''The Time Stream'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by American writer

John Taine Eric Temple Bell (7 February 1883 – 21 December 1960) was a Scottish-born mathematician and science fiction writer who lived in the United States for most of his life. He published non-fiction using his given name and fiction as John Tai ...

(pseudonym of Eric Temple Bell). The novel was originally serialized in four parts in the magazine ''

Wonder Stories ''Wonder Stories'' was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, ''Amazing Stor ...

'' beginning in December 1931. It was first published in book form in

1946 Events January * January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...

by The Buffalo Book Company in an edition of 2,000 copies of which only 500 were ever bound. It is the first novel to see time as a flowing stream.

Plot introduction

The novel concerns

time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

and links the world Eos at the beginning of the universe with the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...

Reception

''Astounding'' reviewer

P. Schuyler Miller Peter Schuyler Miller (February 21, 1912 – October 13, 1974) was an American science fiction writer and critic. Life Miller was raised in New York's Mohawk Valley, which led to a lifelong interest in the Iroquois Indians. He pursued this as ...

described ''The Time Stream'' as "the strangest of all John Taine's novels," concluding that it was "less powerful" than other Taine fiction "because he tries to do too much.""Book Review",

Astounding Science Fiction ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...

, March 1947, p.138

Everett F. Bleiler Everett Franklin Bleiler (April 30, 1920 – June 13, 2010) was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" ...

noted that it is "generally conceded to be Taine's best novel, despite its somewhat confusing presentation and very ambivalent theme"; he concluded that the ambivalence "makes the novel interesting."

Notes

Sources

* *

External links

* 1931 American novels 1931 science fiction novels American science fiction novels Novels about time travel Novels first published in serial form Works originally published in Wonder Stories Works by Eric Temple Bell Works published under a pseudonym {{1930s-novel-stub