(1895) You gotta start with Well’s Time Machine, because “it's the time travel story on which all others are built,’” says Jan. An inventor travels far into the future to find that the human race has devolved into the beautiful but mindless Eloi, and the bestial, underground Morlocks. Recommended by Ann James.

(1960) Jan Van den Berg says: “A team of "time guardians" make sure that no one goes back in time to change history (and thereby the future).”

(1957) In the story “The Dead Past,” a chronoscope is invented that can look back in time up to a century or so. Says Jan van den Berg, “there's more emphasis on the aspect of contemporary spying on other people” than on revising history.

(1974) Harry says: “Time reality has to eliminate time potential in order to dominate the now/then then/now. What lengths would society go to maintain itself and could any society succeed?”

(1980) Russell Clothier says: “As society crumbles, scientists discover a way to send messages to the past using a beam of tachyons. Is there a way to prevent the collapse? Good, hard sci fi, and it won the Nebula to boot.”

(1953) The story that invented the idea of the “butterfly effect.” A team of recreational hunters go back in time to kill dinosaurs. One of the hunters accidentally steps on a butterfly, and changes the future. Made into a movie in 2005. Recommended by Jim Taylor.

(2000) Russell Clothier says: “Technology is developed that can look back in time to any historical event. In addition to destroying cherished myths about historical figures, the device can also be turned toward contemporary targets, unearthing details about anyone’s life, be they politicians, criminals, or everyday folk. Clarke explores the social effects of a total loss of privacy.”

(1941) A historian is accidentally transported to 6th century Rome. Dawn Benton says: “It really qualifies as both time travel and alternate history because if the protagonist is successful history will diverge from the path it did take. Plus, I believe that De Camp tried to make it as non-anachronistic as possible. Very thought provoking.”

(2000) Russell Clothier says: “An entire West Virginia mining town is transported to, oh, some year in the past, in the middle of Europe. The introduction of modern ideas and technology into the 17th century causes a ripple effect of social and political change.”

(2007) Russell Clothier says: “Matt, an assistant at MIT, builds an innocuous piece of equipment that accidentally works as a time machine. However, no one knows how it works, or how to duplicate it. It can only move forward, and the length of each jump increases dramatically. Matt escapes into the future, hoping to reach a time when backwards time travel is possible so he can return home.”

(1990) Russell Clothier says: “In ‘The Langloiers,’ an airplane passes through a rift, and enters a world that time has literally passed by. It embraces an interesting concept of time, that each moment is an entire, separate reality, and living beings pass seamlessly through each world. When the moment is passed, its world is no longer needed, and its reality is dismantled by the Langoliers.”

(1981) Wayne Eddy says: “Criminals, misfits & adventurers are sent back on a one way trip to the Pleistocene era. Only infertile women are allowed through the time portal so that Earth's history can't be distorted by a breeding population of humans. The time travelers however find themselves in a society dominated by humanoid aliens.”

(2001) Harry says: “The future must protect the past and existence, so they create the Paratime Corps. Shows the needs of the society if the possibility of time travel exists, and the Kalvan story reflects our need to meddle.”

(1992) Russell Clothier says: “Modern-day White Supremacists travel back to the American Civil War to help the Confederacy defeat the North. However, their presence changes the Southerners as well.”

(1969) Billy Pilgrim is ‘unstuck in time.’ Time is a fourth dimension, and he can jump to any point in his life: a young POW in WW II… and an exhibit in an alien zoo… a world-famous religious leader. “Perhaps the most widely read of all 'time-travel' books,” it is told with Vonnegut’s typical manic wit. Recommended by Bill Blank.

(1997) A wealthy American woman buys control of a time travel project so she can rebuild Coventry Cathedral as historically accurate as possible. This book takes place in the same universe as Doomsday Book, but “it is very funny and much lighter.” It also won the Hugo Award. Recommended by Dawn Benton.