Time Tunnel Books in Order

Murray Leinster's Time Tunnel books are built around one of science fiction's most dangerous conveniences: a way to step out of the present and into another era. The catch is immediate. A trip into the past is never only a trip. It can become a change to the world that sent the traveler there.

The original Time Tunnel is Leinster's own time-travel novel, separate from the television series that later used a similar title. A tunnel links the twentieth century with the Napoleonic era, creating tempting opportunities for trade, profit, and historical interference. Modern objects can become miracles in the past, while apparently harmless changes begin to threaten the present.

History does not stay safely behind glass.

The later The Time Tunnel and Timeslip! were written as tie-in adventures for the television series. They follow scientists Tony Newman and Doug Phillips, who are sent through a secret government project and struggle to return while events in the past create new dangers. The books use the show’s basic setup but tell original adventures rather than simply retelling episodes.

In The Time Tunnel, Tony and Doug face missions that put the project itself at risk. They move through major historical settings while the people in the control room try to bring them home and prevent damage to the timeline. The pressure comes from both directions: travelers can be hurt or stranded in the past, and the present can be altered by what happens there.

Timeslip! raises the stakes with a misplaced experimental nuclear missile. The weapon has landed in the nineteenth century, where its accidental discovery could destroy a city and reshape international politics. Tony and Doug must get to the right place and time without making an already dangerous situation worse.

These books are compact, fast-moving adventures. Leinster is less interested in laying out a dense theory of time travel than in the immediate puzzle it creates. What can a modern person do in an older world? What knowledge is useful, what knowledge is dangerous, and how can history be repaired once it has started to bend?

Readers who want Leinster's original take should begin with Time Tunnel. Readers looking for the television-linked characters should start with The Time Tunnel and continue to Timeslip!. Either route offers a lively mix of historical adventure, scientific what-ifs, and the uneasy feeling that one wrong decision can make “now” disappear.