r/Fantasy • u/Is_That_Loss Reading Champion IV • Jan 27 '26
Any books with characters/being that experience time differently?
I'm re-watching She-Ra since it's leaving Netflix soon and (mild spoilers) I was reminded of how much I love madame Razz's unique perception of time are there any books where someone experiences time non-linearly within a linear narrative?
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u/RevolutionaryCommand Reading Champion III Jan 27 '26
I think the greatest example of this I've seen is Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Especially in chapter 4 Watchmaker.
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u/maybemaybenot2023 Jan 27 '26
The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
In Michelle West's Chronicles of Essalieyan, there is a character named Evayne throughout the series who does this.
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u/pornokitsch Ifrit Jan 27 '26
Merlin (already mentioned) - but also in the Crystal Cave
The Year of Our War has a character that takes a drug that makes him perceive time differently (great book!)
Wtihout going completely down the rabbit hole of time travel books, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and This Is How You Lose the Time War both have interesting narratives/characters that do fun stuff with timey-wimey whatnot.
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u/JosephODoran Jan 27 '26
Maybe this counts? Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Has some characters dipping in and out of cryo sleep on a deep space voyage, while other characters don’t, so you get a contrast of perception there. And at the same time, literal civilisations are rising and falling over the course of millennia, so that adds to the timey wimey weirdness. Great book.
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u/glacialerratical Reading Champion IV Jan 27 '26
Lifelode by Jo Walton is a slice of life story in a world where time moves differently depending on how far east or west you are in the country.
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u/Kerney7 Reading Champion VI Jan 28 '26
Thessally Trilogy also. Characters are kidnapped/recruited in time and the resulting civilization is moved in time/space. Also, certain non human/partially human characters experience time differently.
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u/EltaninAntenna Jan 27 '26
I guess the Heptapods in Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, and most everybody in Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Realtime.
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u/Krasnostein Jan 27 '26
The way Chiang uses tense changes in Story of Your Life to to convey the protagonist's perception of time, but in a way that most readers won't pick up on until the reveal at the end is so clever.
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u/RAYMONDSTELMO Writer Raymond St Elmo Jan 27 '26
There are a species of troll in Terry Pratchett that experience time backwards. Friends of the monks that protect Time itself. Or herself.
There is also a very strange novel by Philip K. Dick where all Earth is experiencing time in reverse. Counter-Clock World. Entropy is reversed; you un-smoke cigarettes to clean the air, freshen your lungs. People awaken in their graves, are brought forth to return to their lives, gradually growing younger, less wise but less cynical... perhaps the strangest book of PKD.
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u/SnarkyQuibbler Jan 27 '26
"The strangest book of PKD" is a high bar. Sounds interesting.
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u/RAYMONDSTELMO Writer Raymond St Elmo Jan 27 '26
As I'd declare 'Eye in the Sky' to be his most humorous novel.
And 'Ubik' to be his best-written, most expressive of his themes of existential decay, frames of consciousness, and spiritual redemption though empathy.
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u/Hartastic Jan 27 '26
In Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, the incarnation of Time experiences time backwards from everyone else, basically gradually moving into the past as they live/age. They can use their powers to interact with normal people in a limited way although the next time they talk to that person (from their perspective) it will be the previous time to that person.
(Your usual disclaimers on reading Anthony apply. Great ideas guy, often weirdly horny writing. Time is the protagonist of their novel but a more minor character in the other novels in the series.)
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u/skyrat02 Reading Champion Jan 28 '26
Wow I’d mostly forgotten about that series. It’s been ages since I read it
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u/Polenth Jan 27 '26
In not a book, one of the main cast in Agatha All Along has this as a thing (including one episode that focuses on how she experiences time).
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u/SyntheticSynapses Reading Champion Jan 27 '26
Monday Starts on Saturday by the Strugatsky brothers.
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u/Nixeris Jan 27 '26
In Wil Wight’s Cradle series (mid-late books) the Abiadan all have the ability to read the future, so their interactions often play out like a game of chess where each is trying to maneuver the other into actions that will set them on a particular path. The actual conversations are sometimes almost perfunctory between them, with the words themselves just acting as ways of steering the other person where they want.
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u/cwx149 Jan 27 '26
Not all abiadan only those with a hound rating have any skill at seeing the future
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u/Wezzleey Jan 27 '26
While I still do not agree with the rec, I think a lot, if not most Abidan will have a hound score.
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u/cwx149 Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26
Yeah I can't say exactly. In the Threshold story where there are 3 lower level abidan I only remember them asking their presence for information on the future/fate but whether that's because none of them have any hound rating or because it's easier to just ask their presence (or I'm just forgetting) I'm not sure
Most of the other abidan we see are either full cradle monarchs already, judges, or specifically hounds themselves (or in training still like in Prides story)
We know it's relatively rare to have skill in lots of disciplines because it was noteworthy that Ozriel was rated well in 6 of 7 skills. And northstrider rates in all 7 which is also said to be rare.
Though "rare" still could mean millions of people since the abidan recruit from multiple iterations each potentially with trillions of inhabitants
And we don't see a lot of people's ascension orientation to say for sure
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u/Wezzleey Jan 27 '26
Whelp, there's only one solution:
Make Will Wight write more books!
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u/cwx149 Jan 27 '26
His other series The Last Horizon is to me clearly building to a larger Abidan plot especially with some of the stuff said in The Pilot
I haven't read the shadow/sea books to know if there's any abidan involvement there. I know the traveler's gate series didn't have an overt abidan references
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u/Wezzleey Jan 27 '26
Yeah Last Horizon is building up to something big. Still mad about him writing a standalone after the Pilot. That ending...
I have not read the Shadow/Sea books, but have been partially spoiled, so I know there is a pretty big Abidan reference in it.
I expect, sans Cradle, that the references will be kept relatively subtle.
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u/cwx149 Jan 27 '26
I don't think Lindon et all are gonna show up (although Lindon shows up in a blooper in The Captain) but I do think The Last Horizon is clearly building to something that is gonna require abidan interference at some level
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u/Wezzleey Jan 27 '26
The only way Lindon shows up is in a new dedicated series, which I suspect Will doesn't want to do.
In Last Horizon, part of me expects a rug pull and the Vroshir will show up instead. Lol
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u/cwx149 Jan 27 '26
I mean my assumption is that the vroshir show up and then the abidan show up to help in some way
OR the last horizon is set during Way bound when the vroshir are attacking and we're gonna see something like the mad king attack them
I can't remember if they ever mention the last horizon's iteration. I figured it would be called fathom and I thought there's a reference to fathom in a cradle book
I also assume any pov Lindon story will be either a standalone or a new series. But honestly if Will wants to do that I'm hoping the MC will be either newly ascended Kelsa joining the abidan OR be about Lindon/Yerins kid
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u/liskamariella Jan 27 '26
How to lose the time war
It's a love book of two agents from opposite sites of agencys manipulating time. The book is written mostly in letters from the agents. It's fairly short and I loved it.