Time travel enables revisiting the reader to view the past with a modern perspective. It enables going to the far future and witnessing events that transpire long after we and our society are gone. It enables interacting with famous people who are dead. It enables changing a major decision and witnessing how this would have affected us or our society. It enables creating complex, intricate stories, where past and present interact in unpredictable ways: excellent setting for mystery stories.

This articles aims to classify the various sub-genres of Time Travel, itself being a sub-genre of Science fiction. Clearly, this classification is not clear-cut: some movies or books could fall into more than one category. Note that we try to give an example (a movie) that exemplifies the classification, as those are most well known.

Alternate Reality: in this category of novel/movie, the protagonist travels to the past, and makes a change that affects the present. At times, this happens multiple times. The point here is usually to examine how one or more decisions, which at times could be very small, could have transformed the world. Example: A Sound of Thunder.

Anthology: a collection of multiple short stories or 2-3 medium sized stories. Although this is not specific to time travel, I feel obligated to mention this since this is one of the classifications that can be used for time travel.

Effects of Time Travel Technologies on Society: in these novels, a certain amount of information is transported from the future to the present. This information is so significant, that it actually causes society to change. This type of novel attempts to comprehend how would this piece of futuristic information, which we know to be very significant, would affect our society. In other words, the focus is on society rather than the actual message.

Fantasy: there are numerous fantasy novels where time travel takes place (can’t think of a movie though). Although in many ways this should not make a difference, my personal feeling is that it does. Since time travel (often) enables the reader to examine a future version of our world - or conversely - see the world as it used to be, I don’t feel that using it in a fantasy setting has the same meaning. Consequently, I’ve given these novels their own classification.

Future Reality: in this class of novel/movie, the protagonist is being transported in some way to the future. It could be done using a time machine, being cryogenically frozen, or moving close to the speed of light. The end result is, we are being given the opportunity to witness one - or more - version of the society of the future. Examples: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Planet of the Apes, The Time Machine.

Historical Characters: in many novels the focus is on utilizing various real characters that have lived at some point in time, normally, to obtain their perspective on a contemporary issue. These characters are either put in contact with present-day people, or are literally moved in time to our present or future. You may be surprised, but there are quite a lot of novels with this premise. Example: the 80s show Voyagers (I used to love that one!)

Past and Future Time Travel: in this type of novel, the main character gets transported to multiple eras in time: this could range from the very distant past to the very far future. Since, at times, there are literally multiple settings that appear throughout the novel, some are very different than others, the point is normally the adventure, to simply examine these often fascinating settings.

Past Time Travel: in this type of novel, a character is transported to the past, many times never returning to the future. Even though it may seem that the time travel aspect is unnecessary here, the point is to use the character’s modern perspective to view the historical setting. In addition, this gives the author plenty of opportunities to create paradoxes, a plot device favored by many authors. Examples: Timeline, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the Time Tunnel.

Personal Alternate Reality: this type of novel uses the ‘Alternate Reality’ concept, however, it is applied only to a single - or a group - of people rather than the whole of society. In general the point here is to demonstrate how a single decision at a given point of time, could have changed a person’s entire life. This is a very popular movie theme. Examples: Groundhog Day, Back to the Future.

Personal Time Travel: different from ‘Personal Alternate Reality’. In this category of novels/movies, the protagonist usually has some kind of an ability to travel forward and backward in his own life, often (but not always) without the ability of making any changes, only reliving certain events again and again. Movie example: The Butterfly Effect, Novel: The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Plot Device: in these novels/movies, time travel is a large component of the plot, though often just a way to push it in a certain way. I also included here novels which utilize some kind of a time effect - not necessary time travel (i.e. the ability to freeze time). Example: the most recent season of Lost.

Related Articles