You Were Right, Joe (short story)
Encyclopedia
You Were Right, Joe is a 22 page Time Travel
short story
by J. T. McIntosh
, published in the November 1957 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction
.
, and is replete with colloquialisms suitable for an "Ordinary Joe."
The time traveler tells Joe that some of his predictions about time travel and the future are correct. He has arrived in the future with an established identity and is able to speak the local language. The people of the time are friendly and simply dressed. Even though he is clearly in a city, there is little sign of impressive technology. He also reports that he is attracting a fair amount of attention because the body that he now inhabits is tall, strong, handsome and athletic whereas in our time he was something of a weakling.
Another observation that the time traveler makes to Joe is that the people of the future must be pretty mature, as they only need two laws:
Law #1 – You mustn’t bother other people.
Law #2 – If you are other people, you mustn’t be bothered too easily.
As the time traveler meets people and explores his surroundings his messages to Joe begin to mention strange events where people or creatures from other times (a sabre-tooth tiger, a group of cave men, some people attending a party in 17th century England) appear for a short time and then vanish again.
Eventually, the scientists of the future catch up with the time traveler and tell him that since his arrival they have detected ever increasing disturbances in time - which is the reason for the strange and anachronistic events that have been happening around him. They tell him that these disturbances are a result of the communications link that he has to Joe, back in our time – the link is literally pulling time apart.
The future scientists see a way to remove the threat by severing the link, but their solution turns out to have some rather grim repercussions for Joe...
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by J. T. McIntosh
J. T. McIntosh
J. T. McIntosh was a pseudonym used by Scottish writer and journalist James Murdoch MacGregor.-Biography:Born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, but living largely in Aberdeen, MacGregor used the McIntosh pseudonym as well as "H. J...
, published in the November 1957 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
.
Style
The story is written in the first personFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
, and is replete with colloquialisms suitable for an "Ordinary Joe."
Plot
An unnamed man has had his consciousness sent far into the future by a scientist named Joe. The story is told in the form of messages that are sent by the time traveler using a one-way communication link that exists between the time traveler and the scientist.The time traveler tells Joe that some of his predictions about time travel and the future are correct. He has arrived in the future with an established identity and is able to speak the local language. The people of the time are friendly and simply dressed. Even though he is clearly in a city, there is little sign of impressive technology. He also reports that he is attracting a fair amount of attention because the body that he now inhabits is tall, strong, handsome and athletic whereas in our time he was something of a weakling.
Another observation that the time traveler makes to Joe is that the people of the future must be pretty mature, as they only need two laws:
Law #1 – You mustn’t bother other people.
Law #2 – If you are other people, you mustn’t be bothered too easily.
As the time traveler meets people and explores his surroundings his messages to Joe begin to mention strange events where people or creatures from other times (a sabre-tooth tiger, a group of cave men, some people attending a party in 17th century England) appear for a short time and then vanish again.
Eventually, the scientists of the future catch up with the time traveler and tell him that since his arrival they have detected ever increasing disturbances in time - which is the reason for the strange and anachronistic events that have been happening around him. They tell him that these disturbances are a result of the communications link that he has to Joe, back in our time – the link is literally pulling time apart.
The future scientists see a way to remove the threat by severing the link, but their solution turns out to have some rather grim repercussions for Joe...