I've read twice now about a short story in which time travel is a vacation thing, with destinations offered at the travelers's choice. The protagonist realizes that he could attend the passion of Jesus Christ. While there he finds that all the other attendants are time travellers as well.  I've first saw this mentioned about 25 years ago in an edition of GEO magazine (can't remember which one) in an editorial about ... I think it was physics, time travel, but could be something else entirely. The second time I saw it referenced in the novel "Jesus Video" by Andreas Eschbach:
120804
I am now 46 and so it's been bugging me for over 30 years - time to try and do something about it. The collection was in my lower school library (UK).  It was a thick black hardback book and I believe there was at least one more book in the series.  Many of the images have stayed with me so vividly and it was the book that got me into science fiction.  Here are snapshots of some of the stories - the first 2 are the ones I'd like to track down most:   Time travel is commonplace especially for leisure purposes.  A group of people go back to the time of Jesus' crucifixion.  Their appearances are modified so they blend in with the crowd and they are told what to do in order not to alter history.  The experience is as exciting as they hoped until the moment when Pilate asks them to choose between Jesus and Barabbas - of course they shout for Barabbas, but the protagonist suddenly realises the whole crowd is made up of time travellers and the people of the time are hiding voiceless... A new way of controlling criminals is to inject them with a drug that slows their bodies down to a fraction of that of normal humans.  They exist alongside the world at normal speed but can't perpetrate any further crimes as they are so slow.  Their speech is so slow it is incomprehensible.  I seem to remember a reporter or similar decides to take the drug, either to meet a friend or just as an experience but gets trapped as the drug is routinely readministered as 'he must be a criminal'.  Time passes so fast. Aliens have taken over the world and are experiencing what it is like to be human by taking over/occupying part of people's minds.  2 humans fall in love and don't want the aliens involved but eventually can't stop them.  The aliens will only let them be in a relationship if they can experience it too. The aliens want to know what sex is like.  Disastrous consequences. A space station floating in the middle of nowhere.  A dead woman (or baby?).  Someone floating off into nothingness with no hope of rescue.  The sense of being totally alone.  Sorry I can't be more specific - it was obviously the feelings of this one that got my teen self!   I'd love it if anyone has an idea on this Thanks all
19591
Probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s I read a book the general plotline of which was: a teenage boy builds his own spacecraft that operates by pulling and/or pushing gravity. He takes the home-built craft to Mars where he is stranded when one of the vacuum tubes in the device burns out.  I read the book probably 40 years ago so publication most likely 60s or earlier. A key component of the gravity gadget was a vacuum tube, so that almost certainly pens it in the 50s. Doubt if it was from foreign source, the writing was quite American biased.   I think he traveled alone, but that follow up question made me think his girlfriend might have gone with him.  It has been too many years for that detail to be remembered.   Light sci fi, nothing dark in the storyline. Situational jeopardy, no bad guys. I hate to spoiler the ending just in case someone wants to read it, but I can add if it would help.  OK. It was suggested I include the ending, so (SPOILER ALERT!!!)      After being stranded and surviving quite well, a team from earth arrives to look for him.  A member of the expedition was either his mother (I think) or his father.  What happened was, back home they figured out what he had done, but were unable to duplicate the technology.  And the space agency REALLY wanted that drive.  So the "rescue" mission was really just to try to recover the technology, as they had never expected to find him still alive. Surprise surprise...
4055
Please help me identify a short story I read about a guy who believed that the multiverse was true, but the one that we experienced was the one in which we lived the longest. He was also contemplating suicide, and every time he sat staring at the pills he was going to use to overdose, parallel universes (where he chose suicide) collapsed and the one he was in got weirder. Eventually an asteroid hit the Earth, and then he was resurrected somehow in the deep future.  I'm not sure where I read it, but it likely appeared in Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction or in a back issue of Analog (my dad had like a decade's worth in the den).
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I could swear that I got this answered once via the TVTropes YKTS forum, but all I can find is my failed query.   It's a Sci-fi novel, involves the last member of an alien race saying that a particular child will be a savior of the galaxy. Everyone assumes that this means that he will be able to transcend the teleportation limits (if I recall correctly, they could teleport up to some amount, say 22 kilograms, but the moment they added a gram more, it failed). His father was a former football player and it was referenced a few times that he used a football carry for the baby with the head in one hand and the rest of the body on one forearm. The parents were killed by some sort of extremists and the boy was tested for his teleportation abilities and they found that he couldn't transcend the limit. And... that's about all I remember.  I read it in middle school, I believe, so that means it was definitely published before 2000 and likely before 1994.
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In , Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, Trillian, and Marvin have just stolen Hotblack Desiato's stunt ship after leaving Milliways and traveled into the past 2 million years before their own time.      ”Trouble is,” said Ford, ”that the one instrument in this whole ship that   is giving any reading is worrying me. If it is what I think it is, and if it’s   saying what I think it’s saying, then we’ve already gone too far back into   the past. Maybe as much as two million years before our own time.”   As they realize that this ship is about to crash into the sun, they discover a teleportion device (their only means of escape) and leave Marvin behind to control it so they can escape despite the fact they have no idea where they might end up. Arthur and Ford end up on the Golgafrincham ship which shortly thereafter crash landed on pre-historic Earth (i.e. roughly 2 million B.C.), and Zaphod and Trillian end up back on The Heart of Gold.      ”I trust you had a pleasant meal?” said Zarniwoop to Zaphod and Trillian   as they rematerialized on the bridge of the starship Heart of Gold and lay   panting on the floor.   As I understand from the beginning of the book, at this point the Heart of Gold had been left with Zarniwoop alone on the ship in Arthur's "own time" (in the 1980's). There doesn't really seem to be any explanation as to why the teleportion device sent Zaphod and Trillian 2 millions years into the future as far as I can tell.   So, am I misinterpreting something to the story and the gang really left The Heart of Gold 2 million years before their own time, or did the teleportion device also act as a time machine when Zaphod and Trillian stepped into it? Or perhaps did Zarniwoop have The Heart of Gold travel back in time?
72354
I've read this book about 15 years ago, but I think it's older than that.  In the story people use some sort consciousness transfer technology to travel to distant solar systems. So basically an alien from planet A would want to visit Earth, and you would like to visit the planet A, by mutual agreement you'd transfer your mind into the alien's body and alien's mind would be transferred into your body.  So the main character decides to travel and swaps bodies with an alien. However, he/she isn't able to return back to his/her own body and instead is transferred to another alien's body and so on. As the story progresses the protagonist jumps from body to body until he/she slowly loses his/her own identity.  Also the story is written in a funny/light tone.   I've read this story in Russian but I am sure that it was translated. The story was a part of collection of short sci-fi stories.
12412
I read this short story around 1971.  The basic plot is for a steward to lead the king's son to another city state.  Along the way they have a number of interactions with people/subjects that demonstrate the immaturity of the son.  Last one involves the son beating up the suitor of a innkeeper's daughter.  When confronted by the steward, the son displays his contempt and chauvinistic regard of his future subjects and the steward kills him.  Turns out the trip was a test of his suitability to assume the crown and the steward explains to the king that he was not worthy.  Been looking in all the anthologies can seem unable to find it.  Thanks for your help
90838
Many decades ago, I read a short story about a time traveler who asks an archaeologist for help.  He convinces the archaeologist that he can time travel by bringing him back a freshly killed dinosaur (small one.)  The time traveler needs help because when traveling back in time to the age of the dinosaurs he met a girl and wants to transport her back to the present.  However only one person can travel in time at a time so he needs the archaeologist at the other end to wait for the girl.  The archaeologist agrees to help.  Unfortunately after the traveler goes back he and the girl find themselves in the middle of a battle between aliens on Earth.  They are chased by a dinosaur and never make it back to the present.  The archaeologist meanwhile is digging for evidence that the traveler went back in time and the story or my recollection of it ends with that.
13198
So I was recently watching the series seven episode of Doctor Who titled "Hide" and it struck me that I had read a short story that was remarkably similar to the astronaut woman of the episode.  Here's what I remember definitively of the story:  The story is told from two perspectives: that of the traveler and that of the observers throughout time. The traveler is running but to the outward observers he/she appears frozen like a statue. As the story progresses the 'statue' moves slowly through the millenia but to the everyday people its imperceptible, he/she is just an anomalous statue.  What I think I remember:  The time traveler is dressed in some type of space suit looking thing. I think the time traveler is the test pilot for the new time travel device/ship. The traveler may possibly be crossing dimensions (really not  sure about that). They are either running towards a light or away from the crashed ship. I vaguely remember something like the traveler was trying to send a message or something to a loved one but the distortion made it unintelligible to the receiver but by the end of the story someone had cracked it and it may have been something like "i love you, goodbye." or something to that effect.  I'm also assuming that, from my vague recollections of the story compounded with what has now been years of studying SF, that this story fits into the 50's or 60's. While I think it could easily have been written as early as the 40's I don't think it would have been written in the 70's.   Thanks in advance for the help, because this is driving me insane that I can't remember more about this story.
115539
I am doing some research about &quot;time travelling&quot; by shrinking humans to the quantum level. It's something based on the delayed choice quantum experiment, so that we can go back to the past and travel to another parallel universe or to another universe in another timeline. So I just want to make sure if smaller mass changes the way the smaller object experiences time. But do note that I am only 16 so I do wish that it can be simple haha so that I don't end up being more confused.
76667
I'm trying to remember the title/author of a short story I read about 5-10 years ago; I think it was new at the time.   It's about a teenage girl who lost her personality because of overdosing on some drug, written from the perspective of her new personality after the event. She can access her old memories but feels like they belong to someone else. Her parents want to restore her old personality and send her to a doctor/psychologist who turns out to be a quack (perhaps there were a series of other doctors before that but her parents keep switching until they find one who says s/he can help?).   There's a metaphor about a messenger not being able to find the queen so he gives the message to a servant instead (referring to how the new personality took over from the old one). I remember reading it twice, so it was probably reprinted in a 'best of [year]' anthology or perhaps nominated for some award and posted online.
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I'm trying to locate a short sci-fi story I read years ago about a human that is "resurrected" by an arrogant and malignant alien species that discovers him in a "museum" on an earth where the inhabitants, though very advanced, had been wasted by a close encounter (I believe) with a neutron star. He is the third or fourth human they "reconstruct" and it turns out that he is an advanced mentalist, disappearing at the moment of his "resurrection". He outwits the aliens and eventually tricks them into plunging their ship into the sun in order (they think) to prevent him from finding out where they come from. Any suggestions?
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It's been about 25 years since I read a story in an anthology.  The only details I remember from it are that a guy is told that if, while walking down a road (or something similar), he mentally forces himself to think of dimensions opposite of what they are (down is up, left is right, etc.), he will be able to move into another dimension.  He succeeds, but that's all I remember of the story.
3720
I've been looking for the name of a sci-fi romance book about space travel but haven't been successful so far. I came across it a few years ago, read the plot on its back cover but didn't read the book. It is about two spacecraft pilots, a man and a woman, who travelled at light speed (or maybe FTL, I can't remember) in separate ships. Every time they return to Earth, centuries have passed on Earth because of time dilation. They meet each other for a few times on Earth in different eras, but don't know when, if ever, they will meet again. I don't know how it ends.   If anyone knows which book I'm talking about, could you please tell me the name? Thanks a lot!
79363
I'm in trouble with time dilation: Suppose that there's two people on the Earth (A,B), they are twins and each other has a clock. (So they are at the same reference frame). B travels in a spaceship and is orbiting around the Earth, as B's speed has increased there's some time dilation. So it's supposed that if A "looks" to B, B's clock will run slower than A's, and viceversa. And if one day B decides come back to the Earth, he will be younger than his twin and the hour of his clock would be different (earlier than A's clock) because of time dilation.  My first question is, why each person see the other's clock as the slow one? (In fact, I found some information that may solved it but I'm not sure if it's the right answer, and if it is, I don't understand it. -> It's because everyone thinks about himself as the reference frame. In other words, that for B, he is the stationary and who moves is A, so he sees A's clock run slower as B is "stopped" and the same for A. B is who is moving and A the stationary.)  The other question I have is that if it's true that each one sees the other as the slow one there's something that i missed out. We all agree that B (after going to the space and came back to the Earth) he is younger than his brother. So, why B don't see A moving and aging very fast if A see his brother and his things going very slow? Let's imagine they were looking to each other all the time, if both of them see the other going slowly once they meet and "discover" B is the young one... how is that possible?  [I think that in one episode of Cosmos of Carl Sagan (though may be I'm mistaken) he said that a neutrino "borned" in the Big Bang could have seen the creation of the Universe until today in few seconds due to its high speed, here starts my doubts: or i misunderstood something or there's contradictory information]  (I don't know anything about physics, only what is taught at high school as I'm a teenager so it'd be better to answer with no kind of calculation as I'd not understand it.)
38553
I remember reading a short story a few years ago and I would like to reread read it again. As far as I remember it went a little like this:  You are in a car with your family and a truck hits it, but you are the only one to die. When you regain conciousness you are [in some place that I can't remember] and you see a person (I'm going to call the person as Bob from here, but it's possible the gender wasn't specified) and ask him about your wife/family, Bob tells you that you are dead and your wife/family are/will grieve for you for a time, but your wife get over you and marry someone else. Bob then basically tells you that you are not actually a human but a being like him and their kind created the concept of the universe, time, ethics, morality etc for you because you are young and it will teach you the above. Since the universe is made just for you, everybody in the universe is you. When you die you are reborn as someone else on Earth, but the past memories are blocked but you do start to gain them back if you stay in the place you are in, but Bob wants to send you back to experience more because you are not finished just yet.  One of the last things Bob says to you is that you will be born this time as a farm girl in China in X year.   I have tried Googling this, but I was only able to get results like "God did not create the universe, gravity did, says Stephen Hawking", "IS THERE A GOD?" and "Quotes About Universe". Any help would be great.
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A man living in an underground city gets on his local subway train and keeps traveling, station after station, just to see where it goes.    Nobody has ever done this before. The staff on the train (who only each work a small section of train line) are interested in his journey, and allow him to continue.  The train passes through thousands of miles of continuous underground city, past contaminated and bricked-up areas, past thousands of stations, and finally after many months or perhaps years, comes back to where he started.  He realizes the world or universe is all city, entirely urbanized and occupied by people, all the way to the core, and can estimate its diameter. He also becomes concerned that the city-world may be slowly choking on its own toxic wastes... more and more areas are being walled-up and sealed off, and the whole civilization may eventually die.  As far as I can remember there is no mention of "sky" or even of a "surface" to a planet. Even the idea of "outside" is absent, if I remember correctly.  It's not clear if it is set in a large converted planet, or if the entire universe is city.   It was written in English. I read it in the 1980s, and it felt like it could have been written any time from the 1930s to about 1970s. It was almost certainly part of an anthology.