Full record for time track n.

Definition =timeline
OED requirements antedating 1942
Earliest cite M. Jameson 'Anachron, Inc.'
Comment Katrina Campbell submitted a cite from a reprint of George Whitley's "All Laced Up"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1961 original magazine appearance. Katrina Campbell submitted a cite from a reprint of Michael Moorcock's "Flux"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1963 first magazine appearance. Mike Christie submitted a 1949 cite from a letter by Warren Carroll in Astounding. Jeff Prucher submitted a 1977 cite from an article by Brian Aldiss in Brian Ash's "A Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction". Mike Christie submitted a 1947 cite from Murray Leinster's "Time to Die". Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a reprint of Robert Silverberg's "Stepsons of Terra"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1958 first edition. Mike Christie submitted a 1945 cite from Laurence O'Donnell's "The Code". Mike Christie submitted a 1943 cite from Lewis Padgett's "The World Is Mine". Mike Christie submitted a 1942 cite from Malcolm Jameson's "Anachron, Inc.".

Fred Galvin found a reference in the ISFDB to David Plimmer's 1941 story "Man From the Wrong time-Track", but consulting the text of the story revealed it to be a story of future/past time-travel, rather than the "sideways in time" parallel worlds sense that we want.
Last modified 6 July, 2008

Citations for time track n.

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1942 Astounding Sci. Fiction Oct. 62/1 They said that the prognosis following a Confederate victory was not good and that we have to assume the moral responsibility for the sort of futures we set up in these branch time-tracks we generate, even if they have no effect on us.
1943 ‘L. Padgett’ World Is Mine in Astounding Sci. Fiction June 19/1 Originally, in pattern a , there was no place for the eighty-year-old dead body of Gallegher. It was introduced and changed the future. We automatically switched into another time track.
1947 ‘M. Leinster’ in Astounding Sci. Fiction Jan. 145/2 It's branching time tracks‥. That's the idea! There can be more than one past, and more than one present, and more than one future. An old speculation. You do something, and it sets you on one time track rather than another. If you could go back, you could do something else and get on another time track.
1958 R. Silverberg Stepsons of Terra 60 He was certain now that his rescuer had been an earlier Ewing, one who had preceded him through the time-track, reached this point in time, and doubled back to become his rescuer, precisely as he was about to do. His head swam. He refused to let himself dwell on the confusing, paradoxical aspects of the situation.
1959 C. Oliver Transfusion in W. F. Nolan Edge of Forever (1971) 45 No amount of twaddle about alternate time-tracks and congruent universes is going to change that.
1961 ‘G. Whitley’ in New Worlds Sci. Fiction Nov. 66 ‘What about something really good?‥ Anti-gravity, or the interstellar drive?’‘And shunt the world on to a different Time Track?’
1971 U. K. Le Guin Lathe of Heaven (1973) vii.103 But I knew you did, as soon as I thought about it, because they weren't in that other—time-track or whatever it is.
1977 B. Aldiss Future & Alternative Hist. in B. Ash Visual Encycl. Sci. Fiction 123/3 But it seems pertinent to close on the work of Philip José Farmer. His novel The Gate of Time (1966) sets his pivotal point for the divergence of history in pre history, and in this timetrack the continent of the Americas does not rise above the surface of the oceans.
1984 R. Silverberg Needle in Timestack in R. Silverberg Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1984) 267 Whatever the symptom, it always meant the same thing: your time-track has been meddled with, your life has been retroactively transformed.