Here are 87 books that The Mindtraveler fans have personally recommended if you like
The Mindtraveler.
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I am an astronomer and college professor who loves science fiction. For many years, I have kept a webpage recommending science fiction stories and novels that are based on good astronomy. I love explaining astronomy to non-scientists, and I am the lead author of OpenStax Astronomy, a free online textbook for beginners, which is now the most frequently used textbook for astronomy classes in the U.S. I actually learned English at age 11 by reading science fiction comics and then books for kids, After many decades as a fan, I have recently realized a long-held dream and become a published SF author myself.
I think this novel, by physicist Gregory Benford, is one of the best fictional representations of how science is really done and of the real world of scientists and graduate students.
It is also an early exploration of the concept of tachyons, particles that cannot move slower or as slow as the speed of light but always have to go faster. (These have been proposed only in theory, but what makes them exciting is that they would travel backward in time.) In the book, that property enables people in the future to communicate with us in their past.
Another thing I like about this book is that some of his characters are thinly disguised (or not disguised) versions of real astronomers of the time.
The year is 1998, the world is a growing nightmare of desperation, of uncontrollable pollution and increasing social unrest. In Cambridge, two scientists experiment with tachyons - subatomic particles that travel faster than the speed of light and, therefore, according to the Theory of Relativity, may move backwards in time. Their plan is to signal a warning to the previous generation.
In 1962, a young Californian scientist, Gordon Bernstein, finds his experiments are being spoiled by unknown interference. As he begins to suspect something near the truth it becomes a race against time - the world is collapsing and will…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Since I was a young boy, I’ve been fascinated with the concept of time. I’ve spent hours studying the physics of time as a hobby, and to this day, as an adult, that fascination continues. Whenever the topic of time arises in conversation, I will be the first to contribute my understanding of this mystery that has baffled humankind since the beginning of...well, time.
I loved this book because it’s the granddaddy of time travel stories that use a machine method of transportation to the past or future. The protagonist creates a machine capable of moving through time without actually moving through space.
I easily suspended my 21st-century pragmatic understanding of time travel and was immersed in Wells's plot for a world of the future, one with a socialist propensity. For a book that would be considered a Novella, this has a ‘big story’ feeling—for me anyway.
A brilliant scientist constructs a machine, which, with the pull of a lever, propels him to the year AD 802,701.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of The Time Machine features an introduction by Dr Mark Bould.
The Time Traveller finds himself in a verdant, seemingly idyllic landscape where he is greeted by the diminutive Eloi people. The Eloi are beautiful but weak and indolent, and the explorer is perplexed by…
I became hooked into science fiction as a kid the day I read an illustrated book of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. From then on, science fiction became an important part of my reading repertoire. Having wide-ranging interests, I enjoy military techno-thrillers, Anglo-French naval warfare, Greek/Egyptian/Roman mythology, most sciences, history of religions, with an occasional novel that strays from the norm and adds a sparkle to my reading. Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are very close to my heart. Just shows that I’m different. After all, I must do something when I am not writing my own novels! Although I have an extensive library of modern science fiction works, I am fond of many oldies.
Told by a master storyteller I enjoy reading, this book grabbed me immediately and drew me inexorably into the main character’s life as an eternity technician.
Not a unique theme – man manipulating his future – but I liked the twist when all future is threatened for the love of one woman. I kept turning pages, wanting to know how my hero would reconcile forbidden love at the price of eternity’s end.
This is a thoughtful book that denied me peace until it ended. I liked the technical concepts revealed in the story and how they were woven into very human reactions. A lesson for our modern time?
A spellbinding novel set in the universe of Isaac Asimov’s classic Galactic Empire series and Foundation series
Due to circumstances within our control . . . tomorrow will be canceled.
The Eternals, the ruling class of the Future, had the power of life and death not only over every human being but over the very centuries into which they were born. Past, Present, and Future could be created or destroyed at will.
You had to be special to become an Eternal. Andrew Harlan was special. Until he committed the one unforgivable sin—falling in love.
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
My great interests have been ships and space travel, and if one takes time to consider the similarities the parallels stand out. Ships, especially submarines, travel in a medium and through an environment that is hostile to human life. In space travel, the ‘ship’ becomes the only habitat in which we can survive for any extended period, leaving it without a space suit is a fatal move. I cannot claim to be an expert in closed environments, but it's a subject that has fascinated me throughout my life. Every ‘biosphere’ is unique and incredibly complex and depends on the symbiosis of an enormous number of living creatures right down to bacteria and even viruses.
Heinlein created a fascinating story of an engineer double-crossed by his partner and his girlfriend. Like all Heinlein’s stories there are several twists in the tale along the way, a lot of wry humour, some well thought-out ‘science’, and the light relief is provided by the hero’s cat who accompanies him on a journey that involves cryogenics, time travel and ultimately a double-double cross that sees the hero come out on top.
I could have picked any of Heinlein’s books, they are all very well thought out, and all follow believable twists to the science of the day. In a sense his work is timeless and still very readable. The Door into Summer is one of the first of his books I read, and I was hooked.
A popular and enduring time travel tale by one of science fiction's all-time greats
When Dan Davis is crossed in love and stabbed in the back by his business associates, the immediate future doesn't look too bright for him and Pete, his independent-minded tomcat. Suddenly, the lure of suspended animation, the Long Sleep, becomes irresistible and Dan wakes up 30 years later in the 21st century, a time very much to his liking.
The discovery that the robot household appliances he invented have been mass produced is no surprise, but the realization that, far from having been stolen from him,…
I've been an avid reader of SF in general, and its sub-genre of time-travel, for most of my life, and have tackled this topic in my own writings as well. Time-travel tales often deal with inherent paradoxes, such as the Grandfather Paradox, which asks: If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, would you then never be born and therefore never commit the murder? If so, then your grandfather lives and you were born and . . . Such paradoxes boggle the mind and provide fascinating territory for SF authors to explore.
This is a novel that explores all the complexities and paradoxes and oddities associated with time travel. It takes place in a future world in which time travel is a part of life, and so must be monitored and regulated like any other technology. Because time travel holds such a huge potential for disaster, strict rules must be established and enforced. But what happens when somebody flaunts those rules for their own personal enjoyment? This novel explores these concepts in a wild, and often erotic, fashion.
This book really perpetuated my love of time-travel tales and all the complexities involved in a society where time travel is an accepted norm. It's a totally fun novel that deals with some truly existential concepts in an entertaining way and inspires that sense of wonder that fans of SF crave. It's one of those stories that stick with you for many, many years…
Time travel spelled problems for the couriers of the Time Service. Shuttling backwards and forwards over the centuries they had to be wary of creating paradoxes - like meeting themselves watching the sack of Rome, or sleeping with their own ancestors.
Of course, it also gave them the chance to amass wealth by the discreet use of their prior knowledge. The penalties were fierce and the Time Police implacable in their pursuit of lawbreakers. But it was still worth taking the risk.
Jud Elliot took it when he met the marvellous transemporal paradox called the Pulcheria. He couldn't resist her…
I've been an avid reader of SF in general, and its sub-genre of time-travel, for most of my life, and have tackled this topic in my own writings as well. Time-travel tales often deal with inherent paradoxes, such as the Grandfather Paradox, which asks: If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, would you then never be born and therefore never commit the murder? If so, then your grandfather lives and you were born and . . . Such paradoxes boggle the mind and provide fascinating territory for SF authors to explore.
This contemporary SF novel deals with a lot of the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts aspect of time travel, as well as providing an intriguing story. So many time-travel stories gloss over many of the implications of this technology, but The Chronocar doesn't shy away from such concepts. It also features believable, rough-around-the-edges characters and a truly surprising plot twist. Also, one of my favorite things about this novel is how reminiscent it is of Golden Age SF.
Imagine being born the son of a slave with the mind of a genius. That was Simmie Johnson in the years following the Civil War. After a perilous escape from lynch mobs in Mississippi, he manages to earn a PhD in physics at Tuskegee, and in his research discovers the secret of time travel. He develops a design for a time machine called a Chronocar, but the technology required to make it work does not yet exist.Fast forward 125 years. A young African American Illinois Tech student in Chicago finds Dr. Johnson’s plans and builds a Chronocar. He goes back…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I am a philosopher of science who has an obsession with time. People think this interest is a case of patronymic destiny, that it’s due to my last name being Callender. But the origins of “Callender” have nothing to do with time. Instead, I’m fascinated by time because it is one of the last fundamental mysteries, right up there with consciousness. Like consciousness, time is connected to our place in the universe (our sense of freedom, identity, meaning). Yet we don’t really understand it because there remains a gulf between our experience of time and the science of time. Saint Augustine really put his finger on the problem in the fifth century when he pointed out that it is both the most familiar and unfamiliar thing.
I’ve never met Nahin but I recognize in him a kindred spirit of someone similarly obsessed with time. If you want to know about time travel, here it is in all its glory. The “tech notes” at the end show that this is a labor of love. Not only will you encounter some of the most fascinating physics (in the works of Godel, Novikov, Thorne, Tipler, and dozens more), but you’ll also learn about early science fiction, the threat of fatalism, the history of the idea that time is the fourth dimension, and more.
This book explores the idea of time travel from the first account in English literature to the latest theories of physicists such as Kip Thorne and Igor Novikov. This very readable work covers a variety of topics including: the history of time travel in fiction; the fundamental scientific concepts of time, spacetime, and the fourth dimension; the speculations of Einstein, Richard Feynman, Kurt Goedel, and others; time travel paradoxes, and much more.
Like many others, and perhaps mostly the dreamers, I’ve had a lifelong fascination with time travel, along as many others, always wondering, what if? Plus, I have a passion for American history, mostly American Revolution history, always thinking, what if you could time travel back in time to witness history in the making, or travel to the future and witness the results of decisions made today. Plus, I have an obsession with a good mystery, mainly murder mysteries. I thoroughly enjoy a good murder mystery that has (I didn’t see that coming) twists, turns, and a few good red herrings. Which you can see by the books on my list.
This is one of the better time travel adventures that could make anyone a believer! Or at least make you wonder, at least it did for me. And I’m a real fan for a good time travel mystery.
If you’re a history buff, you’ll love the science of time travel mixing with the method of travel, as your sent back to the start of the American Revolution in Massachusetts. One spark to this intriguing story was the main characters are thrown off their initial course of testing their time-ship, hoping to travel just a couple years into the future only to find themselves over 200 years in the past. It’s a great adventure read.
A time-travel adventure that just might make you a believer. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was fun, as was the enjoyable A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle and Jack Finney's delightful Time and Again. If you enjoyed these books, you’ll definitely want to read Mission in Time. However, after reading Mission in Time, this might be the first time you actually find yourself believing in time travel. Imagine being sent on a time-travel mission expecting to arrive in a certain period of time and finding yourself in a very different era—a major period in the history of…
I began my own writing journey in 2007. I skipped many HS classes just to stay home and read. I want to know the ending of a story. I want happy ending. Life is hard, but when I have the ability to write the stories I write with the ending that so many are deprived of, at least I know I can find it in a book of my own choosing. That is my love of romance.
Back to romance! This is a time travel story about a woman who is keeping something vital from her family.
She’s the middle child and suffers from that insecurity of not quite having found her place. She is seriously depressed. But the moon, an eclipse, timing, the house she’s in… all play a part in this excellent tale that brings the medieval times front and center.
The author really delivers a knock-out punch to the gut and hope really is lost until this hero comes to his senses. But when he does… well, suffice it to say, you won’t be disappointed.
On New Year’s Eve, she tumbles 700 years back in time--and into the bed of a darkly dangerous knight.
Sir Gaston de Varennes wanted a docile bride who would fit into his plans for vengeance and justice, but a trick of time finds him married to a thoroughly modern American lady who turns his castle, his life, and his heart upside down. Will her desperate secret tear them apart after only a few bittersweet weeks of stolen passion—or will they conquer mistrust, treachery, and time itself to discover a love that spans the centuries?
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I was born and raised in Mississippi, where ink and river mud run through our veins in equal measure. My parents were readers, and thus, I followed in their footsteps. Before long, I was reading their library choices and mine and still running out of books before it was time to visit again. From the moment I laid eyes on Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series, I was hooked on historical mysteries. It took me forty years of life to realize I had stories of my own to share. I now live in Oxford, England, with my husband, two daughters, three cats, and lots of shadowy corners for inspiration.
I am fairly convinced that Grace Burrowes is a time traveler, for I have never seen a modern author get period-specific language so right. Unlike all the other books on my list, the Lady Violet series does not include any murders.
Instead, Lady Violet’s penchant for solving “puzzles” made for a nice break from the more macabre. I got lost in the twisty details and adored the Agatha Christie-style reveal at the end of the book.
