Confession

[ivyfic]

I have an unholy love of time travel stories. Or rather of a specific type--where someone from the past is stuck in the present (or future). It's gotten more sever the more I study history, as I'm constantly trying to compare historical and modern worldviews.

(I have a whole thought experiment about the best way to introduce an Ancient Greek to chocolate. Cause let's face it, they'd probably find it disgusting, given their cuisine. I figure your best bet is high quality fudge or pudding--nothing too dark, and nothing too sweet. Given how poorly I react to foreign cuisines' desserts, I'd bet an Ancient Greek would find something like ice cream too weird to try. Anyway.)

The problem is most stories that feature an ancient person displaced into modern times are exercises in masturbatory self congratulation. Oh, look how amazing our technology is! Oh, look how incredible democracy is! Oh, isn't ice cream the best thing ever invented! (Seriously, I think the Discovery Of Ice Cream is a required scene in these stories.) And of course there's the whole teach the pagans the true meaning of Christmas type of thing (thanks for reading that, jethrien) which is vomit worthy.

I would think that if you suddenly found yourself a thousand years in the future, you'd be awed, yes, but you would be mostly horrified and depressed. Not just that everyone you loved is dead, but that your culture is dead. That everything you thought would go on forever didn't. That people think your religion that you would have died for is silly. That people think your values are immoral. I don't think it would be a happy fluffy montage sequence of going to Toys R Us and the Apple Store and Central Park.

So. Does anyone know of any really good time travel stories? Fic, TV, novels, movies, whatever. But they have to be well grounded in historical fact and not just an excuse to pat ourselves on the back for being alive when we are. Recommendations? Anybody?

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

A story (and continuing subplot) in Transmetropolitan features a woman from the 20th century who had been cryogenically frozen, then reawakened in the setting time of Holy-Crap-Later A.D. I suspect you'd enjoy it. (I have the full series in trade paperback.)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

You're willing to lend me comic books again? o.O

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I'm running out of bookshelf space. This would give them a safe place to live for a couple of years, until we move to a larger apartment.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Your outsourcing your storage space. I see.

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

That is pure genius.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

This isn't time travel really - and I'm sure you've already seen this - but there's that ep of TNG with Worf's (retconned) human brother trying to save a pre-warp civilization. They don't come into the future, but there is that one dude who of course finds his way out of the holodeck thingie, and ends up on the ship....don't know if that really meets your criteria, but that immediately popped into my head.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I would consider that a really bad example of displacement. I mean, yes, the guy's depressed, but it's an incredibly crap episode.

TNG is actually guilty of a number of time travel pat-ourselves-on-the-back episodes. The one from first season where Data wakes up the cryogenically frozen people? Gag. The sole purpose of those people is to show how much better things are in the future.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

Oh man, totally. I usually try to block that episode out of my head. And yes, that Worf one was a terrible episode, but it popped into my head nonetheless - wish it would pop back out. Wish I could delete it....

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

I don't like the Worf episode but the "future is so much better than now" was kind of the whole point of Star Trek.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

My brain is spectacularly fried right now, and the best example I can come up with is Phil Hartman as SNL's "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer."

Maybe not the best example, but it's funny.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

They weren't pagans! That's the problem--they were Christians! Whom she taught that the true meaning of Christmas is presents and chopping down trees!

For some reason, I always think of the Sting song "All This Time"
Teacher told us
The Romans built this place
They built a wall and a city
and an edge-of-the-Empire garrison town
They lived and they died
They prayed to their gods
But the stone gods did not make a sound
And their Empire crumbled
'Til all that was left
Were the stones the workmen found

and how incredibly depressing that would be to a Roman. On the plus side, we do still tell their myths and put on some of their plays and remember who a bunch of them were. And some of their buildings are still standing today. Which is actually more than I expect from a civilization as far in the future from us as we are from Romans to have of ours.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I think it would be even more compelling for a Greek--say an Athenian from the Golden Age of Greece. Because much of their culture has remained, we read their plays and histories and philosophical works, use their language, have inherited their science. But all of that, all of that, is only through the Romans. We only have most of Greek culture because the Romans conquered them, stole and copied their art and architecture, their religion, and studied their literature. So it would both be, oh, my culture has endured, but also, it only endured because it was conquered.

Deep down I really do love the person out of place gets introduced to our culture story, for all its crack and bad fic connotations. But I want good bad fic. I want something where we see the person out of place wrestle with it, have both ups and downs, and find a way to be competent and awesome in the new world. Is that so much to ask???? (Yes, yes, I know it is.)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

It's out there, I'm sure, I'm just not sure where to point you. I know I've read a handful of short stories in that vein, but long ago enough I couldn't possibly tell you where.

[cubby-t-bear.livejournal.com]

Not quite the same thing, but ...

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/20081222/engines-f.shtml

It's a short about people who keep stepping into the future.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any good "past-to-future" stories. "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove is a fantastic "future-to-past" story about South African white supremacists travelling back to 1862 to help the Confederacy win the Civil War, mainly by supplying them with as many AK-47s as they could pull off the market in 2012.

Not as meaningful, but there's also a hilarious Turtledove short story about a future historian attempting to travel back in time to speak to Genghis Khan, who ends up in modern day L.A. talking to a software engineer whose history professor had an odd sense of humor when he named his kids. It's called "The Barbecue, the Movie, & Other Unfortunately Not So Relevant Material," and it's in the collection "Departures".

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

I second "The Guns of the South", and can lend it if you like.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

From the reviews...I don't think I'd like that one. But thanks!

[shnayder.livejournal.com]

Have you read H. G. Wells's The Time Machine?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Does the abridged for middle schoolers illustrated version count?

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

Does Futurama count?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Heh. I suppose so, but it's never been my thing.

[yourlibrarian]

I would think that if you suddenly found yourself a thousand years in the future, you'd be awed, yes, but you would be mostly horrified and depressed. Not just that everyone you loved is dead, but that your culture is dead. That everything you thought would go on forever didn't. That people think your religion that you would have died for is silly. That people think your values are immoral. I don't think it would be a happy fluffy montage sequence of going to Toys R Us and the Apple Store and Central Park.

So, so true.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I plan to write one someday :) My epic Pompeii time travel novel...

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

When you write it, I will read it. :)

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

You've seen Life on Mars, yes?

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I have, but I never finished the series. I've put it on my Netflix queue because I really should, you know? And this is the exact sort of thing I'm looking for--the conflict of how the hell can you even think like that? that goes both ways between the characters.

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

I'm biased, because it's one of my favorite series ever, but I think it does a good job of putting Future!cop in his place when he tries to get high-and-mighty and know-it-all on Gene Hunt of all people. And then they slowly begin to earn each other's respect and shit. And sometimes Sam is just like - "oh yeah, it would be much more efficient to beat a confession out of this guy, plus more fun, so" - which amuses me.