Time Traders: The Time Traders & Galactic Derelict [Hardcover]

Andre Norton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2000

DRAFTED INTO THE ARMY OF TIME

Intelligence agents have uncovered something which seems beyond belief, but the evidence is incontrovertible: the USAs greatest adversary on the world stage is sending its agents back through time! And someone or something unknown to our history is presenting them with technologies -- and weapons -- far beyond our most advanced science. We have only one option: create time-transfer technology ourselves, find the opposition's ancient source...and take it dawn.

When small-time criminal Ross Murdock and Apache rancher Travis Fox stumble separately onto America's secret time travel project, Operation Retrograde, they are faced with a challenge greater than either could have imagined possible. Their mere presence means that they know too much to go free. But Murdock and Fox have a thirst for adventure, and Operation Retrograde offers that in spades.

Both men will become time agents, finding reserves of inner heroism they had never expected. Their journeys will take the battle to the enemy, from ancient Britain to prehistoric America, and finally to the farthest reaches of interstellar space...

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

For this volume, Norton has updated The Time Traders (1958) and Galactic Derelict (1959) to take into account 40 years of political, social, and technological developments--such as computer games, a concluded cold war, and many more female characters in sf--without essentially changing them. In Time Traders, Ross Murdock has the choice of rehabilitation or volunteering for a secret research project, which turns out to be searching the past for the source of illicit technological innovations. In Galactic Derelict, Travis Fox stumbles on a time-travel project and has to be recruited for it; then he and his comrades take an involuntary trip aboard an alien starship that crashed on Earth before recorded history. The characters' can-do attitude and Norton's magic with a story have survived two generations in fine style, and these tales remain the same sort of quintessential fun as Star Wars, and with more intelligence. May there be a market for their further reprinting in 2040! Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Baen (October 31, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671319523
• ISBN-13: 978-0671319526
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,450,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still Strong After All These Years, October 27, 2002

By 

Emil L. Posey (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time Traders: The Time Traders & Galactic Derelict (Hardcover)

A reprint of the 1958 edition, this was like finding an old friend. I first read this in 1958 or 1959, when I was about 10 years old. I remembered snippets of it ever since and wondered if I would ever come across it again. The story is just as fresh as it was then. Indeed, I looked for some disclaimer that it had been updated, but found none. Other than the lack of scientific explanation underlying key aspects of the plot, thus dating its style somewhat, this was a remarkably prescient piece. And far from sophomoric in the bad sense, it appeals to the kid still inside me. I enjoyed it as much now as I did when I was 10. It has time travel, Russians, aliens, prehistoric tribes, space ships, personal struggle and triumph...what more can you want in a science fiction yarn? From over 40 years ago, it still rates 5 stars!

3.0 out of 5 stars New, Pehaps. Improved? There's the Rub., July 19, 2011

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time Traders: The Time Traders & Galactic Derelict (Hardcover)

Here is an omnibus of the first two time agent novels, _The Time Traders_ (1958) and _Galactic Derelict_ (1959). It's a series of stories that was one of Norton's best. But these novels are revisions of the originals. They are intended to be more in keeping with current developments in technology, our changing social values, our more liberated look at women, and our post Cold-War relationship with Russia. (In the originals, the villains are the "Reds".) I rather like the originals, even though I readily admit that much of the material, especially the anti-Communist rhetoric, is a bit dated. But you may prefer versions that are more up-to-date.

The basic premise is this: America and Russia have both developd time travel. They discover that during the time of prehistoric man, a fleet of spaceships manned by aliens known as Baldies landed on Earth. Some were wrecked and abandoned. There is now a race between time-agents to salvage the ships for equipment and ideas that will allow each country to make its way into space. And so it happens. But not always in the way that was intended...

The books are decent sf adventures. But you should be aware that they are _not_ the original versions.

4 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a book spielberg will love., October 17, 2001

By 

"shawndoe" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time Traders: The Time Traders & Galactic Derelict (Hardcover)

there are actually 2 books here : Time Traders from 58
and Galactic Derelict from 59 (sequal). both books are kind of infantile SF books, representing the clasic age of the ganre. it has a very entertaing plot with aleans back to the past, and the back to the feuture plot, and then flying in rockets to sidtant planet, meeting bad russians, and aleans, and monsters. in short a full plot of 5 spielberg movies in one cover -
because the story is so plane, the figures are one dimentional, the americans are always the best and humane, while the russian and the aliens are always bad or stupied. and the writing style is not something to cover on it.

andre norton won the SWFA grand master aword in 83. i think this was to show gratitude for his persistance, but judging from this books, i don't think he truely deserved it.