Parece-me "Voo para Sempre" por Poul Anderson (publicado pela primeira vez em Super Science Stories , novembro de 1950 , disponível em Arquivo da Internet ). Não corresponde perfeitamente à sua descrição, mas pelo menos é uma história de viagem no tempo.
Eu acredito que foi um romance completo,
Não é bem assim. O ISFDB chama isso de novela, que eu acho que é o mesmo que um romance curto. Eu li em uma antologia chamada Melhores romances de ficção científica do ano de 1952 .
que devo ter lido como pré-adolescente, por isso não pode ser mais recente que o final dos anos 90 ou início dos anos 2000.
Já é bastante antigo, publicado pela primeira vez em Super Histórias da Ciência, novembro de 1950. Na década de 1990, você pode ter lido na coleção de Poul Anderson Alight in the Void
Eu não me lembro muito, mas acho que foi sobre um homem que viaja para frente no tempo e fica preso lá,
O herói da história de Anderson chega 100 anos à frente em sua máquina do tempo, e então ele descobre que não pode voltar ao seu próprio tempo, porque sua máquina não vai ao contrário. Mais precisamente, pode retroceder no tempo, mas não mais que 70 anos. Então ele decide continuar indo para o futuro, até encontrar uma sociedade avançada o suficiente para poder mandá-lo de volta. Por exemplo. em 4100 d.C.:
"Can you help us?" asked Saunders bluntly. "Can you fix our machine so it will reverse?
"Alas, no. I am afraid our physics holds no hope for you. I can consult the experts, but I am sure there has been no change in spatiotemporal theory since Priogan's reformulation. According to it, the energy needed to travel into the past increases tremendously with the period covered. The deformation of world lines, you see. Beyond a period of about seventy years, infinite energy is required."
eventualmente se apaixonando por uma mulher tribal. . . . Eu acho que a mulher também pode ter sido uma princesa ou filha de um chefe ou algo assim.
Em 50.000 dC, ele se apaixona por Taury, o Vermelho, Imperatriz da Galáxia. O Império já viu dias melhores:
Hunda shrugged. "It's a harmless game, isn't it? At that, you know, we are the Empire—legally. Taury is a direct descendant of Maurco the Doomer, last Emperor to be anointed according to the proper forms. Of course, that was five thousand years ago, and Maurco had only three systems left then, but the law is clear. These hundred or more barbarian pretenders, human and otherwise, haven't the shadow of a real claim to the title."
E Taury é uma rainha guerreira; ela leva sua frota espacial para a batalha contra os bárbaros:
"In a few minutes," said Taury quietly. "In just a few minutes, Martin."
She paced back from the viewport, lithe and restless as a tigress. The cold white starlight glittered in her eyes. A red cloak swirled about the strong, deep curves of her body, a Sunburst helmet sat proudly on her bronze-bright hair. Saunders thought how beautiful she was—by all the gods, how beautiful!
She smiled at him. "It is your doing, Martin," she said. "You came from the past just to bring us hope. It's enough to make one believe in destiny." She took his hand. "But of course it's not the hope you wanted. This won't get you back home."
"It doesn't matter," he said.
"It does, Martin. But—may I say it? I'm still glad of it. Not only for the sake of the Empire, but—"
A voice rattled over the bridge communicator. "Ultrawave to bridge. The enemy is sending us a message, your majesty. Shall I send it up to you?"
"Of course." Taury switched on the bridge screen.
Ele mora lá por algum tempo
Cerca de um ano:
The last months rose in his mind, a bewilderment of memory. After the surrender of the Anvardian fleet, the Imperials had gone under their escort directly to Canopus and thence through the Anvardian empire. And chief after chief, now that Ruulthan was dead and Taury had shown she could win a greater mastery than his, pledged allegiance to her.
Hunda was still out there with Belgotai, fighting a stubborn Anvardian earl. The Dreamer was in the great Polarian System, toiling at readjustment. It would be necessary, of course, for the Imperial capital to move from isolated Sol to central Polaris, and Taury did not think she would ever have time or opportunity to visit Earth again.
até que eles vão se casar, mas então sua máquina do tempo é fixa e ele pode voltar para casa.
Não exatamente. O casamento parecia estar prestes a acontecer, mas Saunders é atacado por um rival, amarrado, amordaçado e exilado para o futuro em sua própria máquina do tempo:
Saunders tried to move, snarling incoherently through his gag. Vargor shook his head. "Oh, no, Martin. I can't risk letting you make an outcry. If I'm to do evil, I'll at least do a competent job of it.
"I love Taury, you see. I've loved her ever since I first met her, when I came from the stars with a fighting fleet to her father's court and saw her standing there with the frost crackling through her hair and those gray eyes shining at me. I love her so it's like a pain in me. I can't be away from her, I'd pull down the cosmos for her sake. And I thought she was slowly coming to love me.
"And tonight I saw you two on the balcony, and I knew I'd lost. Only I can't give up! Our breed has fought the Galaxy for a dream, Martin—it's not in us ever to stop fighting while life is in us. Fighting by any means, for whatever is dear and precious—but fighting!"
Ele finalmente consegue sua máquina do tempo consertada pelos seres divinos que governam a Terra em 4.000.000 d.C Eles dão um upgrade para que ele possa "rodear o Chifre" de tempo circular e voltar ao início:
He was in a city. But it was not such a city as he had ever seen or imagined, he couldn't follow the wild geometry of the titanic structures that loomed about him and they were never the same. The place throbbed and pulsed with incredible forces, it wavered and blurred in a strangely unreal light. Great devastating energies flashed and roared around him—lightning come to Earth. The air hissed and stung with their booming passage.
The thought was a shout filling his skull, blazing along his nerves, too mighty a thought for his stunned brain to do more than grope after meaning:
CREATURE FROM OUT OF TIME, LEAVE THIS PLACE AT ONCE OR THE FORCES WE USE WILL DESTROY YOU!
Through and through him that mental vision seared, down to the very molecules of his brain, his life lay open to Them in a white flame of incandescence.
Can you help me? he cried to the gods. Can you send me back through time?
MAN, THERE IS NO WAY TO TRAVEL FAR BACKWARD IN TIME, IT IS INHERENTLY IMPOSSIBLE. YOU MUST GO ON TO THE VERY END OF THE UNIVERSE, AND BEYOND THE END, BECAUSE THAT WAY LIES—
He screamed with the pain of unendurably great thought and concept filling his human brain.
GO ON, MAN, GO ON! BUT YOU CANNOT SURVIVE IN THAT MACHINE AS IT IS. I WILL CHANGE IT FOR YOU . . . GO!
The time projector started again by itself. Saunders fell forward into a darkness that roared and flashed.