Time Trap

Time Trap #1

by Keith Laumer

ABE LINCOLN IN AFRICA?

He was seen - and photographed - in a Tunisian bazaar. And an ancient Spanish galleon, fully crewed with ancient Spaniard, was taken in tow off Tampa by the Coast Guard...and a few luckless people found themselves living the same day over and over and over...

Something was badly wrong with Time - but Roger Tyson didn't know it until he met the lovely agent from elsewhen and started on a mad chase through the dimensions, plagued by a motley bunch of temporal castaways, and pursued hotly by Oob the Rhox!

Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

143 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

John Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. diplomat. His brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Keith's The Other Side of Time).

Keith Laumer (aka J.K Laumer, J. Keith Laumer) is best known for his Bolo stories and his satirical Retief series. The former chronicles the evolution of juggernaut-sized tanks that eventually become self-aware through the constant improvement resulting from centuries of intermittent warfare against various alien races. The latter deals with the adventures of a cynical spacefaring diplomat who constantly has to overcome the red-tape-infused failures of people with names like Ambassador Grossblunder. The Retief stories were greatly influenced by Laumer's earlier career in the United States Foreign Service. In an interview with Paul Walker of Luna Monthly, Laumer states "I had no shortage of iniquitous memories of the Foreign Service."

Four of his shorter works received Hugo or Nebula Award nominations (one of them, "In the Queue", received nominations for both) and his novel A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966.

During the peak years of 1959–1971, Laumer was a prolific science fiction writer, with his novels tending to follow one of two patterns: fast-paced, straight adventures in time and space, with an emphasis on lone-wolf, latent superman protagonists, self-sacrifice and transcendence or, broad comedies, sometimes of the over-the-top variety.

In 1971, Laumer suffered a stroke while working on the novel The Ultimax Man. As a result, he was unable to write for a few years. As he explained in an interview with Charles Platt published in The Dream Makers (1987), he refused to accept the doctors' diagnosis. He came up with an alternative explanation and developed an alternative (and very painful) treatment program. Although he was unable to write in the early 1970s, he had a number of books which were in the pipeline at the time of the stroke published during that time.

In the mid-1970s, Laumer partially recovered from the stroke and resumed writing. However, the quality of his work suffered and his career declined (Piers Anthony, How Precious Was That While, 2002). In later years Laumer also reused scenarios and characters from his earlier works to create "new" books, which some critics felt was to their detriment:

Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn't seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisnart mélange of past books.

-- Somtow Sucharitkul (Washington Post, Mar 27, 1983. p. BW11)

His Bolo creations were popular enough that other authors have written standalone science-fiction novels about them.

Laumer was also a model airplane enthusiast, and published two dozen designs between 1956 and 1962 in the U.S. magazines Air Trails, Model Airplane News and Flying Models, as well as the British magazine Aero Modeler. He published one book on the subject, How to Design and Build Flying Models in 1960. His later designs were mostly gas-powered free flight planes, and had a whimsical charm with names to match, like the "Twin Lizzie" and the "Lulla-Bi". His designs are still being revisited, reinvented and built today.

Reviews

[Just Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favourite science fiction stories, told with humour, of all time. A bit sexist now, I borrowed this from the library in Moncton over and over again when I was a teen. I was elated to find a used paperback copy if it at a book sale and have enjoyed it again, since!!

[David Salcido · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can’t believe I actually finished this tripe. Just because it was written in 1970, doesn’t mean the ridiculous chauvinism and over-the-top battle-of-the-sexes banter was meant to be acceptable, right? Not to speak ill of the dead, but Keith Laumer is said to be one of the best sci-fi writers of his generation. If this is an example of his writing, I think I’ll give the rest a pass.
Originally, I was drawn to this book because I’m a fan of time travel novels, and it seemed an easy win. Unfortunately, what starts out as a fascinating premise, fraught with the drama of time displacement and a growing temporal mystery, quickly devolves into an insipid quagmire of slapstick humor, made up of some of the dumbest personal interactions ever written.
The “hero” of this cretinous cronocrap has all the charm of dryer lint, and the mental capacity of a pitted olive. The advanced race of mental giants he winds up throwing in with aren’t much better, being as beautiful, vapid, and unmemorable as the cover of Vogue. Then there is the antagonist, an alien being with a P.T. Barnum personality, who engages in a battle of nitwits with the hero, and is overpowered by the hero’s astonishingly uncharacteristic grasp of prehistory. And if you don’t see that ending coming, you just aren’t paying attention.
Luckily, this book is a quick read, though it offers absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. I wouldn’t recommend this book if it was the only tome to survive the coming apocalypse Bradbury warned us about. Sadly, this one might benefit from the flames. Metaphorically speaking, of course…

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though best remembered for his Bolo military and Retief diplomatic sf novels, Laumer also produced some amusing adventure novels, such as this one with a time travel theme. He had a nice knack for writing amusing dialog with silly-sounding pseudo-scientific nonsense phrases, such as varpilators that need to be adjusted, transfrication rods that must be realigned, and registering on gamitron detectors. Time Trap perks along swiftly and manipulates two superior orders of dimensionality while traversing Axial Channels and dispatching null-engines to terminal coordinates in order to break temporal stasis... as Field Agent Q'nell explains on page 23.

[John Selmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

We start with many people in different eras are trapped in a small part of the USA. There, in 1970, Roger Tyson collides with a motorcyclist during a storm, and is pursued by an alien. A voice in his head shows him how to escape into another era, and he moves from time to time, finding others to join him in his quest to find out what the trap is, who is behind it, and how to escape. This moves very quickly, and in 156 pages, takes in the past, future, evolution, the nature and fate of the aliens, the investigation of time, and the time trap itself. The whole construct is very neatly put together, ideas well-thought through; the explanations change as more is learnt, and the investigation, action and character's stories are well-handled and engaging. There is material here to make this longer, and were it written today, it would be twice as long and still regarded as fast-paced.

[Rick Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

wasn't bad to short though

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a fun, crazy romp through time and space!

[David Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great fun

[tigerclaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best short science-fiction stories I've ever read. Brilliant, humorous, unforgettable.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

review of
Keith Laumer's Time Trap
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 16, 2013

Keith Laumer's yet-another of those SF authors I seem to've vaguely avoided reading for decades- perhaps subconsciously slotting him in some sort of category like: cheesy pulp. BUT, now that I've read him, I'm once-again reminded that 'pulp' writers are usually very much to my liking regardless of whether they're 'cheesy' or not.

I think of my recently deceased pal "Blaster" Al Ackerman. He was extremely impressed & influenced by pulp writers - mostly, but not exclusively, pulp SF. & I truly think that Blaster was one of the greatest writers in English of the last 40 yrs - still way too underappreciated to this day (although I'm sure that'll change). The thing about many of these 'pulp' writers is that they often have a particular type of voice that bespeaks of actual human experience rather than a simulation thereof thru university training. Blaster's writing exemplifies that.

Laumer's bk, having been written in 1970, might also be a sortof 2nd generation (but still highly valid) 'pulp' writing - as was Blaster's. Nonetheless, for me, it's evocative of its predecessors:

""Suppose he sticks me in a straightjacket and calls for the fellows with the butterfly nets?" the thought occurred to Roger. "They say once you're in, you have a heck of a time getting out again."" - p 22

Is mention of "butterfly nets" as a tool for catching people to be put in a mental institution still an understandable expression for people, say, born after 1980? Dunno.

""The last stall," the girl's voic e said. "Sorry about the mix-up, but I left here in something of a hurry."

""I should think so!" Roger said. "What were you doing in a men's room?"

""No time to explain now. Just swing that door open."

"Roger did so. The cubicle contained the usual plumbing, nothing more.

""A little to the left—there!"

"A glowing line had appeared in mid-air, directly over the bowl, shining with a greenish light of its own, brilliant in the gloom. when Roger moved his head a few inches, it disappeared.

""An optical illusion," he said doubtfully.

""By no means. It's an Aperture. Now, here's what I want you to do: write a note—I'll dictate—and simply toss it through. That's all. I'll just have to trust to luck that it lands where I want it to." - p 25

For me, such passages are evocative of an era. I'm reminded of my own 1st short story (wch I, alas, destroyed) written around 1966 or 1967, about a character trying to escape from a mental institution by sliding down laundry chutes. Surely, I was influenced by writing like this.

Blaster Al had a vocabulary of mythical characters - sometimes he & I called it a Bull-Shitters' Mythology". One of these was "The Entity" (or, "The Ntity"). Laumer: ""You mean—he's not an agent of the Entity?"" (p 68) Blaster's mythology sometimes came from SF. Cd this be a case of that?

""What about the rest of the Board?" S'lunt asked.

""Uh, they finally got rid of them entirely," Roger said, "but—"

""Goodness!"

""You don't mean . . . they did away with the whole capitalistic system?" R'heet exclaimed." - p 70

For reasons that I'll avoid enumerating here for the sake of avoiding a spoiler, this is pure BSer's Mythology.

Laumer refers back to an era that must've influenced him: "a shelf stacked with dog-eared Tom Swift books and untrimmed pulp magazines with B. Paul covers." See my review of a Tom Swift bk here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63...

Perhaps particularly characteristic of many pulp SF writers & those influenced by them is humor:

""Robber!" Roger yelled, "I'll give you the first billion years and not a century more!"

""I'll have to have a portion of the Cenozoic, of course," Oob said crisply, steepling his upper tentacles. "What would you say to the whole of the Pre-Cambrian for you, plus, say the Roaring Twenties?"

""Nonsense," Roger retorted, "But just to show you my heart's in the right place, I'll let you have the first three billion years, plus a small slice of the Devonian."

""Surely you jest," the Rhox said blandly. "The human-occupied portion is the most amusing sideshow attraction to come along in half a dozen hydrogen-hydrogen cycles. Suppose I take the Christian Era, minus the Late Middle Ages if you insist; and as a gesture of goodwill, I'll also give up the Silurian!"" - p 137

Laumer's got humor aplenty & this bk came dangerously close to getting a 4 star rating. I look forward to reading more by him.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Laumer has always struck me as being Ron Goulart without the wit . . .

Roger Tyson's car breaks down in the midst of a thunderstorm. He tries to flag down a cute lady motorcyclist but she swerves to miss him, plunges off the road, and hits a tree. Before she dies she gives him instructions as to what he should do, most notably that he should take the gadget she's just pulled out of her ear and stick it in his own -- which he does, to discover that, even though she is dead, her thoughts aren't and she can communicate with him. Back on the road, he tries to flag down another motorist, noticing just too late that this one looks like a giant tentacled rutabaga with a pizza for its single eye. This traveller, too, swerves; it dies in the resulting smash. Roger climbs aboard the dead woman's bike and heads for town. There, with the help of the instructions from his earpiece, he discovers in the restroom of the bus station an Aperture -- a dazzling line of light. To escape arrest under suspicion of intent to commit graffiti in the restroom (I told you this lacked Goulart's wit), he dives through the Aperture and into another world.

Thanks to Apertures, he proceeds to pass through an array of other worlds, often pursued by the rutabaga (whom he later discovers is an alien being of a species called the Rhox) -- which continues the pursuit no matter how often he kills it. Indeed, as he adds friendly (and not so friendly) companions, he discovers that, in whichever world they might be, they seem to be confined to a single, endlessly looping day: with each new dawn the food that they ate yesterday is restored, anyone who died yesterday is restored to life, and so forth. It's up to Roger to try to establish the rules of this time trap and, of course, to break them. His adventuring eventually leads him to the far-future epoch where the lady motorcyclist, Q'nell, came from; he recognizes her, although for her it's the first time she's met him. She and her colleagues are in effect museum curators; all the different realities through which Roger has chased are, so Q'nell and co believe, museum exhibits, and they're intent on putting an end to the disruption to the museum that he and his chums have been causing. To this end, they propose to send Q'nell back in time . . . thereby, as Roger points out, futilely restarting the loop. So, this time, he goes back with her . . .

Obviously, this being a wacky novel, that doesn't go to plan either. At last Roger finds himself in the presence of a robot, UKR, who really knows what's going on: there are 10,404,941,602 capsule realities, of which Roger has experienced but a tiny fraction, and they're in effect the 10,404,941,602 microscope slides of an experimental series that UKR is maintaining as part of a Filing System he -- it? -- runs for the mysterious extratemporal Builders, or Builder. By story's end, all is stabilized and of course Roger gets the girl. No one gets a cigar for guessing who the Builder turns out to be.

As will be evident, there are some jolly good skiffy ideas mixed in here among the lavatory humour, some truly appalling sexism and a plethora of jokes that aren't so much overburdened as beaten repeatedly into the ground with the flat of a shovel. Here's the moment when Roger gets a glimmer of understanding as to what the whole string of realities, and his place therein, might represent:

He paused as a concept formed in his mind: three-dimensional reality, gathered up at the corners, pulled up to form a closed space, as a washwoman folds up the edges of a sheet to form a bag . . . (p29)

And here's UKR's explanation of the way that four-dimensional creatures function:

[T:]here's only one Rhox in the entire cosmos; like most entities above fourth level, he is unique. When the process you know as evolution progresses beyond a certain point, the species-fragmentation characteristic of [the:] third order merges to form a higher, compound life-form. Such a being can insert a large number of third-order aspects into contiguous space. (p137)

While these and a few other ideas are very pretty, I'm not sure they're enough to make me hunt down this book's sequel, Back to the Time Trap (1992).

[Tim Deforest · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The whole world?" Roger gasped. "You're going to destroy the planet just to keep your filing system tidy?"

"Time Trap" is both a science fiction adventure with a bizarre but internally consistant plot AND a comedy with a number of laugh-out-loud moments.

Roger Tyson is just an average guy who is snatched out of 1987 and ends up traveling to different times. In each location, he and any other humans who already exist there are confined to a small area: if you walk away, you soon end up back in the same spot within a few miles. Also, time resets itself each day--each person is trapped in a sort-of Groundhog day loop.


That by itself is troublesome. But Roger soon finds out that the situation involves powerful god-like beings who barely notice lower species such as humans. Also, the powerful god-like beings are more than capable of screwing things up. The universe around Roger becomes more and more complicated and soon Earth as a whole appears to be in danger. Can Roger, who barely understands what's happening around him, figure out how to save the day?

A book that is both exciting and often hilarious.

[Woodge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read this one before -- 29 years ago. But I was feeling nostalgic for some of the stories I'd read as a teen and I tracked this one down and decided to re-read it for kicks. It's a sf book in a light-hearted vein with a bumbling anti-hero named Roger Tyson who gets caught up a time warp. He meets a comely agent from the the future named Q'nell and the pair of them are pursued by the mysterious Oob the Rhox through a series of time portals. They try to figure out how to repair the damage caused by these as various people all over Earth and from different times find themselves reliving the same day over and over again. Silly, fast-moving stuff. (Written in 1970.)

[Marianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

A comic pulp sci-fi novel, with it's moments of humor and interest. With time shattered, and only the common man, stuck on the side of the road with a broken down car, tasked to fix it. Easy to read, but not one to save and read again.

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Μια ξέφρενη περιπέτεια δια χειρός Λόμερ, κρατάει καλά παρά τα χρόνια της και παρά το μέγεθός της, χώρεσε σε ανθολογία διηγημάτων. Κυνηγημένος από ένα τέρας, ο ήρωας ταξιδεύει σε διαδοχικούς χωροχρονικούς βρόχους.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Light romp that started off interesting and then just got silly. A quick diversion but not one of Laumer's must-reads.

[Μιχάλης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mediocre comic SF that simply lacks the wit to make it rememberable. It has its good moments, but overall it is too filled with cheap gags to work as a cohessive piece of fiction

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

1981 grade B

[Andrew Savinykh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mildly entertaining, but I've read a lot of books, that I liked more. Easy reading, recommend if you are into scifi and just want to relax.