time track n.
Time Travel
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1942
page image
Malcolm Jameson
bibliography
They said that the prognosis following a Confederate victory was not good and that we have to assume the moral responsibility for the sort of futures we set up in these branch time-tracks we generate, even if they have no effect on us.
Anachron, Inc. in Astounding Science-Fiction Oct. 62/1
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1943
Henry Kuttner
C. L. Moore
bibliography
Originally, in pattern a, there was no place for the eighty-year-old dead body of Gallegher. It was introduced and changed the future. We automatically switched into another time track.
The World Is Mine in Astounding Science Fiction June 19/1
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1945
But you can’t go back to the beginning. You can’t even go back along your timetrack. Because the train is moving on, it isn’t where it was twenty, fifty, eighty years before, and if you try to retrace your steps, you’re walking along a strange road. It isn’t quite spatial or temporal, really.
Code in Astounding Science Fiction July 29/2
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1945
Murray Leinster
A parallel time track most likely, where they got started up the ladder say fifty thousand years before us.
Interference in Astounding Science Fiction Oct. 58/2
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1947
Murray Leinster
It’s branching time tracks… That’s the idea! There can be more than one past, and more than one present, and more than one future. An old speculation. You do something, and it sets you on one time track rather than another. If you could go back, you could do something else and get on another time track.
in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 145/2
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1949 Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 160/1
This whole time track idea has always had a great fascination for me, and nowhere have I seen it so well presented as in ‘Police Operation’.
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1958
Robert Silverberg
He was certain now that his rescuer had been an earlier Ewing, one who had preceded him through the time-track, reached this point in time, and doubled back to become his rescuer, precisely as he was about to do. His head swam. He refused to let himself dwell on the confusing, paradoxical aspects of the situation.
Stepsons of Terra 60
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1959
Chad Oliver
No amount of twaddle about alternate time-tracks and congruent universes is going to change that.
Transfusion in W. F. Nolan Edge of Forever (1971) 45
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1961
‘What about something really good?… Anti-gravity, or the interstellar drive?’ ‘And shunt the world on to a different Time Track?’
in New Worlds Science Fiction Nov. 66
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1963
Michael Moorcock
We are searching now, trying to pick him up, but outside the Earth’s time-track all is chaotic to our instruments—some defect in out understanding of time.
in New Worlds Science Fiction July 113
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1971
Ursula K. Le Guin
But I knew you did, as soon as I thought about it, because they weren’t in that other—time-track or whatever it is.
Lathe of Heaven (1973) vii.103
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1977
Brian W. Aldiss
bibliography
But it seems pertinent to close on the work of Philip José Farmer. His novel The Gate of Time (1966) sets his pivotal point for the divergence of history in pre history, and in this timetrack the continent of the Americas does not rise above the surface of the oceans.
Future & Alternative Hist. in B. Ash Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 123/3
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1984
Robert Silverberg
Whatever the symptom, it always meant the same thing: your time-track has been meddled with, your life has been retroactively transformed.
Needle in Timestack in R. Silverberg Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1984) 267
Research requirements
antedating 1942
Earliest cite
M. Jameson 'Anachron, Inc.'
Research History
Katrina Campbell submitted a cite from a reprint of George Whitley's "All Laced Up"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1961 original magazine appearance. Katrina Campbell submitted a cite from a reprint of Michael Moorcock's "Flux"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1963 first magazine appearance. Mike Christie submitted a 1949 cite from a letter by Warren Carroll in Astounding. Jeff Prucher submitted a 1977 cite from an article by Brian Aldiss in Brian Ash's "A Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction". Mike Christie submitted a 1947 cite from Murray Leinster's "Time to Die". Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a reprint of Robert Silverberg's "Stepsons of Terra"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1958 first edition. Mike Christie submitted a 1945 cite from Laurence O'Donnell's "The Code". Mike Christie submitted a 1943 cite from Lewis Padgett's "The World Is Mine". Mike Christie submitted a 1942 cite from Malcolm Jameson's "Anachron, Inc.".Fred Galvin found a reference in the ISFDB to David Plimmer's 1941 story "Man From the Wrong time-Track", but consulting the text of the story revealed it to be a story of future/past time-travel, rather than the "sideways in time" parallel worlds sense that we want.
Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
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