Timescoop is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel by John Brunner

John Brunner (novelist)

John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...

, published in 1969.

Plot summary

The novel expresses Brunner in a lighter mode than other novels of the period such as Stand on Zanzibar

Stand on Zanzibar

Stand on Zanzibar is a dystopian New Wave science fiction novel written by John Brunner and first published in 1968. The book won a Hugo Award for Best Novel at the 27th World Science Fiction Convention in 1969, as well as the 1969 BSFA Award and the 1973 Prix Tour-Apollo Award.-Description:A...

and The Sheep Look Up

The Sheep Look Up

The Sheep Look Up is a science fiction novel by British author John Brunner, first published in 1972. The novel's setting is decidedly dystopian; the book deals with the deterioration of the environment in the United States...

. The original cover copy said, "He summoned the monsters of the past to help him rule the world." Actually, protagonist Harold Freitas III is merely looking for a publicity triumph, and the "monsters" are duplicates of his own ancestors, brought forward to 2066 by a newly invented time machine. The ancestors have some difficulties, amusingly described, in adjusting to 21st-century mores. Freitas and his sentient computer SPARCI save the day.