IMG_20160730_204351 Best time travel stories panel

Left to right: John Gibbons, Marshall Ryan Maresca, K. G. (Kevin) Jewell, and Rebecca Schwarz on the time travel panel.

The best time travel stories, as recommended by the panelists and the audience:

K. G. Jewell. Connie Willis "To Say Nothing of the Dog"

Rebecca Schwarz. Larry Niven "All The Myriad Ways". A detective sits at his desk cleaning a gun. He doesn't do anything else. He is working through a problem at that time. (Spoiler: the story hinges on many-worlds interpretation of time travel.)

Marshall Ryan Maresca. Robert Heinlein "All You Zombies". (The story is great, I just hate the title, Marshall says.) It's that famous story where one person turns out to be his/her own mother and father at different stages of his/her life.

Audience member. Henry Kuttner "Happy Ending". The same story told three times in three different ways, and every time your understanding of the story completely changes.

Audience member. Stephen King story "The Jaunt", about something horrible that happens to travellers while being Jaunted, or teleported. (It has to do with time.)

John Gibbons. Orson Scott Card "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus". Part of the plot is about scientists going back to the past and trying to interfere with Christopher Columbus' visit to America. It's one of the best books Orson Scott Card has written, says John.

The moderator also asked the panelists and the audience what, in their opinion, are the worst time-travel tropes. An Audience member volunteered as the worst trope of all times "A man and a woman time travellers are stranded in the distant past, and their names were Adam and Eve."