In this week’s episode of A Reader’s History of Science Fiction, I discussed ten common time travel tropes, with examples of each. However, this means I ran through far too many titles to list in the episode description, so I’ve offloaded the list here. I actually don’t know myself how long it is as I write this, but you should be able to see everything I talked about substantially.

Note: some of these were given as examples for multiple tropes. In those cases, only the first instance is included.

1. Rip Van Winkle

“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving
Honi HaMe’agel
Kakudmi
The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells
Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan
Idiocracy
Flight of the Navigator
Gene Roddenbery’s Andromeda

2. Letter from the Future/Fixing a Bad Future

Memoirs of the Twentieth Century by Samuel Madden
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Timescape by Gregory Benford
The Terminator
Looper
X-Men: Days of Future Past

3. Back in Time to Stay

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Island in the Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling
1632 by Eric Flint
A Time Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
Terra Nova

4. Time Tourism

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (Previously recommended)
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (Previously recommended)
“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein
Doctor Who
Dinosaur Train
Peabody’s Improbable History
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
12 Monkeys
Avengers: Endgame

5. Meddling with Time

Back to the Future
Eureka
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov (Previously recommended)
Timecop
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
Time Patrol by Poul Anderson
Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock

6. You Can’t Fight Fate

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
“By His Bootstraps” by Robert Heinlein
The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
“Blink” from Doctor Who (Recommended)

7. Alternate Timelines

Star Trek
The Butterfly Effect
Primeval
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter (Recommended)

8. Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Previously recommended)
Premonition
Happy Death Day
Peggy Sue Got Married

9. Altered Flow of Time

Superman: The Movie
Inception
Interstellar
Tenet
Inverted World by Christopher Priest (Previously recommended)

10. The Timey-Wimey Ball

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Futurama