This unique ability of time travel novels means that these books either harken back to the past or project into the future (or, sometimes, both). If you’re interested in spending a little more time thinking about this, give the essay “Time Traveling Books: Historical Fiction or Speculative Fiction?” a read. And while many time travel novels often feature complex mechanisms for time travel (such as Charles Yu’s fascinating How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe), not all time travel requires a time machine. Take Octavia Butler’s Kindred — a true classic! Butler’s protagonist finds herself unwittingly thrust into the past at unpredictable moments in her life…an extremely perilous situation for a Black American woman who keeps finding herself in the antebellum South. The future of literary time travel is just as exciting as its past and present. You can expect Stephen Graham Jones’s “historical slasher” comic series Earthdivers to premier this October. (Incidentally, some of Jones’ other books — like Ledfeather and The Bird is Gone — also dabble in time travel.) No matter when you look for it, there’s always a good time travel novel to be found.
