Recommendation wanted, space travel with time dilation or distortions

[Victoria]

Hi, I have always loved stories about space travel that involved different aspects of time complexities. Would you be able to recommend stories that deal with time dilation, distortion or other time stuff challenges (really don't know all the technical names), initialy in relativity with space travel.
Thank you,

[Dawn F]

Following along on the side here :)

[Anthony]

I know that this sort of thing is alluded to in Le Guin’s Hainish novels, but I’m not sure whether it ever becomes central to the plot.

[Kirsten]

It's a bit older but Heinlein wrote a book with this: Time for the Stars

[Richard]

Then you’ve got to try the 1971 Hugo nominated classic Tau Zero by Poul Anderson.

Big, big space and time space travel ideas book. Has stuck with me ever since I first read it in the early 80’s.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Do you want books that feature that heavily or where it's just a consideration?

It comes into play in The Sparrow, Foundation, and The Collapsing Empire, but I hesitate to say any of those are strictly about the warp of time-space.

[Trike]

In addition to Tau Zero mentioned by Richard, The Forever War features time dilation as a significant part of the plot.

A World Out of Time by Larry Niven also features this.

Spin is related but not about space travel. Aliens put Earth in a time bubble where everything passes much more slowly than in the outside world.

The Peace War by Vernor Vinge likewise deals with stasis bubbles, although on a smaller scale. The bubbles range from small to city-sized.

[Richard]

Not about space travel as such but definitely time dilation, Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward tells the story of a bunch of human scientists observing life on a neutron star where due to time dilation one hour for the scientists equates to hundreds of years for the lifeforms on the neutron star. Sort of the reverse of Spin mentioned by Trike. Very hard SF but may be worth a look at.

[David]

Death's End, the final installment of the Three-Body Problem's trilogy, does some crazy stuff with time and space. It had gone way past hard sci-fi at this point into the realm of "wildly speculative and imaginative" so it's not exactly about time dilation.

Actually, The Dark Forest (book two) deals with time quite a bit as well, though not so much in the form of time dilation (or physical phenomena). The speed of light plays an important role in all three books.

[Trike]

Richard wrote: "Not about space travel as such but definitely time dilation, Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward tells the story of a bunch of human scientists observing life on a neutr..."

Ooh, yeah, that’s a great one! I can’t believe I forgot it.

[Victoria]

Thanks to all your suggestions. I'll take a good look at each one in time to start adding them to my TBR list.