To Say Nothing of the Dog continues a long and rich tradition of time travel plots in science fiction from classics such as Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward and H. G. Wells's seminal The Time Machine to the more recent movie Terminator, James P. Hogan's Thrice upon a Time, Kage Baker's In The Garden of Iden and the rest of the Company series, and a virtual host of other works exploring the often paradoxical nature of time travel.

In the novel Willis herself suggests other subgenres for comparison and a few specific works. For instance, much of the early part of the book is an extended tribute to Jerome K. Jerome's comic novel Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog. Ned Henry draws attention to many of the shared attributes to that work, though most of the similarities are fairly superficial details either...