Up the Line [Paperback]

Robert Silverberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 2002

Being a Time Courier was one of the best jobs Judson Daniel Elliott III ever had. It was tricky, though, taking group after group of tourists back to the same historic event without meeting yoruself coming or going. Trickier still was avoiding the temptation to become intimately involved with the past and interfere with events to come. The deterrents for any such actions were frighteningly effective. So Judson Daniel Elliott played by the book. Then he met a lusty Greek in Byzantium who showed him how rules were made to be broken...and set him on a family-history-go-round that would change his past and his future forever!

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: I Books (June 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743444973
• ISBN-13: 978-0743444972
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,116,181 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:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice (erotic) preview of time travel paradoxes, March 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Up the Line (Mass Market Paperback)

Up the line deals with its protagonist Jud who lives in a future society where time travel (only into the past ) is permitted via a newly discovered Bencheley effect :)

He joins up in the "time courier" service who are essentially time tour guides and starts taking groups of tourists for visits to Medieval Byzantium.

In the process we discover numerous paradoxes of time travel including meting several instances of yourself at the visited spot every time you go back to it.

Eventually he falls for his distant ancestor Pulcheria and celebrates an erotic encounter only to lose it all to some tourist in his group that causes a massive time foul up.

Overall an excellent read with several sexual encounters to add spice. Intelligent accounts of some time travel paradoxes are visited although the resolution of these paradoxes is fairly weak.

Overall an excellent read for a rainy day or a long flight.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For any fan of time travel stories!, January 4, 2000

By 

"berend" (Hoquiam, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Up the Line (Mass Market Paperback)

'Up the Line' is a VERY good time travel story. It tells the story (in first person) of Jud, a wayward soul who decides to take employment as a Time Courier. Time Couriers are basically time-traveling tour guides, and are responsible for ferrying and watching over groups of tourists to famous historical events. Jud's particular fascination is ancient Byzantium, so he takes on the tour groups going back to see Emperor Justinian, the Haghia Sophia, and other sights. This to me is one area where this book shone. Silverberg made ancient Byzantium come alive for me, and sparked a whole line of discovery and amazement after I had finished the book. I have re-read this great story seven or eight times and never grow tired of it. If you like time travel stories, with a dash of humor and a teaspoon of history, GET THIS BOOK!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining, comic time-travel novel, January 17, 2011

By 

Steve "metsfansince1962" (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Up the Line (Paperback)

This is an extremely well written and clever time-travel novel, which has many funny passages. The protagonist is Judson Elliott III, a bored former law clerk, who never completed his doctoral requirements, having attend Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in the mid-twenty-first century. Since his special area of study is Byzantine culture, he gets a job as a time courier, taking time tourists "up the line" to Byzantium. He learns how to become a great guide, while breaking the Time Service's rule not to have sexual encounters with past women. Jud even has a brief affair with one of his ancestors, with whom he falls in love. Then, Jud begins to make mistakes and paradoxes result, which put him in danger of being punished by the Time Patrol enforcement unit. Finally, Jud duplicates himself and Jud A and Jud B alternate between different time periods!

The novel, published in 1969, has lots of sexual and drug encounters--a reflection of the counter culture of the 1960s; but Silverberg makes it all work in the future culture. This is a quick read, and the book held my interest from beginning to ingenious end. The details about crusaders, emperors, and the various periods of the Byzantine Empire appealed to me as a history buff, and the twists-and-turns of the time-travel plot, added to my enjoyment.