Customer Reviews

Time Traders

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If you're like me, you read these novels as a youngster in the late 50's or early 60's, and you were drawn in not just by the no-wasted-motion adventure/scifi style for which Ms. Norton became so well loved, but by the glimpses of a not-too-distant future that was clearly based on a somewhat uncertain present. The style is still there in this new edition, but the future, sadly, is gone. For reasons that elude me, the political/cultural milieu of the original near-future has been updated (the Bad Guys are no longer "Reds," they're from a post-USSR-breakup "resurgent Russia"), and the result is not a good fit. The narrative and characterizations still have that squeaky-clean Fifties feel, so the 90's references feel anachronistic. Part of the pleasure of reading classic sf is to enjoy the retro flavor; this attempt to overlay a contemporary veneer simply rings false. What's worse, the paperback edition, which I purchased, bears no indication anywhere that these revisions exist. I discovered them only as I read along and became increasingly disturbed by things that didn't fit. If you want to read a classic, and especially if you want to relive the experience of reading the classic you remember from your youth, do yourself a favor and track down the original text.

There is nothing quite like the type of space yarn that the great and greatly prolific Andre Norton wrote in the 1950s and 1960s. Well-crafted, colorful, exciting, with a wonderful sense of strangeness and awe to the settings and descriptions, these books never fail to delight, no matter how many times you read them. Even the elements which tend to date these novels add a sort of nostalgic charm that I find irresistable. Baen Books is to be applauded for its plan to re-publish a lot of her out-of-print novels in these omnibus editions. If you have yet to get into Andre Norton, now is a good time. You are bound to have a fun fun time!

This was the first Sci Fi book I read 35 odd years ago. And it launched me into reading all her other stories and the other great Sci Fi authors too. It is fun to reread this book now for it takes place late in the 20th century. The Cold War fears of that time (remember it was written in the 50's) are all thru the book and very familiar to one who grew up then. This book and the following three are still very good reads. They are full of adventure and bold ideas and you do wnat them to end, And now I see where Ms Norton and another author are writing new Time Trader books. I cannot wait!!!

This is one of the stories in the series of the aliens known as "Baldies" and their science of time travel. The two major countries of the world are in a competition to control time and have been using technology recovered from Earth's past , where spaceships from another civilization of the stars have crashed.

This is a little 007 , rayguns , and historical facts , which collide in the Early European Continent.

The story deals with two main characters and one of them is Ross Murdock. The Murdock character appears in later books of this series.

Lots of good historical knowledge.

one of the first books that I read as a young man which was so well thought out and understandable, when it came to science fiction. the only regret that I have is that she waited so long to contine the serries. Lost in the distant Past, the hero of the novel must use his wits and endure great phyiscal pain to defeat the enemy.

Time Traders (2000) is an omnibus edition of the Time Traders series, including The Time Traders and Galactic Derelict. These novels are set in the near future when the Russians have discovered time travel and the Americans duplicated their efforts. Yet the Russians have discovered other new technologies that do not seem to be related to any previous research.

The Time Traders (1958) is the first novel in this series. In this novel, Ross Murdock is a young man with a bad record. He is held in detention and subjected to a series of psychological tests, then called back into the courtroom for sentencing. Ross is offered a chance to volunteer for an unidentified government project as an alternative to Rehabilitation.

Ross chooses to volunteer and is turned over to someone called Major. He plans to run at the first opportunity, but the Major takes him up to the roof of the building where they are picked up by a helicopter. They land on an airfield, change to flying suits, and leave in a sleek flying machine that departs straight up. By the time they reach their destination, Ross has learned that the Major is named Kelgarries, but has no idea where they are, except that it is thoroughly covered in snow.

Within the base, Ross is subjected to a series of tests, including a full day of physical examination. The rest of the time he spends in a cell-like room by himself on a very comfortable bunk. After the speaker in his room brays an announcement in the Major's voice, Ross is startled to see the opposite wall disappear, revealing an outdoor scene with mountains and fir trees, the scent of pine trees, and the moaning of the wind.

He hears a wolf howl, senses gray shadows in the trees, sees a wolf come toward him, hears it growl, and then sees it crouch down to leap. A bow twangs and the animal leaps into the air, then falls and bites at an arrow in its side. By this time, Ross has the blanket wrapped around his arm and is crouched down himself, waiting for the wolf's leap. Puzzled, he carefully walks to where the wall had been and discovers an unseen but solid surface at that location. He assumes that something new in image viewing has been developed and lies down to enjoy the remainder of the show.

In this story, Ross learns that he is teamed with Doctor Gordon Ashe -- an archaeologist -- within Operation Retrograde. Its mission is to search the past for clues to the source of the new Russian technology. Ashe takes him to mess call, where he finds other team members with the appearance of Tartars and Vikings. After a great deal of training, Ross finds himself in Stone Age Britain.

Galactic Derelict (1959) is the second SF novel in this series. In the previous volume, the project has found that the Russians discovered a starship in the past. Now Operation Retrograde is searching for a starship of their own.

In this novel, Travis Fox is an Apache. His friend Chato is an old man whose grandfather was born among the Apache holdouts in a hidden canyon about 120 years before. Travis has long wished to combine the lore of his ancestors with the knowledge of the white men, but then he is fired from an important archaeological expedition because of the prejudice of the major contributor.

A year later, Travis is looking for a reliable source of water for the herds on his brother's ranch. Based on information from Chato, he checks out the hidden canyon and comes across white eyes camping there. Scouting out the intruders, Travis is caught by Ross and brought to the other white men at gun point. Travis knows of Doctor Gordon Ashe, but Ross and the radioman Grant are unknowns.

These men are setting up a time viewer within the canyon. Naturally, they are not going to let Travis go free until their operation is completed. Yet Travis doesn't want to be released before he learns more about their mission.

In this story, Travis goes with Ashe and Ross to scout out a spaceship located a short distance away and fifteen millennia back in time. The huge spherical spaceship has crashed and holes gape in its sides. Then the men are caught in a rainstorm and take shelter in the nearby hills.

After the storm, they climb a hill and look around. Travis notices something shiny in the next valley and they check it out. The shine comes from another, smaller globe. Its lock is open and the bodies of the crew lie at the foot of the access ladder. They are wearing Baldy uniforms and are guite dead.

The scouts send back word of the second ship. A working party comes through the time pprtal and starts preparing the alien globe ship for transfer forward in time. When the nearby volcano erupts, the scouts take shelter in the alien ship. Then the time transfer grid around the ship is activated and they are thrown forward in time. But the shift in time initiates the takeoff sequence and the ship heads for space.

This series has changed over the years to adapt to the political upheaval in Russia, but the real enemies in this series have always been the Baldies. When faced with a superior technology from a group of hostile aliens, the political differences between humans looks less important. Thus, the cooperation with the Russian time travel project has been almost inevitable by the logic of this series.

This series has always been more complex than it appears on the surface, for lurking in the background is a vision of the probability multiverse such as found in Crossroads in Time. Change the past and forever lose your future. Thus, it raises the issue of how much change is required to spawn a new timeline.

This series is a prime example of the author's storytelling skills. It is a fascinating tale of time travel and alien technology. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Norton fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of alien civilizations, time transfer, and travel among the stars.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This book is regarded by many as a springboard for books of its genre, and that may well be true. However, despite the gushing of other reviewers, this is a very average book whose plot actually belies its title.

In fact, very little trading is involved in the plot of the actual book. LOL

Some plot elements are just lost. For example, early in the book it is discussed that some 'time traders' are going to become very wealthy. It is presented in a way which makes the reader think that they will get to benefit in present time from their efforts in the past. The whole concept is, however, immediately dropped and is in fact inconsistent with the entire opertion of the time travel project thru the rest of the series.

Action plotting late in the book is badly flawed too, with travel times thru the wilderness conflicting with earlier accounts by the author of how long they should take.

Still, it is an acceptable read, and gets you to book two in the series, which is quite interesting and certainly the best of the series when it was actually written by Norton herself.

Time Traders itself has evidently fallen into the public domain, as you can find an ebook version of it on the Gutenburg Project web site. I would recommend that you get it there. Then if you like it, try out the remainder of the series. (Warning: skip book 5 (Firehand). It was not written by Norton AT ALL, and is one terrible piece of writing).

Russ Murdock has lived by his wits for years. Sure they seem to have him now, but he's sure he can wiggle his way free from whatever the law wants to do with him. He's quick to volunteer for a project rather than be sent to jail but he doesn't anticipate that the project will put him somewhere inside the artic circle, or that he's been selected as one of the group of Americans sent back through time to try to learn how the Russians have been getting a jump on American scientists.

In the Bronze Age, disguised as one of the Beaker People, Russ learns that the Russians have learned the disguises the Americans are using--and have launched attacks on their bases. Alone in a world thousands of years in the past, Russ must not only survive, he's got to learn where the Russians have their base, whether they're learning scientific secrets from some Atlantan civilization--or from some strnager source, and then make contact with his fellow Americans. It's a tall order--but all of those years of sneaking and criminal activity turn out to have some benefits after all.

In the second volume in this two-in-one omnibus, Russ is joined by Apache rancher Travis Fox in the search for an alien spaceship set in the distant past. But when they try to return the ship to the present, something goes frighteningly wrong and their party blasts off into galactic space. Will they find advanced civilizations waiting to pounce, or has civilization faded--and a new galactic dark age ensued?

Author Andre Norton writes a wonderful young adult-oriented adventure. I first read these novels (they were initially released as two separate volumes) when I was an early teen--the 'golden years of science fiction' and remember it fondly. I wondered when I picked up this more recent edition, whether my memories were true, or if I've become more discriminating (or harsh) over the years. Norton's sense of adventure was dead-on in these stories, though, with plenty of twists, dangerous moments, and cliff-hangers.

When I first read this book, I was blown away by Norton's description of a computer game. Remember, this was written in the 1950s. In this edition, the computer game has been updated a bit (more graphical) but I don't know that this update was necessary. After all, who else was thinking about computer games back then? The concept of time travel is nothing new, but combining time travel with space was a nice touch.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, much of Science Fiction targeted the young adult reader. Clearly, from recent the Harry Potter explosion, this market still exists and has an appetite for exactly this kind of story. Some of the science is dated, the technology Norton describes is a bit laughable (do we really think aliens who develop hyperdrives will really have cockpits lined with wires?), and coincidence plays too big a role, but these didn't bother me as a young adult and they're only minor quibbles now.

One of my all-time favorite Andre Norton books. Ross Murdock goes from criminal misfit to hero, and shows the evil aliens what we humans are made of! Great, great fun. Pulls you into the world as only Norton seems to do.

_The Time Traders_ (1958) is the first of Andre Norton's time agent novels. Three others by Norton followed over the years: _Galactic Derelict_ (1959), _The Defiant Agents_ (1962), and _Key Out of Time_ (1963). There were later volumns in the series done "in collaboration" with another author, but I suspect that what this means in practice is that Norton did little or none of the writng on those books. I prefer to concentrate on Norton's solo books.

The Cold War politics in the novel seem a little dated today. America is in fierce competition with the "Reds," who are portrayed as treacherous and ruthless bastards, enemies of Democracy. The battleground, though we are not shown this right away, is the time of the Beaker traders-- which America and Russia have reached by time machine. Both sides have discovered relics of crashed alien spacecraft that landed on Earth thousands of years ago and which are being raided for parts and technological ideas. Many of the aliens-- the Baldies-- are dead. But some are alive, and they make the Russians look like benevolent philanthropists.

We see events through the eyes of young Ross Murdock, an intelligent but antisocial Bad Boy, who is given a choice by a judge-- do jail time or serve in a secret project. Now to me, this makes about as much sense as assigning a convicted felon a job in the labs at Los Alamos or Oak Ridge to work off his sentence. But he is accepted. Murdock proves to be a bit too smart for his own good, and he continues to make a series of bad choices. Logically, he should be tossed in jail. But Norton glosses over this with some hugger-mugger about how he redeemed himself at the last minute. And before you know it, Murdock has become a full-fledged time agent.

Once the characters go back in time, the plot becomes a bit more credible. But the truth is, there are a number of novels by Norton that are much more believable. The holes in the plot are redeemed a bit by the characterization-- Murdock _is_ an interesting, if prickly, person-- and the imaginative sweep of its basic concept. No, it's not quite as good as I remembered from my high school days. but it is still an enjoyable read.