Time travel fiction is a subgenre of science fiction and also my favorite thing to read! Who wouldn’t want to travel to the past and fix a few mistakes or go into the future and see what it holds? When you read enough time travel fiction, you start to notice each author presents a unique description of how the mechanics of time travel work within their story-world. Comparing these logistical details has become a hobby of mine. Time travel fiction can also be combined with romance, historical fiction, mystery, comedy, or action. There is truly a time travel novel out there for everyone! The following are some of my all-time favorite time travel books for all ages. Want more? Check out EVPL Recommends for more suggestions from our library staff.
For Adults
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
In Tom Barren’s 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn’t necessary.
Except Tom just can’t seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that’s before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland.
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.G. Wells’s successful career and earned him his reputation as the father of science fiction.
With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes…and our darkest fears. There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well. Published in 1895, this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a new century.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given…
More
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohatar & Max Gladstone
- How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
- Weave A Circle Round by Kari Maaren
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray
- The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer
- She Wouldn’t Change A Thing by Sarah Adlakha
For Teens
Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles, but years from home.
Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods-a powerful family in the Colonies-and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape. Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents.
More
- Into the Dim by Janet B. Taylor
- Timekeeper by Tara Sim
- Again, but Better by Christine Riccio
- The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
For Children
Glitch by Laura Martin
Regan Fitz and Elliot Mason have been enemies since they started training to become Glitchers—people who travel through time to preserve important historical events. But everything changes when they find a letter from Regan’s future self, warning them about an impending disaster that threatens them and everyone they know.
Will they be able to set aside their past in order to save the future?
More
- The Trouble With Time Travel by Stephen W. Martin
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- The Magic Treehouse Series by Mary Pope Osborne
- When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
All descriptions are from GoodReads.
