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Time slip

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A time slip classic
This article is about the fiction genre and plot device in fiction. For other uses, see timeslip (disambiguation).

Time slip is the plot device in fantasy and science fiction in which a person, or group of people, seem to travel through time by unknown means.[1][2] Time-slip is also popular in children's literature.[3][4] Time-slip stories were popularized at the end of the 19th century by Mark Twain's historical novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which had considerable influence on later writers.[5] In this novel an accident triggers the main character's slip in time and this has been a staple plot device of time-slip stories since, another being the time machine.

In some time-slip stories, what caused and comes from the time-slip is highly significant. In others, the protagonist has no control and no understanding of the process and it may not be explained to the reader at all. The character is either left marooned or settled in the past time and must make the best of it, or is returned at the climax of the story by a process as unpredictable and uncontrolled.[6] In realistic fiction and memoir, the research and archival processes are often built into the story, as part of the protagonist's, and reader's, journey of discovery.

See also

References

  1. ^ Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature, "Timeslip romance", p. 357
  2. ^ Palmer, Christopher (2007). Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern (Repr. ed.). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-85323-618-4.
  3. ^ Lucas, Ann Lawson (2003). The Presence of the Past in Children's Literature. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. p. 113. ISBN 9780313324833.
  4. ^ Tess Cosslett (2002-04-01). "Project MUSE - "History from Below": Time-Slip Narratives and National Identity" (PDF). muse.jhu.edu. Retrieved 2015-09-15.
  5. ^ James, Edward; Mendlesohn, Farah (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 106. ISBN 9781107493735.
  6. ^ Schweitzer, Darrell (2009). The Fantastic Horizon: Essays and Reviews (1st ed.). [Rockville, Md.?]: Borgo Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-4344-0320-9.
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