My fascination with time travel began with just one book...

Image of cover from the first time traveler novel i read – Choose Your Own Adventure’s The Cave of Time. Shows boy riding horse.
First time traveler novel I read: CYOA's Cave of Time. Image courtesy of Bantam books.

I’ve been fascinated by the concept of time travel since I was a child.  In fact, I’ve wanted to be a time traveler since I was 9 years old, when my brother and I each received a special gift from the Librarian at our elementary school.  Her name was Ms. Gilmour, the school was Park Public School in Georgetown, Ontario, Canada.  We received gifts for being in charge of the rolling media cart all year. Our responsibility was to make sure the cart was in the right class each day at the right time, and set up properly.  The gifts, of course, were books. And not just any books – they were from the new Choose Your Own Adventure series!  The CYOA books were something I would read a lot of over the next few years.  If you’re unfamiliar with the series, they were books written as if the reader is experiencing the events as if they are happening to him/her.  At the end of each page, the reader would find options based on choices he/she would have to make.  The option one chose dictated which page to turn to, to continue the adventure.  Until the next choice.  The authors were fearless, and some adventures did not end well.  

My gift was The Mystery of Chimney Rock.  My brother? Well, this is where my introduction to the concept of time travel comes in.  His gift was The Cave of Time.   I read it when he was done and I was hooked. Imagine – taking a journey through time!  Seeing places long since forgotten to time!  Or solving mysteries that have long resided in pop culture lore for years, simply by knowing where (and when) to go!  After that, I found myself drawn to time travel books, tv shows and movies.  I have my favourites, including Michael Crichton’s novel Timeline.  To me, Timeline was exceptional because it attempted to explain the technology that fueled the time travel device in a very believable way. And there was a lot of action and adventure, and a little romance thrown in too.

 

The subject of time travel seems red hot right now, with no less than three new network series having premiered recently (Travelers, Timeless, Frequency) and a fourth coming in 2017 (Time After Time).  I found when searching ‘time travel’ on the web a lot of articles or news excerpts would appear in my online search, but not a lot in the way of actual sites dedicated to the tv shows, books, movies and the actual real science, technology and philosophy of time travel.  So this site was born. 

 

Here’s the thing though. I don’t actually believe time travel is possible.  I want to believe though – but I’m the kind of guy who needs the hard evidence. Show me it’s possible so I can believe.