Låter mig som "Flight to Forever" av Poul Anderson (först publicerad i Super Science Stories , november 1950 , tillgänglig på Internetarkiv ). Det matchar inte din beskrivning perfekt, men det är åtminstone en tidsresa.
Jag tror att det var en fullständig roman,
Inte riktigt. ISFDB kallar det en novella, som jag tycker är samma som en kort roman. Jag läste den i en antologi som heter Årets bästa science fiction novels 1952 .
som jag måste ha läst som en preteen, så det kan inte vara nyare än slutet av 90-talet eller början av 2000-talet.
Det är gammalt nog, okej, först publicerat i Super Science stories , november 1950 . På 1990-talet kanske du har läst det i Poul Andersons samling Alight in the Void
Jag kommer inte ihåg mycket, men jag tror att det handlade om en man som reser framåt i tid och fastnar där,
Andersons hjälte går 100 år framåt i sin tidsmaskin, och då finner han att han inte kan komma tillbaka till sin egen tid, för att hans maskin inte kommer att gå omvänd. Mer precist kan det gå bakåt i tiden, men inte mer än cirka 70 år. Så han bestämmer sig för att fortsätta gå längre in i framtiden tills han hittar ett samhälle som är tillräckligt avancerat för att kunna skicka tillbaka honom. T.ex. i 4100 A.D.:
"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."
så småningom att bli kär i en stamkvinna. . . . Jag tror att kvinnan också kan ha varit prinsessa eller dotter till en chef eller något.
I 50 000 A.D. blir han kär i Taury den röda galaxens kejsarspel. Imperiet har sett bättre dagar:
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."
Och Taury är en krigare-drottning; hon leder hennes rymdflotta till kamp mot barbarerna:
"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.
Han bor där en tid
Om ett år:
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.
tills de kommer att gifta sig, men då är hans tidsmaskin fixad och han kan gå hem.
Inte exakt. Äktenskapet verkade vara i offen, men då är Saunders väglängt av en rival, bunden och gagged och förbannad till framtiden i sin egen tidsmaskin:
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!"
Han får äntligen sin tidsmaskin fixad av de gudomliga varelserna som styr jorden i 4.000.000 A.D. De ger den en uppgradering så att den kan gå "runt Hornet" i cirkulär tid och tillbaka till när han började:
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.