could you resist the urge to find out how your life will turn out? A time-travel researcher, pregnant with her first child, succumbs to that urge, and sneaks into her empty lab on Christmas night, to go visiting the herself of future years...

*** “The Ile of Dogges,” Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
A bit of a wish-fulfillment fantasy... An academic historian goes back in time to rescue the lost Ben Jonson & Thomas Nashe play from the censor who destroyed it. No real surprises her, but a satisfying read.

*** “September at Wall and Broad,” Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Time travel adventure with a bit of a spy thriller feel...
An agent in the government's time travel department has discovered an anomaly surrounding the infamous Wall Street bombing of September 16, 1920. A couple of other agents' missions to investigate have already failed - but Phillippa goes in 'deep' - posing as a typist employed near the epicenter of the bombing. What she uncovers reveals unexpected layers of political intrigue, and the paradoxical complexities entailed by trying to mess with history through time travel.
The story could work as a good introduction to what I feel could be a very entertaining series featuring Philippa...

*** “Thought Experiment,” Eileen Gunn
One man figures out how to travel through time using only his mind. My why are the people at the market in the public square of the town of Wessex, circa 1440, always so incomprehensibly hostile to him, each time he appears? Cute story, based on an original idea about the ramifications of traveling through time...

*** “Number 73 Glad Avenue,” by Suzanne J. Willis
A rather surreal, psychedelic piece. An enigmatic woman appears to employed as a party entertainer, accompanied by what appears to be her automaton or ventriloquist's dummy. As part of their show, they serve some very unusual drinks... and extremely unusual events proceed apace. But at one party, someone sees beyond the hallucinogenic veil, and asks questions about what's really going on. These questions aren't all answered, but strange revelations are hinted at...

*** "The Lost Canal,” Michael Moorcock
Moorcock weighs in here with a long story with a Golden Age feel. The two toughest people on Mars are a professional thief and a beautiful bounty hunter. An affair involving assassins, insanely valuable jewels, a planet-threatening bomb, and unexpected advice from another time, ensues... Lots of weird alien elements, I found, made the story a little distancing at first, but some fast-paced action and a dose of humor drew me in as it progressed.

One note: while editor Paula Guran can be counted on to select decent work for her anthologies, her introductions really leave something to be desired. The last collection of hers I read; she said something like (I paraphrase), "I've got the flu so I can't be bothered to write a real introduction." The introduction for this book reads like a high-school essay turned in by an unmotivated student: a bald listing of items and dates, vaguely strung together. I'd've been happier, in both cases, with no introduction at all: just let the works speak for themselves. They're good.

A copy of this book was provided to me through NetGalley. As always, my opinions are solely my own.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a pre-publication copy of this book via Netgalley for purposes of review.

Anthologies are usually a mixed bag, and this one is no exception, but, like the same editor's Magic City: Recent Spells, in this one the good outweighed the bad for me.

The time travel methods varied, from handwavium to technobabble to believing really hard, but I don't go to a time travel anthology looking for hard science.

Personally, I didn't get a lot from the overly academic survey of time travel literature that forms the editor's introduction, more because of its dry style than because of its content.

Bandana Singh's "With Fate Conspire" is set in a post-apocalyptic (cli-fi) India, where scientists are using the abilities of an illiterate woman to connect to an earlier time in case that will help change history for the better. It's a story more enjoyable for its journey than its destination, a "soft ending" story, but well told.

Steve Rasnic Tem's "Twember" could have done with more polishing (and will hopefully get it before the final version is released); it has a few minor errors and awkward phrases. There's a passage of philosophical musing which doesn't fit the character speaking it at all, and overall I found it one of those dreary stories in which unhappy characters don't do anything.

Ken Liu's "The Man Who Ended History: a Documentary" has all the elements I've come to expect from a Liu story. Not only the East Asian setting and characters, but the importance of family, the heartrending events, and the infodumps. This one was so heartrending that I couldn't read much of it (I have a low tolerance for torture and grimness), but I read enough to encounter an odd moment. It's cast as a documentary, as the title suggests, and one of the things about writing in this format is that you have to show, not tell (even if the characters are telling, they're doing so in dialogue). Yet Liu manages to slip a "tell" passage in anyway. Describing one of the interviewees, he gives us information about the man's motivation for teaching that we could not possibly get by watching a documentary, where all we have is people's appearance and their words. It's a strange slip from such a skilled craftsman, but if Liu has a fault, it's infodumping.

Kage Baker's "The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park" takes an apparently trivial topic - a public park, its decline, and the woman whose passion for it takes over her life - and, observing it through the eyes of a man who has been rendered effectively autistic by an immortality treatment, makes me care. That takes skill, and I applaud it.

Dale Bailey's "Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous" was, I felt, two stories. One was a "literary" story of a woman whose marriage is failing for reasons she can't understand (probably her own selfishness and emotional ineptitude), and which she seems unable to do anything about, and the bad decisions she makes. It wasn't to my taste; such stories aren't. The other is an SF story about a resort in the Late Cretaceous where, for obscene amounts of money, one can see dinosaurs. It wasn't filled out enough to stand on its own, but the two stories, like the couple in them, seemed separated by an unbridged gulf and never really worked together.

Yoon Ha Lee's "Blue Ink" felt, to me, incomplete and inconclusive, a slice of life with little plot. That's not to say I disliked it; it just left me not fully satisfied.

John Shirley's "Two Shots from Fly's Photo Gallery" is one of the "travel in time by believing really hard" stories, but the story itself is well handled. A man who has lost his wife to suicide goes back to the gunfight at the OK Corral to save one of her ancestors, in the hope that this will change her family history for the better, and discovers that ultimately you can't save people.

Tom Purdom's "The Mists of Time", by contrast, provides a counter to the prevailing cynicism of our culture that says that everyone has base motives, no matter what it looks like, and there are no real heroes. It's also a good story in the interesting-plot sense.

Howard Waldrop's "The King of Where-I-Go" surprised me, and not in a good way. I don't expect a story by an old hand like Waldrop to be dull, rambling and confused, but this was. It needed a good cut and polish. I'm reasonably sure it doesn't get the science right, either, in terms of how long it takes for polio vaccine to provide protection.

Genevieve Valentine's "Bespoke" may have had a point, but I didn't notice it. It might have been something about fiddling while Rome burned. Competently written, but landed very softly.

Mary Robinette Kowal's "First Flight" has a good premise: you can only time travel within your own lifetime, so to go back to the Wright Brothers' first sustained flight you need a feisty grandmother. She gets off a great zinger at the end. Needs a few phrases corrected or polished.

Charlie Jane Anders' "The Time Travel Club" is, as I now expect from Anders, clever and funny and about losers. Not hopeless losers, though, not completely. I enjoyed it.

Paul Cornell's "The Ghosts of Christmas", though littered with interrobangs and confusing the terms schizoid and schizophrenic, is a fascinating story about memory, about how we change over our lifetimes, and about how we influence our families (especially at memorable times like holidays). Good premise, too.

Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette's "The Ile of Dogges" is a new take on the old idea of using time travel to rescue lost art, in this case an Elizabethan satire. The censor who can't quite bring himself to destroy a seditious play because it's so good is a wonderful character.

Kristine Katherine Rush's "September at Wall and Broad" is another piece that needs correction and polishing before publication, to smooth some awkward phrases and correct the mispunctuation of "United State's" and the misspelling of "chauffeur". I usually find that stories that have a lot of copy editing errors don't work well for me in other ways, and this is an example. The mystery ends up only half solved, and neither candidate for protagonist does much that's protagonistic.

Eileen Gunn's "Thought Experiment" is another think-yourself-through-time story. I felt the ending was a touch rushed, but generally enjoyed it.

Suzanne J. Willis's "Number 73 Glad Avenue" is surreal, but in a way I enjoyed. It's the lead-in to a novel, and I'll be watching for that.

Michael Moorcock's "The Lost Canal" is full of telling and infodumping and references to stories that aren't this story and probably don't exist. The protagonist, we're told, is a ruthless, violent man, but we're shown an altruist. Its premise full of absurdities, its prose littered with exclamation points, it wasn't a good way to close the volume. A disappointment from a master from whom I expect better. I felt much the same way about the Ian McDonald story from the same retrofuture-Mars anthology (Old Mars), which I read in another collection earlier this year.

Speaking of sources, this is a reprint anthology. I was initially surprised, given the large number of mentions of Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and Clarkesworld in the resumes of the authors (and the soft endings of some of them, which I associate with those magazines), to read that more of these stories came from Asimov's than any other source. But then, where would you send a time travel story?

I've been critical of the individual stories in this volume, and some didn't work for me at all, but the collection as a whole I enjoyed. If, like me, you like to explore the idea of time travel, it's a good way to do so.

[Lora Milton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm very much a fan of good time travel stories, so when this anthology came up for review, I couldn't resist. Also there was a story included by Michael Moorcock, whose fantasy writing I've enjoyed before. Like most anthologies with stories from a lot of different writers, there were some that were more interesting to me than others.

The editor, Paula Guran, introduces the subject with some well informed historical facts about theories of time travel from different religions and cultures, including Ancient Egypt. Newton and other philosophers get a mention for their thoughts on the subject and actually this intro was one of the most interesting parts of the book!

There are 18 stories. I have a preference for time travel adventures, and found many of the stories not quite what I expected. The first few felt a little slow to get to anything to do with time travel. The subject seems to have been widely interpreted and some stories dealt with perceptions more than actual scifi time travel.

The Man Who Ended History by Ken Liu had an interesting theory about paired particles that allow us to see light through space that got my interest, but even this was more how to view the past than to actually travel there. The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park by Kage Baker was particularly interesting, though depressing and there was some good time travel action in Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous by Dale Bailey, though it was mainly about a failing marriage and a holiday hunting dinosaurs.

The Mists of Time by Tom Purdom was a very well written story about a slaver ship and First Flight by Mary Robinette Kowel was also a particularly well written story that had been recommended to me before. The Time Travel Club by Charlie Jane Anders brought in the movement of the earth in the mechanics of time travel, which I found interesting and September At Wall and Broad by Kristine Kathryn Rusch was another with especially good writing.

Thought Experiment by Eileen Gunn was one of the best in my opinion and had some original ideas about how time travel works, though they were reminiscent of the psychological method used in Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson with adaptations.

There seem to be a lot of time travel tourist stories around recently, not just in this collection but in general. I think the genre generally works better in novel form than in short stories, but that's just my personal opinion. The stories in this collection were all well written from a technical point of view, though some held interest more than others. Not a bad collection, but there was nothing so amazing that it would make me rush out to see what else the author has done.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A varied collection, with time travel as the sole connection, leading to spy stories, secret poets, extended lifespans, self-discovery, strange practical and legal limitations, and desperate attempts to save the world (or the past) with only one chance to do it, but only a couple of the stories really stuck with me, leaving the collection as a whole on the weaker side.

One notable exception was the third story: "The Man Who Ended History" by Ken Liu. Others were entertaining, weird or a little unexpected, but this self-titled documentary was heavily based in historical events, and actually led me to put down the book while I refreshed my sadly-lacking memory about the place in question. Although I had to read it over 3-4 sessions as I tried to follow the scientific explanations, it raised many social and political issues, not least of which is the inexcusable, oblivious ignorance many of us (myself included) have about historical atrocities which affect primarily non-Westerners.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paula Guran has managed to bring under one cover a diverse collection of previously published time travel adventures. Michael Moorcock's "The Lost Canal" reminded me of Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark stories. Some of the tales use devices to travel time, others use mental powers. I found "The Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous," "The Ghosts of Christmas," and "The Ile of Dogges" to be the most memorable, but all of the tales are worth reading. I am very glad that I finally got around to finishing this book!

[Grigory Lukin · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Time Travel: Recent Trips" is yet another sci-fi anthology edited by the prodigious Paula Guran. While this book has some remarkable stories, it appears that the volume's motto was "quantity over quality." Some of the stories are downright tedious, while others have almost nothing to do with time travel and serve as a filibuster platform for their author. Because of all that, the book ended up being an average, run-of-the-mill anthology that gets only 3 out of 5 stars.

"With fate conspire" by Vandana Singh: in a dystopian, drowning world of the future, an illiterate refugee gets rescued because her brain is uniquely tuned to a machine that can look into the distant past. When she's not being haunted by ghosts of people from the past, she sabotages the project because of her feelings. And more feelings. With some feelings on top. A sad weepy story if you're into that sort of thing.

"Twember" by Steve Rasnic Tem: a middle-aged man living in a small town reminisces about the past while giant mysterious escarpments roam the world and alter the time-space continuum when they pass. Yet another "human interest" story that doesn't exactly revolve around time travel.

"The man who ended history: a documentary" by Ken Liu: not so much a sci-fi story as a 46-page-long (the longest in the anthology!) NC-17 history lesson about Japan's Unit-731 from World War II. A Chinese-American historian uses his Japanese-American wife's invention to experience the past and relive old atrocities, which reopens old wounds and changes the way people view history. Great potential for a great story, but it ended up being rather dry.

"The carpet beds of Sutro Park" by Kage Baker: a glitchy immortal cyborg (see Kage Baker's "The Company" series for more information) falls in love with a woman while he records her hometown for posterity. Original but depressing.

"Mating habits of the late Creaceous" by Dale Bailey: a magnificent story about a married couple that spent all its money on a time travel to see dinosaurs. A great combination of science fiction, giant lizards and the human element.

"Blue ink" by Yoon Ha Lee: a very clever story about a schoolgirl who gets recruited to help fight the battle at the end of time. Short, beautifully written and with an unexpected ending.

"Two shots from Fly's photo gallery" by John Shirley: a historian who specializes in the Old West time-travels to the gunfight at the OK Corral to save the woman he loves. A thoroughly researched and excellent story.

"The mists of time" by Tom Purdom: an engaging story about a wealthy man who goes back in time to shoot a documentary about his great-grandfather liberating a pirate ship full of slaves.

"The king of Where-I-go" by Howard Waldrop: a strange story set in the 1970s - a Texan guy's younger sister gets recruited into a paranormal research project. Curious premise, but the story itself meanders - more about life in the 60s and 70s than anything else.

"Bespoke" by Genevieve Valentine: a cute short story about a post-time-travel world, where a young seamstress helps create authentic period clothing for wealthy tourists going back in time.

"First Flight" by Mary Robinette Kowal: a little old lady goes back in time to 1905 to record one of the Wright brothers' flights. A feel-good story where, for once, interfering with the timeline doesn't cause a disaster.

"The time travel club" by Charlie Jane Anders: a quirky story about a group of friends who meet each week in the basement of a Unitarian church and share their made-up stories about time travel, until a real time traveler shows up... Fun and creative.

"The ghosts of Christmas" by Paul Cornell: science fiction meets Lifetime channel in this story about a woman who uses an experimental time travel device to haunt her own past and future, her mather and her daughter. A lot of monologues about feelings, not a lot of science...

"The Ile of Dogges" by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette: a very Kage Baker-like story about a time traveler rescuing a play that would have been destroyed otherwise.

"September at Wall and Broad" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: an excellent story that combines the inefficiency of federal bureaucracies (the Time Department), the highly believable description of what it would be like to be a timestream operative, and the little-known Wall Street explosion of 1920. Highly recommended.

"Thought experiment" by Eileen Gunn: an engineer invents an unusual way to time-travel, but fails to consider the consequences. A goofy and entertaining story.

"Number 73 Glad Avenue" by Suzanne J. Willis: A woman and her magical tiny android sidekick steal time from people attending their parties. An unusual concept, though the story itself is a bit confusing.

"The Lost Canal" by Michael Moorcock: an unsuccessful and far too lengthy homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs's "John Carter of Mars" novels. Apparently, a million years from now people will still speak English and remember what happened in the 20th century and what happened in the 23rd.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up to read one specific story. Ended up reading a few others as well. They were fine, but not interesting enough for me to finish off the book.

[Chris B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most anthologies, a mixed bag

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Time Travel: Recent Trips is a collection of eighteen short stories which feature time travel as a major or minor element, in all its various forms. It’s a wide-ranging collection of themes and modes, to be sure, with something that is guaranteed to appeal to any time travel enthusiast. Guran has pulled stories from a number of sub-genres and to top it off the book has great cover art by Julie Dillon herself.

All stories were published within the past ten years, though some belong to newer writers in the field, while others are from established authors, and range from literary, to experimental, to pulp science fiction in style and subject. Paul Cornell is perhaps best know for his television and novel work with Doctor Who, and his comics work with DC and Marvel, but his story The Ghosts of Christmas is a visceral trip into the life of one scientist working with schizophrenics who discovers a way to move through time along her own timeline. The story explores the notions of infinite possibility and predetermination through the story of one character, letting the reader mull over all that was going on in the background after the story is over. Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous, by Dale Bailey and Bespoke, by Genevieve Valentine, both deal with the concept of tourism through time in quite different ways. The former is a saw on the familiar unhappy married couple trope, while the latter examines desire and need through the lens of a clothing maker specializing in exact replicas of period clothing for time travelers.

Mary Robinette Kowal makes an appearance with a meditation on the notion of aging and being remembered, in a world where one can only travel backwards in time within one’s own lifetime, and suddenly the forgotten elderly are important again. For those feeling the loss of Kage Baker, “The Carpet Betds of Sutro Park” explore another aspect of time travel tourism with an employee of a company that films historic places for future use spending a lifetime observing the same place in San Francisco and the people who visit it throughout its lifetime, seeing the degradations of time in a way that humans can’t.

Other notable stories in this collection come from Ken Liu, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Suzanne J. Willis, and Eileen Gunn. Readers looking for a collection with a variety of tastes, old and new, will find much to enjoy in this collection. Many of the stories are tightly plotted and experimental in nature, making them natural expressions of their time travel subjects and riveting reads.

I write about books at iambooking.

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

“With Fate Conspire,” by Vandals Singh (2013): 8
- Of the type, the nostalgic fantastical, pioneered by Bradbury and bastardized by many, here effectively transplanted to India, although, like them all, has its sincere and sometimes touching evocation of place often diminished by its corresponding preciousness. The historical angle here was additive, although largely a sf equivalent of the Andrea Barret tack (see my ‘Rare Birds’ thoughts). At that, the sfnal device and plot here (and of all its quietly varied tentacles [the telescopic time machine; the climatological catastrophe; and the telepathy]) were too ill developed to give the story its weight. That came, where it existed, from the contrast between our uneducated narrator, her recollections, and her “captors”.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

You won't find anyone trying to kill Hitler, or resurrect JFK, in this anthology. Nor will you find any Wellsian chronic argonauts lost at the end of time. What you will find are 18 modern—that is to say, 21st-Century—and well-chosen takes on the idea of travel through, across, beside and along (plus a few more prepositions)... time.

From the harrowing—and sadly historical—memento mori of Ken Liu's "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," to the much lighter-hearted pastiche of Charlie Jane Anders' "The Time Travel Club," Time Travel Recent Trips unveils a lively, even unruly, bunch of stories. While all touch on the central theme in some way, they're varied enough to hold the interest of all but the most jaded of temporal travelers.

My particular favorites from this group turned out to be:
"Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous," by Dale Bailey (a fellow West Virginian, by golly!)—temporal tourism with an awesome ending;
"Two Shots from Fly's Photo Gallery," by John Shirley, for its evocation of the old Wild West and for its adroit homage to Richard Matheson's Bid Time Return (aka Somewhere in Time); and
"First Flight," by Mary Robinette Kowal, about the Wright brothers (natch)—which has a great protagonist, and which hangs together really well as a science-fiction story, too.

But really, these tales are all pretty good ways to spend some of the few seconds you have remaining in this timeline...

[Marcheto Marcheto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This quite enjoyable anthology compiles eighteen time-travel stories published between 2005 and 2014, mostly by well-known authors (there were only a couple that were new to me) and with a mixture of well-known stories and more unknown ones. As it’s to be expected in this kind of book, I didn’t love every story, but I think Paula Guran has made quite a good job, choosing stories ranging from decent to excellent. The approach to the common time-travelling subject was varied enough to avoid repetition among them, although I think that this one, as any thematic anthology, is better enjoyed if read one or two stories at a time, instead of reading the whole book from beginning to end.
The stand-outs for me were the touching Kage Baker’s “The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park” and, most of all, the harrowing but brilliant novella “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary”, by Ken Liu.
Overall, a solid selection of time-travel stories that, as the scientific details of time-travel are secondary in most of the stories, can be enjoyed by science fiction and non-science fiction fans alike.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy received through NetGalley.

The real joy of a fiction anthology is that of discovering an absolutely dynamite story by an author you hadn't read before. In the case of this collection, that story for me was Ken Liu's "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," a story so special it has motivated me to seek out Liu's other work and to really become a fan of his. The other standouts here are the evocative pieces by people who consistently impress me: Yoon Ha Lee's "Blue Ink," Genevieve Valentine's "Bespoke," and Charlie Jane Anders' "The Time Travel Club." There's some unevenness among the other stories in this book, though no real duds, but if you only read one of these stories, make it Liu's.

[Kel Munger · Rating 4 out of 5]

In genre fiction—especially science fiction and horror—the best way to keep up with what’s good (unless you’re willing to go broke on magazine subscriptions) is to pick up anthologies. The short story remains the most vibrant form here, and these two anthologies from Prime Books—both edited by Paula Guran—offer up some excellent new work.

The key to these collections is that the stories are mined from the last decade, which means they’ve all got the bells and whistles of the very recent past.

In Time Travel: Recent Trips, a range of stories proves that we haven’t given up our hope of messing with the past—and the future. ...

(Full review on Lit/Rant: http://litrant.tumblr.com/post/104195...)

[Vin Forte · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a mixed bag is to be expected with most anthologies, this one came off a little heavy handed with its big ideas due to a lot of the author's tendency to pad the more character driven arcs with heaps of exposition and technobabble.

The better stories are the ones that remain tightly focused on characters interacting in real time. Unfortunately, too often in this collection, the focus is on worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is fine, but the shortened format doesn't lend itself to the types of exposition at play. A tad more economy in the overall writings would have really tightened the whole book up.

[Suzan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A readable book of recent time travel stories. One, "The Man Who Ended History" is truly outstanding, a meditation of the nature and role of evidence in understanding and relating to history. A historian and his scientist wife create a form of time travel that lets people witness the past, but just once; the past here is an infamous Japanese prison camp in Manchuria prior to WWII where dreadful experiments were performed on Chinese Prisoners--but getting the world to acknowledge what these witnesses report is fraught with politics and questions on how we can know history and how what we know of the past can or should affect lives in the present.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable anthology on time travel. There are a number of stories, each with a different view on time travel. They range from the charmingly sentimental (First Flight) to the extremely provocative (The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary). There is something for everyone in this collection of well written stories.

I was quite entertained by the stories in the collection and even had to think about some of the issues raised by different authors. A worthwhile read and certainly an excellent way to spend my time!

[David Greenlee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of Time Travel: Recent Trips

I liked this collection of time travel short stories, but not all. I liked the Lost Canal, the Thought Experiment and the Time Travel Club. They were the most memorable for me. As with any collection of short stories, you like some and others you plough through. All in all, I would say this is a good selection of time travel short stories and definitely worth a look if you like that genre.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting stories published between 2005 and 20014. i especially liked the tales from Shirley, Waldop and Monette and Bear.

[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review forthcoming

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mixed bag anthology. Every short story may not appeal to you, only a couple stood out to me.

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review via NETGALLEY.

[Pers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly I only found a couple of the stories in this anthology to my taste. Though Kage Baker is a definite "Must follow up" author.

[Ralyn Longs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great. Some good stories but overall wouldn't recommend - there are better time-travel compilations out there.

[James Swenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highlights:

"The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary" by Ken Liu: "[I]t is as though we have found a way to place a telescope as far away from the Earth, and as far back in time, as we like. If you want, you can look back on the day you were married, your first kiss, the moment you were born. But for each moment in the past, we get only one chance to look." What if we use that telescope to look back at historical atrocities? What we see will depend on who gets to look.

"The Mists of Time" by Tom Purdon: A trip back in time to film a Victorian warship overtaking a slaver. The same theme again: what we see depends on who's looking.