99 Books Like The Land That Time Forgot

My journey with this book came at a young age, recommended to me by my older brother, and was a formative experience. Not only was it an early experience with a more adult version of the fantasy literature I’d grown up reading but it also built a bond between my brother and I, it was a shared literary experience that became special because of who I shared it with.

It opened my eyes to the idea that you could write this kind of stuff for grown-ups, and therefore, a whole new world of reading was opened to me.

While not perhaps a “romance” novel in the established-formula sense, this book is achingly romantic. This epic story truly focuses on the gradual development of the two protagonists’ relationship and how time travel both created and challenged their love. This book ignited my passion for magic-realism romantic novels and remains one of my top books of all time.

I adore the contrast of romantic love between two seemingly destined souls and the brutality of some events caused by Henry’s uncontrolled time travel. There’s also the tricky angle of the age gap (only sometimes, depending on where Henry and Clare are in their lives, but it is occasionally extreme), which the author doesn’t shy away from. And I confess this is probably the book that made me sob the most!

Heinlein is a master of science fiction. This book is only incidentally—but also irrevocably—about time travel. The life of Lazarus Long, who appears in other works by Heinlein, inspired me to write about longevity in my two-volume novel. Heinlein’s story of adorable Dora will bring tears to your eyes, and it shows how immortality can be a curse if you dare to love someone. Heinlein shares a lot of common sense, too, in the incorporated Notebooks of Lazarus Long.

I read this years ago and recently listened to the audiobook to revisit it. It’s a fascinating character study, listening to the voice of Richard Collier, a man dying of a brain tumor, and his journey embracing the concept of time travel. Sometimes, listening to his struggles felt like a Poe story questioning his sanity in the grips of his obsession, and, at other times, it was like getting a crash course in Esoteric Arts as he did.

This is an amazing book that explores the concepts of soul mates, astral traveling, destiny, and the metaphysical construction of time—the list goes on and on. I couldn’t help but fall in love and root for Richard and Elise, though their fate felt as inevitable as a Greek tragedy.

I love time travel stories. Stories where protagonists swap lives with other people are so much about acculturation and “passing.” Dislocation, confusion, etc. aside, the main issue is to not be found out. In the story, Charlotte is not always herself. Sometimes she’s in a boarding school in the fifties and sometimes she’s back in time at the same boarding school in the First World War. So we’re dealing with a borrowed life here. The life that Charlotte sometimes borrows belongs to Clare. Charlotte has very little in common with Clare. And even less knowledge of how establishments like this worked back in the day. Some quick learning and imitative skills are needed if she is not to be caught. For instance, she has to deduce what others expect and require of her. But she also has to not lose herself in all this pretense. 

When I came to the… show more.

This clever novel takes the old premise, “What would happen if you went into the past and met yourself?” and magnifies it by multiple degrees.

Returning to the time of the great Chicago fire, the hero ends up meeting several past and/or future versions of himself, each time making his situation more complicated. A quick, enjoyable read.

Here we enter the topic of time travel, a concept very dear to me from both a fictional, moral, and scientific point of view. Many novels have attempted to show how one change in the past could change our future. Elton’s novel struck me for its originality in picking a notorious historical event largely ignored by fiction when it comes to time travel and alternate history. The assassination of the Franz Ferdinand of Austria is used not just as the spark of World War I but as the start of the ideological and warmongering terror that would spread through Europe. The novel is an example of man’s fixation with trying to find one cause for all problems when maybe there are multiple causes going back years and years. The search is as vain as the main character’s attempts to change history.

This is Taylor’s debut novel and like my book, the time slip element takes us back to World War 1 in 1916. Louisa is admitted to Coldbrook Hall Psychiatric hospital after an accident in which she is believed to have tried to commit suicide. Whilst there she slips back to her days at a hospital treating wounded soldiers and falls in love with Robert Lovett. Not only must she find a way to remain with him, but she must find him when he is taken prisoner on the Western Front. The detailed descriptions of life in the trenches really brought the horrors of WW1 to life. Taylor has researched this area thoroughly and her vivid writing style allows the reader to experience the cold, muddy, and rat-infested conditions for themselves. 

The author’s observations on everyday life during the war add interest and are sometimes surprising, for instance, the fact that… show more.

Though it never mentions the word ‘multiverse’, it has many aspects of a story about travelling through worlds beyond worlds, going somewhere from nowhere, taking things that don’t exist in another place.

I found this book interesting because it includes a mystery, as the protagonist goes through her journey, she uncovers mysteries and hidden truths about her abilities.

A different concept of multiverse travelling, as well as worlds that are aware of each other, it was still an interesting read that leaves a satisfying conclusion.

This is the book that got me into naval history and made me want to be a naval historian.

Bennett was a serving officer in the RN and the son of a naval officer. He writes with pace, experience, and clarity about the major naval encounters of the First World War. It is a book that would be a good primer for anyone wanting to start the WW1 at sea journey. I purchased it in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge and never looked back.