Eight time travel novels that bend the rules

Time travel is an unusually flexible fictional idea. It can turn a relationship into a problem of timing, make historical knowledge suddenly inadequate, or offer a second chance whose consequences are harder to control than expected. These eight novels use it for different purposes. Some focus on the mechanism or the journey; others are more interested in what an altered relationship with time does to a person's obligations and sense of self.

Do not expect one shared tone. There is comedy here, but also slavery, epidemic disease, violence and personal loss. We have chosen for the distinct work that time travel does in each story rather than treating the premise as a genre all by itself. Start with the experience you want, whether that is a puzzle, a historical encounter, an adventure or an emotionally complicated relationship, then choose the book that gives that experience room.

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The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Henry moves through time involuntarily, while Clare experiences their relationship under a different set of chronological conditions. Audrey Niffenegger makes that imbalance central to a love story about waiting, knowledge and the difficulty of sharing an ordinary life. Choose it if you want the speculative premise to intensify an emotional relationship, rather than a book chiefly interested in explaining machinery or following a traveller through a succession of historical destinations.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

H. G. Wells sends his Time Traveller into a distant future, where the world he encounters raises questions about the society from which he has come. The relatively compact narrative gives the idea room to become both an adventure and a social argument. It is a useful starting point if you want to explore an influential early time travel novel, while approaching its assumptions as part of its historical setting rather than expecting contemporary science.