time patrol n.

= time police n.

Chiefly associated with a series of related stories by Poul Anderson.

SF Encyclopedia


Time Travel

  • 1955 P. Anderson in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 3 (title) page image Poul Anderson bibliography

    Time Patrol.

  • 1969 R. Silverberg Up the Line in Amazing Stories July 20/1 page image Robert Silverberg bibliography

    The other division of the Time Service is the Time Patrol, whose task it is to prevent abuses of Benchley Effect devices and to guard against the emergence of paradoxes. At our next lesson we will consider in detail the nature of these paradoxes and how they may be avoided.

  • 1972 J. Sladek Steam-Driven Boy in H. Harrison Nova 2 127 page image John Sladek bibliography

    They understood. One by one, the time-patrol put down their glasses and slipped silently from the room. Carl was elected to take the robot back to 1937.

  • 1973 R. Silverberg Many Mansions in Universe 3 84 page image Robert Silverberg bibliography

    Now to go back to the machine and return to 2006, she thinks. To start my new life. But as she leaves the apartment, a tall, lean man steps out of the hallway shadows and clamps his hand powerfully around her wrist. ‘Time Patrol,’ he says crisply, flashing an identification badge. ‘You’re under arrest for temponautic murder, Mrs. Porter.’

  • 1987 D. W. Jones Tale of Time City (1989) vii. 99 page image Diana Wynne Jones bibliography

    ‘What happens,’ Vivian asked, ‘if a tourist meets his own grandchildren and hates them and decides not to get married? Wouldn’t that change history?’ ‘There’s a whole branch of Time Patrol checking to make sure that won’t happen,’ said Ramona. ‘Hush, Sam.’

  • 2006 W. McCarthy Heisenberg Elementary in Asimov’s Science Fiction Apr.–May 61 page image Wil McCarthy bibliography

    Then—finally!—the Time Patrol shows up with funguns blazing, and for once school is, like, actually interesting.


Research requirements

antedating 1955

Earliest cite

title of Poul Anderson's original "Time Patrol" story

Last modified 2021-08-14 13:41:36
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.