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Time Traders/Ross Murdock #1
The Time Traders
Intelligence agents have uncovered something beyond belief, but the evidence is incontrovertible: the USA's greatest adversary is sending its own agents back through time! And someone (or something) 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 down! Andre Alice Norton (February 17, 1912 - March 17, 2005), science fiction and fantasy author (with some works of historical fiction and contemporary fiction), was born Alice Mary Norton in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. She published her first novel in 1934. She was the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master Award from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977, and she won the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the SFWA in 1983. She wrote under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston.
174 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
483 people are currently reading
2651 people want to read
About the author
Andre Norton
700 books1,390 followersAndre Norton, born Alice Mary Norton, was a pioneering American author of science fiction and fantasy, widely regarded as the Grande Dame of those genres. She also wrote historical and contemporary fiction, publishing under the pen names Andre Alice Norton, Andrew North, and Allen Weston. She launched her career in 1934 with The Prince Commands, adopting the name “Andre” to appeal to a male readership. After working for the Cleveland Library System and the Library of Congress, she began publishing science fiction under “Andrew North” and fantasy under her own name. She became a full-time writer in 1958 and was known for her prolific output, including Star Man’s Son, 2250 A.D. and Witch World, the latter spawning a long-running series and shared universe. Norton was a founding member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America and authored Quag Keep, the first novel based on the Dungeons & Dragons game. She influenced generations of writers, including Lois McMaster Bujold and Mercedes Lackey. Among her many honors were being the first woman named Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and SFWA Grand Master. In her later years, she established the High Hallack Library to support research in genre fiction. Her legacy continues with the Andre Norton Award for young adult science fiction and fantasy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 333 reviews
May 16, 2018
Rating: 3.5* of five
Generic, underdeveloped character of The Rebellious Charmer gets One Last Chance to fix it all. I understand why an adolescent would love this story. I liked it, too, and adolescence was 40-plus years ago for me. In today's bajillion-pages-of-blather world, the spare prose and laconic dialogue are not fashionable. They're stylish, though, and fun, and if one can get past the real weakness of that bygone era's storytelling (flat characters) there is simple pleasure to be had in this tale.
Generic, underdeveloped character of The Rebellious Charmer gets One Last Chance to fix it all. I understand why an adolescent would love this story. I liked it, too, and adolescence was 40-plus years ago for me. In today's bajillion-pages-of-blather world, the spare prose and laconic dialogue are not fashionable. They're stylish, though, and fun, and if one can get past the real weakness of that bygone era's storytelling (flat characters) there is simple pleasure to be had in this tale.
May 11, 2021
If this book was a meal, it would be steak-with-two-veg, or maybe meatloaf - something straightforward, satisfying, and completely lacking in artifice. There is no narrative equivalent of a lobster-flavoured foam in Time Traders, no convoluted caramelized plot pinenuts or any other cutting edge literary gastronomy.
Time Traders is just a story that goes from the start to the beginning in a satisfying if not particularly challenging way. There are no cuts to distant characters. No parallel narratives. No shifts in perspective. The story starts, people do things, and we follow them along their journey.
After reading modern fiction, this feels kind of weird. Among other things I'm used to the end of a chapter signifying a change or characters, locations, or time periods, and in a story like this chapters seem like arbitrary divisions that serve no purpose - when the chapter ends, we turn to page to... continue off from almost exactly the same spot.
In it's own way this old-school narrative train, choo-chooing along its rigid tracks to its inevitable destination, is kind of refreshing. People do things, stuff happens, and we move on to the next scene. There's no chance you'll get confused and have to check back a few pages to clear anything up - instead you just roll along with the story, letting it wash over you with a minimum of cognitive effort.
It helps that the story is a rollicking adventure.
As the story begins, juvenile delinquent Ross Murdock is having the book chucked at him in court, the book being a choice between prison or enrolment in a secretive government project. Murdock thankfully takes the latter option (sparing us a grueling exploration of the 1950s youth justice system) and finds himself in the arctic, at a secret base where men (and being written in the 1950s they are all men)
Once involved with the project Murdock discovers that agents are being sent back in time to explore pre-history, and that he himself will be trained to pass as a Beaker Folk merchant in ancient Britain. Once trained, he will be sent back in time to try and find the source of mysterious new technologies that are being developed by... (Ominous music) The Russians!
Yep, this is a Cold War novel through and through, with the bete noire of the twentieth century USA - the Soviet Union playing the role of antagonist. Murdock and his comrades (pun intended) will travel through time and fight nefarious Russian agents (who are also posing as ancient primitives) as they search for the wellspring of advanced tech that lies somewhere in the past.
The source of this amazing technology proves to be... ah, you've probably already guessed. Click the spoiler to find out if you're right.
Much of this is fairly standard genre stuff now, but Norton really brings her period to life, making the world of Beaker Folk Britain a living, breathing trip into history. I genuinely enjoyed this book as a result, and while it shows its age a little, Time Traders is still a fun read, and a great introduction to an author genre who published more than 300(!!!) titles over her prolific career.
Three point five Cold War tropes out of five.
P.S: I first encountered Andre Norton's work when I was eleven years old, and to my pleasant surprise, Time Traders is a prequel to the novel I read more than twenty-five years ago - The Defiant Agents. As a child I enjoyed her work to the point of dressing up as one of her characters for a school event.
P.S.S: Despite studying history for four years, my first introduction to the Beaker Folk was via Stewart Lee's masterful comedic routine on the absurdities of the British immigration 'debate'. I both laughed uproariously, and learned something - It really is the work of a comedian at the top of his game: Stewart Lee: Coming Over 'Ere
Time Traders is just a story that goes from the start to the beginning in a satisfying if not particularly challenging way. There are no cuts to distant characters. No parallel narratives. No shifts in perspective. The story starts, people do things, and we follow them along their journey.
After reading modern fiction, this feels kind of weird. Among other things I'm used to the end of a chapter signifying a change or characters, locations, or time periods, and in a story like this chapters seem like arbitrary divisions that serve no purpose - when the chapter ends, we turn to page to... continue off from almost exactly the same spot.
In it's own way this old-school narrative train, choo-chooing along its rigid tracks to its inevitable destination, is kind of refreshing. People do things, stuff happens, and we move on to the next scene. There's no chance you'll get confused and have to check back a few pages to clear anything up - instead you just roll along with the story, letting it wash over you with a minimum of cognitive effort.
It helps that the story is a rollicking adventure.
As the story begins, juvenile delinquent Ross Murdock is having the book chucked at him in court, the book being a choice between prison or enrolment in a secretive government project. Murdock thankfully takes the latter option (sparing us a grueling exploration of the 1950s youth justice system) and finds himself in the arctic, at a secret base where men (and being written in the 1950s they are all men)
Once involved with the project Murdock discovers that agents are being sent back in time to explore pre-history, and that he himself will be trained to pass as a Beaker Folk merchant in ancient Britain. Once trained, he will be sent back in time to try and find the source of mysterious new technologies that are being developed by... (Ominous music) The Russians!
Yep, this is a Cold War novel through and through, with the bete noire of the twentieth century USA - the Soviet Union playing the role of antagonist. Murdock and his comrades (pun intended) will travel through time and fight nefarious Russian agents (who are also posing as ancient primitives) as they search for the wellspring of advanced tech that lies somewhere in the past.
The source of this amazing technology proves to be... ah, you've probably already guessed. Click the spoiler to find out if you're right.
Much of this is fairly standard genre stuff now, but Norton really brings her period to life, making the world of Beaker Folk Britain a living, breathing trip into history. I genuinely enjoyed this book as a result, and while it shows its age a little, Time Traders is still a fun read, and a great introduction to an author genre who published more than 300(!!!) titles over her prolific career.
Three point five Cold War tropes out of five.
P.S: I first encountered Andre Norton's work when I was eleven years old, and to my pleasant surprise, Time Traders is a prequel to the novel I read more than twenty-five years ago - The Defiant Agents. As a child I enjoyed her work to the point of dressing up as one of her characters for a school event.
P.S.S: Despite studying history for four years, my first introduction to the Beaker Folk was via Stewart Lee's masterful comedic routine on the absurdities of the British immigration 'debate'. I both laughed uproariously, and learned something - It really is the work of a comedian at the top of his game: Stewart Lee: Coming Over 'Ere
May 30, 2022
The Time Traders is the first book in Norton's series of YA (called juveniles at the time) adventures featuring reformed delinquent Ross Murdock. The novel first appeared in 1958 (as did I!), and it is a fairly simple and straight forward story of making good through pluck and luck. The characters are a little one-sided, but it was one of the first times I remember reading an outer space story and a time travel story in the same concept. There's a Red Menace aspect of the conflict that is quite reflective of its time. I first read it (along with a ton of other Nortons and Winstons and Heinleins) in grade school, but I enjoyed re-visiting it via the fine folks of Librivox.
August 2, 2013
This was one of my favorite science-fiction books when I was a kid. My brothers and I read it over and over. Of course, the cold war setting is now an anachronism, but for us it was everyday reality.
I loved the characters, I loved the story, I loved the imagery. When we were really exhausted from a long day outdoors, my brother James would say "The red jelly! We need the red jelly!" And of course we'd know exactly what he meant.
I haven't read it for years. I wonder how it would hold up.
P.S. I didn't read the Kindle edition, but at least this shows the Ace cover from the sixties, which is one of the editions I read. (I don't remember who published the hardcover I first read. World? Gollancz? Grosset and Dunlap? Anyway, someone long gone.)
I loved the characters, I loved the story, I loved the imagery. When we were really exhausted from a long day outdoors, my brother James would say "The red jelly! We need the red jelly!" And of course we'd know exactly what he meant.
I haven't read it for years. I wonder how it would hold up.
P.S. I didn't read the Kindle edition, but at least this shows the Ace cover from the sixties, which is one of the editions I read. (I don't remember who published the hardcover I first read. World? Gollancz? Grosset and Dunlap? Anyway, someone long gone.)
March 12, 2015
This story lacks only interest and a good plot. 0 of 10 stars
August 29, 2024
Rating: 4.5 stars
Yes, I picked up this book based purely on premise. What can I say, most things involving the words "time travel" are like a siren's song to me. And I seem to have had good fortune with this picking-it-up-because-time-travel recently, because The Time Traders was awesome!
Basically, it is about Ross Murdock, a felon with a criminal record, who "volunteers" for Operation Retrograde, a covert government operation. You can guess what this operation involves: time travel. The Soviets have snuck into an uncharted period of history and, using some outdated technology, created formidable new weaponry. At first unwillingly, but with growing determination, Murdock joins the team engaged in this timey-wimey Cold War conflict.
Now from that description you probably assume it was written in the past 20 years or so. Nope, far from it. This book is the most sneaky classic I have ever read - it was published in 1958! Honestly, I read through all 500 of those pages without even the slightest clue. "Intro to classics" is written all over this book. It should be its tagline: The Time Traders: Read This If You Thought Classics Were Impossible To Understand. No classic author I have read has ever come as close to modern prose as Andre Norton did. And that's not to say either old- nor new-style prose is bad, just that I get how Tolkien's writing can take a bit of getting used to, and some people are reluctant to touch him or his peers with a ten foot pole. But The Time Traders was published literally four years after The Lord of the Rings, and yet it feels more like four decades.
So get ready. As many Time Traders books I can get my hands on, I will be reading.
Yes, I picked up this book based purely on premise. What can I say, most things involving the words "time travel" are like a siren's song to me. And I seem to have had good fortune with this picking-it-up-because-time-travel recently, because The Time Traders was awesome!
Basically, it is about Ross Murdock, a felon with a criminal record, who "volunteers" for Operation Retrograde, a covert government operation. You can guess what this operation involves: time travel. The Soviets have snuck into an uncharted period of history and, using some outdated technology, created formidable new weaponry. At first unwillingly, but with growing determination, Murdock joins the team engaged in this timey-wimey Cold War conflict.
Now from that description you probably assume it was written in the past 20 years or so. Nope, far from it. This book is the most sneaky classic I have ever read - it was published in 1958! Honestly, I read through all 500 of those pages without even the slightest clue. "Intro to classics" is written all over this book. It should be its tagline: The Time Traders: Read This If You Thought Classics Were Impossible To Understand. No classic author I have read has ever come as close to modern prose as Andre Norton did. And that's not to say either old- nor new-style prose is bad, just that I get how Tolkien's writing can take a bit of getting used to, and some people are reluctant to touch him or his peers with a ten foot pole. But The Time Traders was published literally four years after The Lord of the Rings, and yet it feels more like four decades.
So get ready. As many Time Traders books I can get my hands on, I will be reading.
October 14, 2025
This is the first of Andre Norton's Time Traders series featuring Ross Murdock. It's standard Norton, which means it's good enjoyable science fiction aimed at young adults, but adults can enjoy it. Published in 1958, it has a 50s Cold War sensibility which I found interesting. Ross is a petty criminal of the late Twentieth Century who, to avoid prison, volunteers to go on a mission back in time. It seems that the capitalist/communist rivalry is extending back into time and Ross has to foil a Soviet plot which would change history. It was very interesting to me that, instead of going back to, say, Ancient Rome or the Civil War, he goes back to the Bronze Age in Europe of 2000 B.C. His job is to mimic a trader of the Beaker culture of that time. That is interesting in itself, but what is even more interesting is that he discovers aliens in Earth's past, aliens who are meddling with our history ( or pre-history as it is).
Andre Norton was Andre Alice Norton (1912-2005).
Andre Norton was Andre Alice Norton (1912-2005).
December 24, 2024
Book #2 of my 24 hour readathon. It wasn’t particularly bad, but I felt like the plot was trying to do too much. We already had time travel and Russians, and then all of the sudden there are aliens and Ax people. It’s always fun reading science fiction from the 1950’s though.
August 5, 2020
Solid, diverting, structured.
August 8, 2016
'The Time Traders' by Andre Norton is a time travel book. I'm usually a sucker for those sort of stories, but this one felt a bit too tied to the time it was written.
It's the Cold War, and the US and Russia have discovered time travel. The race is on to find out what the Russians are doing with it. Ross Murdock is recruited to be part of a team that goes back. After being trained, he is sent out with a small team posing as Beaker traders. From that point on, things go sideways, including things that the team could have never anticipated.
Murdock is the action hero who never fails. He is like James Bond who never gets shot even though armies of people are firing at him. He never gets lost even though he gets lost. Even though he is beat up, he continues to prevail.
The "Russians" are shadowy bad guys who we barely see. The whole Cold War setting of this book just seemed to place it in a specific time, and the novel felt a bit too much like a men's adventure novel from the 1970s. Perhaps the problem is that I've read other better time travel stories lately.
This was a book club pick, but I know there are better Andre Norton books out there and I'd be willing to try a different one.
It's the Cold War, and the US and Russia have discovered time travel. The race is on to find out what the Russians are doing with it. Ross Murdock is recruited to be part of a team that goes back. After being trained, he is sent out with a small team posing as Beaker traders. From that point on, things go sideways, including things that the team could have never anticipated.
Murdock is the action hero who never fails. He is like James Bond who never gets shot even though armies of people are firing at him. He never gets lost even though he gets lost. Even though he is beat up, he continues to prevail.
The "Russians" are shadowy bad guys who we barely see. The whole Cold War setting of this book just seemed to place it in a specific time, and the novel felt a bit too much like a men's adventure novel from the 1970s. Perhaps the problem is that I've read other better time travel stories lately.
This was a book club pick, but I know there are better Andre Norton books out there and I'd be willing to try a different one.
May 9, 2023
This was an interesting read. Definitely a product of its time. (The cold war) Where the reds were behind everything evil and we had to stop them no matter the cost. It did drag on in parts. But the ending has made me curious about the next in the series. I will put it in my rotation but somewhere near the bottom.
July 29, 2025
The first book of Andre Nortons series about timetravellers.
As always fantastic world-building.
As always fantastic world-building.
May 4, 2024
The text I read, courtesy of Project Gutenberg, was the second printing of the 1958 edition with the action set in the middle of the Cold War.
Ross Murdock is a typical Norton boy-hero: no observable parents, fiercely independent and individualistic, sometimes in breach of the law yet with his own moral standards, and often put in awe when faced with forceful male personalities and physical prowess. Ross is in trouble again and has been brought before a magistrate for sentencing. His crime is not mentioned, it is just the latest of many. Clearly, for all his self confidence, Ross is not a master criminal. Fearing the worst, he is ready for a stiff punishment but instead he is given the chance to join a mysterious government project.
That project turns out to be time travel - but with a purpose. The government knows that at a period in the Neolithic past the Russians - usually termed the Reds here - have found and are exploiting a derelict alien spacecraft. Ross has to join a group of time travellers led by Gordon Ashe - the kind of man Ross will submit to as an alpha male figure - to go back to the days of the Beaker people in southern Britain.
After many adventures, including being captured here and there, Ross stumbles on the mysterious spaceship and, without meaning to, sends off a signal to its original owners - the evil Baldies. That is Ross' name for them, because they have no visible hair. Considering what happens to him later in their company I am sure he came up with other ruder terms. It seems the Baldies and their bird-like allies are up to no good and therefore are the natural friends of the Reds. Invading the Earth may only be a small part of their ultimate plan. They want the Universe.
The story is very well constructed as an adventure tale and avoids many of Norton's SF tropes: tunnels, caves, cats and telepathy. Possibly the historical setting allows her imaginative side full swing as there is little need for science in the plot. The ending opens up a scenario that was expanded into a whole series, continuing in later years to collaborations with other authors. Because the story sits so heavily in what I believe was Norton's first love, historical novels, it stands out as one of her best early stories.
Ross Murdock is a typical Norton boy-hero: no observable parents, fiercely independent and individualistic, sometimes in breach of the law yet with his own moral standards, and often put in awe when faced with forceful male personalities and physical prowess. Ross is in trouble again and has been brought before a magistrate for sentencing. His crime is not mentioned, it is just the latest of many. Clearly, for all his self confidence, Ross is not a master criminal. Fearing the worst, he is ready for a stiff punishment but instead he is given the chance to join a mysterious government project.
That project turns out to be time travel - but with a purpose. The government knows that at a period in the Neolithic past the Russians - usually termed the Reds here - have found and are exploiting a derelict alien spacecraft. Ross has to join a group of time travellers led by Gordon Ashe - the kind of man Ross will submit to as an alpha male figure - to go back to the days of the Beaker people in southern Britain.
After many adventures, including being captured here and there, Ross stumbles on the mysterious spaceship and, without meaning to, sends off a signal to its original owners - the evil Baldies. That is Ross' name for them, because they have no visible hair. Considering what happens to him later in their company I am sure he came up with other ruder terms. It seems the Baldies and their bird-like allies are up to no good and therefore are the natural friends of the Reds. Invading the Earth may only be a small part of their ultimate plan. They want the Universe.
The story is very well constructed as an adventure tale and avoids many of Norton's SF tropes: tunnels, caves, cats and telepathy. Possibly the historical setting allows her imaginative side full swing as there is little need for science in the plot. The ending opens up a scenario that was expanded into a whole series, continuing in later years to collaborations with other authors. Because the story sits so heavily in what I believe was Norton's first love, historical novels, it stands out as one of her best early stories.
January 29, 2016
A free download for Kindle of a classic novel. I knew nothing about this story but I certainly know of Norton and have read some of her work in the past. It's the story of a ne'er-do-well who os given a choice: jail or sign up for a secret mission. He chooses the later. And it turns out the secret mission involves time travel into the past to find out why the Russians have seemingly come upon new technologies they shouldn't have. Murdock is on his first mission into the past and he discovers the source of the Russians' technologies - a derelict alien space craft. And the aliens want their stuff back.
This is classic space opera that I was reading as workout reading material. It started out a bit slow for me but in a rare twist I found myself really getting into the story and starting to care about Murdock. Now I want to read more. There are 8 total books in the series I believe. I have a free download of 1, 3 and 4. But the second book doesn't seem to be available (or I may have to do some more digging around). And it's a good excuse to see what I can find at Half Price. But I liked this enough that I want to pick up where the story continues.
This is classic space opera that I was reading as workout reading material. It started out a bit slow for me but in a rare twist I found myself really getting into the story and starting to care about Murdock. Now I want to read more. There are 8 total books in the series I believe. I have a free download of 1, 3 and 4. But the second book doesn't seem to be available (or I may have to do some more digging around). And it's a good excuse to see what I can find at Half Price. But I liked this enough that I want to pick up where the story continues.
September 8, 2021
There are so many ideas per square inch in this book - we have a temporal cold war - long before Star Trek tried to make it a thing -- there are honest-to-goodness "Reds" as the bad guys. The "Reds" have developed time travel! So "our side" develops it too! Now we're in a race to the Migration Period in Europe because ... alien technology has been found there! Oh, and our time-travel stations are up in the arctic because that way no one's living settlement can disturb it!
It has a lot of survival action - struggling through ice and mud and raging rivers, fighting wolves and bears and vikings. Meeting wise pagan priestesses and cunning double-crossing warriors.
There's also the aliens! And of course they have mind-powers! And bacta tanks. I mean really ... there's a lot packed into this. My only complaint is that there's not much character depth... everyone's too busy nearly dying and running to the next thing. Like many of Norton's works, it's just a set-up for a longer series, so the ending is a bit open. I would like to learn more about these aliens tho.
It has a lot of survival action - struggling through ice and mud and raging rivers, fighting wolves and bears and vikings. Meeting wise pagan priestesses and cunning double-crossing warriors.
There's also the aliens! And of course they have mind-powers! And bacta tanks. I mean really ... there's a lot packed into this. My only complaint is that there's not much character depth... everyone's too busy nearly dying and running to the next thing. Like many of Norton's works, it's just a set-up for a longer series, so the ending is a bit open. I would like to learn more about these aliens tho.
July 27, 2016
Mostly bland Cold-War-infused time travel thriller/adventure with mediocre characters, mediocre writing and not too much exciting done with the science-fiction concepts. Even undoes the fun it could have had just as an action-y adventure via some lame "escapes". For instance, a tip for Russian time travel agents who want to kill an enemy agent:
I still want to read Norton's Lavender-Green Magic because I was intrigued by bits of it I read as a kid, but this was not an encouraging introduction to her work.
I still want to read Norton's Lavender-Green Magic because I was intrigued by bits of it I read as a kid, but this was not an encouraging introduction to her work.
September 1, 2019
Tremenda historia, me encantó la insistencia con la que fue creada este mundo sobre todo por la dificultad que tiene al tener tan poca información de todo lo que lo rodea. Una de esas historias en las que no sabes de donde viene ni a donde va pero que es un punto determinado y de inflexión en la vida del protagonista, la propia vida de el es un reflejo de la existencia de este grupo secreto al que termina uniéndose y eso es lo más genial de todo. De hecho la única razón por la que no le puse un 5 fue porque se me hizo super corto y tiene potencial de mucho más, aunque quizás el propósito de esto es no dañar precisamente el misterio que rodea al protagonista, aunque lo pongo en duda por el epílogo.
Read
August 5, 2023Ok though rather by-the-numbers 1950s pulpy scifi: brave American time-travel agents fight Russians! And aliens! In the early Bronze Age! The protagonist is referred to by last name and first name in an alternation that often makes it seem like he’s two different people (not to be confused with the part where he hits his head and gets stuck in his prehistoric bronze-trader persona)!
The back-cover blurb made it sound like this was going to be a lot more like The Doomsday Book: protagonist undercover in The Past gets stuck and has to prepare to live and survive in a vastly different society. Unfortunately, dealing with Actual Bronze Age People played a rather minor (and increasingly silly) part compared to being captured by the Reds, discovering derelict alien space ships, and so on.
The back-cover blurb made it sound like this was going to be a lot more like The Doomsday Book: protagonist undercover in The Past gets stuck and has to prepare to live and survive in a vastly different society. Unfortunately, dealing with Actual Bronze Age People played a rather minor (and increasingly silly) part compared to being captured by the Reds, discovering derelict alien space ships, and so on.
Read
January 29, 2018I think that I picked this book up because it was on sale or free and I've been hearing about how great Andre Norton is for years. It was a fun story and I can see why people enjoy this type of science fiction, heavy on action & adventure and... well, not much else, really. The characters were good enough to keep me reading and the world-building was adequate. I turned the virtual pages quickly, but ultimately I just wasn't that excited by any of it and the literary style was kind of flat. I would certainly check out other Andre Norton books in the future, for a relatively light read, but I don't think I'll continue with this series.
February 20, 2024
While The Time Traders moves at a nice clip, it didn't age well. Even in the 2000 edition, certain political aspects seem unlikely in our day and age due to events occuring since Norton wrote this book, and there are very few female characters (which I found amusing given the author is herself a woman). Characterization is lacking and there is a lack of depth. If you like Asimov, you'll likely enjoy The Time Traders, but readers who find some of the style and shorcomings of older sci-fi unpalatable or unengaging should probably skip it.
November 30, 2020
Quite an enjoyable adventure yarn, if a bit dated (nope, we don't have time travel in the early 21st century!).
December 10, 2023
Classical exploring space opere with one exception - total absence of a female Character
This is o " boys ":day out .
This is o " boys ":day out .
April 10, 2024
This was a bit of a slog.
June 22, 2023
Probably would have enjoyed it more if i'd read it back in junior high school, when i read other Andre Norton books.
January 29, 2023
The Time Traders by Andre Norton
Ideally, I should have read this book before reading its sequel, Galactic Derelict. As a result, I missed out on some of the suspense and mystery contained in the plot of The Time Traders. However, reading the second book first did not seriously affect my enjoyment of this first book in Norton’s series of novels featuring Ross Murdock.
Like Galactic Derelict, The Time Traders is primarily an action novel rather than one of introspection or big ideas. In spite of this, it does contain a fair number of interesting points about history and prehistory, even though more accurate and detailed information is now available concerning some aspects. For example, the end of the last ice age is now considered to be closer to our modern age than was thought in the 1950s. The author did produce a revised version of The Time Traders in 2000 to address certain issues and adjust the setting of the story from the 1970s to the twenty-first century. Another such revision concerns the overly pessimistic view of the prospects for space travel adopted in the 1958 edition, although there it does serve to explain why scientists turn their attention to the possibility of time travel instead.
Comparing this book and its sequel, I feel that The Time Traders is more tightly plotted and gripping than Galactic Derelict. In the latter book, there are some descriptions of periods when the crew is shut up in the spacecraft between planets which I felt became a little tedious. The first novel in the series does not suffer from any such monotony, and moves along quickly and fluidly all the way to its finale (although some readers may find the repetitious capture-escape-capture device slightly annoying. This did not bother me, though, since each experience was sufficiently different to maintain my interest). Of course, in common with much pulp fiction (such as the adventures written by Edgar Rice Burroughs), coincidence and almost unbelievable good and bad fortune create much of the tension and excitement.
Poul Anderson began to publish his Time Patrol series in the mid fifties, and there are some similarities between The Time Traders and those stories. Anderson’s work, however, was much more concerned with the nature of timelines and what would happen if they were changed. The style of writing in Time Patrol also became progressively more lyrical and the content increasingly profound and poignant (see The Sorrow of Odin the Goth for an excellent example).
I must say that I rate The Time Traders more highly than Galactic Derelict, despite the inventiveness apparent in the latter novel. I do recommend reading these two books in the order in which they were published to get the most out of them.
I suppose the logical next step for me would be to begin reading the third book in the series, The Defiant Agents.
Following are some quotations from the text of the book, selected to demonstrate the quality and style of the writing and some of the interesting content:
"The Reds shot up Sputnik and then Muttnik… . When—? Twenty-five years ago. We got up our answers a little later. There were a couple of spectacular crashes on the moon, then that space station that didn't stay in orbit, after that—stalemate. In the past quarter century we've had no voyages into space, nothing that was prophesied. Too many bugs, too many costly failures.
For some reason, though the Reds now have their super, super gadgets, they are not yet ready to use them. Sometimes the things work, and sometimes they fail. Everything points to the fact that the Reds are now experimenting with discoveries which are not basically their own——"
"Time travel has been written up in fiction; it has been discussed otherwise as an impossibility. Then we discover that the Reds have it working——"
"There is evidence that the poles of our world have changed and that this northern region was once close to being tropical. Any catastrophe violent enough to bring about a switch in the poles of this planet might well have wiped out all traces of a civilization, no matter how superior. We have good reason to believe that such a people must have existed, but we must find them."
Teach a man to kill, as in war, and then you have to recondition him later. "But during these same wars we also develop another type. He is the born commando, the secret agent, the expendable man who lives on action. There are not many of this kind, and they are potent weapons. In peacetime that particular collection of emotions, nerve, and skills becomes a menace to the very society he has fought to preserve during a war. He is pressured by the peaceful environment into becoming a criminal or a misfit.
"The men we send out from here to explore the past are not only given the best training we can possibly supply for them, but they are all of the type once heralded as the frontiersman. History is sentimental about that type—when he is safely dead—but the present finds him difficult to live with. Our time agents are misfits in the modern world because their inherited abilities are born out of season now.
"Do you know, Murdock, that bronze can be tougher than steel? If it wasn't that iron is so much more plentiful and easier to work, we might never have come out of the Bronze Age? Iron is cheaper and easier found, and when the first smith learned to work it, an end came to one way of life, a beginning to another.
The Beaker people were an excellent choice for infiltration. They were not a closely knit clan, suspicious of strangers and alert to any deviation from the norm, as more race-conscious tribes might be. For they lived by trade, leaving to Ross's own time the mark of their far-flung "empire" in the beakers found in graves scattered in clusters of a handful or so from the Rhineland to Spain, and from the Balkans to Britain.
"The Reds have made new discoveries which we have to match, or we will go under. But back in time we have to be careful, both of us, or perhaps destroy the world we do live in."
"When you have only one road, you take it," Ashe replied.
It was something that had so long been laughed to scorn. When men had failed to break into space after the initial excitement of the satellite launchings, space flight had become a matter for jeers.
…a gentleman named Charles Fort, who took a lot of pleasure in pricking what he considered to be vastly over-inflated scientific pomposity. He gathered together four book loads of reported incidents of unexplainable happenings which he dared the scientists of his day to explain. And one of his bright suggestions was that such phenomena as the vast artificial earthworks found in Ohio and Indiana were originally thrown up by space castaways to serve as S O S signals.
Do you have any idea how long ago that was, counting from our own time? There were at least three glacial periods—and we don't know in which one the Reds went visiting. That age began about a million years before we were born, and the last of the ice ebbed out of New York State some thirty-eight thousand years ago…
Civilizations rise, exist, and fall, each taking with it into the limbo of forgotten things some of the discoveries which made it great. How did the Indian civilizations of the New World learn to harden gold into a usable point for a cutting weapon? What was the secret of building possessed by the ancient Egyptians? Today you will find plenty of men to argue these problems and half a hundred others.
The Romans knew China. Then came an end to each of these empires, and those trade routes were forgotten. To our European ancestors of the Middle Ages, China was almost a legend, and the fact that the Egyptians had successfully sailed around the Cape of Good Hope was unknown.
"I might make one guess—the Reds have been making an all-out effort for the past hundred years to open up Siberia. In some sections of that huge country there have been great climatic changes almost overnight in the far past. Mammoths have been discovered frozen in the ice with half-digested tropical plants in their stomach. It's as if the beasts were given some deep-freeze treatment instantaneously."
We don't know too much about the ax people, save that they moved west from the interior plains. Eventually they crossed to Britain; perhaps they were the ancestors of the Celts who loved horses too. But in their time they were a tidal wave."
It is always impossible—he was conscious again with that strange clarity of mind—for a man to face his own death honestly. A man always continues to believe to the last moment of his life that something will intervene to save him.
Ideally, I should have read this book before reading its sequel, Galactic Derelict. As a result, I missed out on some of the suspense and mystery contained in the plot of The Time Traders. However, reading the second book first did not seriously affect my enjoyment of this first book in Norton’s series of novels featuring Ross Murdock.
Like Galactic Derelict, The Time Traders is primarily an action novel rather than one of introspection or big ideas. In spite of this, it does contain a fair number of interesting points about history and prehistory, even though more accurate and detailed information is now available concerning some aspects. For example, the end of the last ice age is now considered to be closer to our modern age than was thought in the 1950s. The author did produce a revised version of The Time Traders in 2000 to address certain issues and adjust the setting of the story from the 1970s to the twenty-first century. Another such revision concerns the overly pessimistic view of the prospects for space travel adopted in the 1958 edition, although there it does serve to explain why scientists turn their attention to the possibility of time travel instead.
Comparing this book and its sequel, I feel that The Time Traders is more tightly plotted and gripping than Galactic Derelict. In the latter book, there are some descriptions of periods when the crew is shut up in the spacecraft between planets which I felt became a little tedious. The first novel in the series does not suffer from any such monotony, and moves along quickly and fluidly all the way to its finale (although some readers may find the repetitious capture-escape-capture device slightly annoying. This did not bother me, though, since each experience was sufficiently different to maintain my interest). Of course, in common with much pulp fiction (such as the adventures written by Edgar Rice Burroughs), coincidence and almost unbelievable good and bad fortune create much of the tension and excitement.
Poul Anderson began to publish his Time Patrol series in the mid fifties, and there are some similarities between The Time Traders and those stories. Anderson’s work, however, was much more concerned with the nature of timelines and what would happen if they were changed. The style of writing in Time Patrol also became progressively more lyrical and the content increasingly profound and poignant (see The Sorrow of Odin the Goth for an excellent example).
I must say that I rate The Time Traders more highly than Galactic Derelict, despite the inventiveness apparent in the latter novel. I do recommend reading these two books in the order in which they were published to get the most out of them.
I suppose the logical next step for me would be to begin reading the third book in the series, The Defiant Agents.
Following are some quotations from the text of the book, selected to demonstrate the quality and style of the writing and some of the interesting content:
"The Reds shot up Sputnik and then Muttnik… . When—? Twenty-five years ago. We got up our answers a little later. There were a couple of spectacular crashes on the moon, then that space station that didn't stay in orbit, after that—stalemate. In the past quarter century we've had no voyages into space, nothing that was prophesied. Too many bugs, too many costly failures.
For some reason, though the Reds now have their super, super gadgets, they are not yet ready to use them. Sometimes the things work, and sometimes they fail. Everything points to the fact that the Reds are now experimenting with discoveries which are not basically their own——"
"Time travel has been written up in fiction; it has been discussed otherwise as an impossibility. Then we discover that the Reds have it working——"
"There is evidence that the poles of our world have changed and that this northern region was once close to being tropical. Any catastrophe violent enough to bring about a switch in the poles of this planet might well have wiped out all traces of a civilization, no matter how superior. We have good reason to believe that such a people must have existed, but we must find them."
Teach a man to kill, as in war, and then you have to recondition him later. "But during these same wars we also develop another type. He is the born commando, the secret agent, the expendable man who lives on action. There are not many of this kind, and they are potent weapons. In peacetime that particular collection of emotions, nerve, and skills becomes a menace to the very society he has fought to preserve during a war. He is pressured by the peaceful environment into becoming a criminal or a misfit.
"The men we send out from here to explore the past are not only given the best training we can possibly supply for them, but they are all of the type once heralded as the frontiersman. History is sentimental about that type—when he is safely dead—but the present finds him difficult to live with. Our time agents are misfits in the modern world because their inherited abilities are born out of season now.
"Do you know, Murdock, that bronze can be tougher than steel? If it wasn't that iron is so much more plentiful and easier to work, we might never have come out of the Bronze Age? Iron is cheaper and easier found, and when the first smith learned to work it, an end came to one way of life, a beginning to another.
The Beaker people were an excellent choice for infiltration. They were not a closely knit clan, suspicious of strangers and alert to any deviation from the norm, as more race-conscious tribes might be. For they lived by trade, leaving to Ross's own time the mark of their far-flung "empire" in the beakers found in graves scattered in clusters of a handful or so from the Rhineland to Spain, and from the Balkans to Britain.
"The Reds have made new discoveries which we have to match, or we will go under. But back in time we have to be careful, both of us, or perhaps destroy the world we do live in."
"When you have only one road, you take it," Ashe replied.
It was something that had so long been laughed to scorn. When men had failed to break into space after the initial excitement of the satellite launchings, space flight had become a matter for jeers.
…a gentleman named Charles Fort, who took a lot of pleasure in pricking what he considered to be vastly over-inflated scientific pomposity. He gathered together four book loads of reported incidents of unexplainable happenings which he dared the scientists of his day to explain. And one of his bright suggestions was that such phenomena as the vast artificial earthworks found in Ohio and Indiana were originally thrown up by space castaways to serve as S O S signals.
Do you have any idea how long ago that was, counting from our own time? There were at least three glacial periods—and we don't know in which one the Reds went visiting. That age began about a million years before we were born, and the last of the ice ebbed out of New York State some thirty-eight thousand years ago…
Civilizations rise, exist, and fall, each taking with it into the limbo of forgotten things some of the discoveries which made it great. How did the Indian civilizations of the New World learn to harden gold into a usable point for a cutting weapon? What was the secret of building possessed by the ancient Egyptians? Today you will find plenty of men to argue these problems and half a hundred others.
The Romans knew China. Then came an end to each of these empires, and those trade routes were forgotten. To our European ancestors of the Middle Ages, China was almost a legend, and the fact that the Egyptians had successfully sailed around the Cape of Good Hope was unknown.
"I might make one guess—the Reds have been making an all-out effort for the past hundred years to open up Siberia. In some sections of that huge country there have been great climatic changes almost overnight in the far past. Mammoths have been discovered frozen in the ice with half-digested tropical plants in their stomach. It's as if the beasts were given some deep-freeze treatment instantaneously."
We don't know too much about the ax people, save that they moved west from the interior plains. Eventually they crossed to Britain; perhaps they were the ancestors of the Celts who loved horses too. But in their time they were a tidal wave."
It is always impossible—he was conscious again with that strange clarity of mind—for a man to face his own death honestly. A man always continues to believe to the last moment of his life that something will intervene to save him.
March 19, 2013
In The Time Traders , Norton crafts a Cold War world in which both sides have discovered time travel. Somehow, the Russians have technology beyond their capabilities, and so it is Operation Retrograde's job to investigate. When Ross Murdock, ignorant of all of this, is given the option to either "volunteer" or be sent to a rehabilitation centre feared by all convicts, he choses the first one. Little does he know that the world as he knows it is about to be turned upside down... and backwords in time. He must take on the guise of a Beaker trader in his trial mission and try to blend in in a time that is not his own...but then his team discovers the biggest lead they've had ever on the Russians.
This book was fantastic. The world is well-described, both in terms of setting and culture. The pacing is fast (my copy is only 220 pages, and so much happens!), and development happens at a believable rate. Murdock, a convict, has qualities that do not allow him to function in our world but assist him greatly with his assignment. Initially, he is selfish ( but becomes friends with his colleagues and goes to great lengths to save them when necessary.
Time travel is a tricky concept to work with, but Norton pulls it off smoothly. I'd recommend this for any science-fiction lover.
This book was fantastic. The world is well-described, both in terms of setting and culture. The pacing is fast (my copy is only 220 pages, and so much happens!), and development happens at a believable rate. Murdock, a convict, has qualities that do not allow him to function in our world but assist him greatly with his assignment. Initially, he is selfish ( but becomes friends with his colleagues and goes to great lengths to save them when necessary.
Time travel is a tricky concept to work with, but Norton pulls it off smoothly. I'd recommend this for any science-fiction lover.
March 6, 2023
“They were only two in the thin web of men strung out through centuries of time with orders to seek out that which did not fit properly into the pattern of the past: to locate the enemy wherever in history or prehistory he had gone to earth.”
I wanted to re-read this classic I'd read as a child, to see if it held up. It's still a fun read, and thoughtful for its time. Norton did a great job of combining a look at at the far future (the mid-21st Century, 100 years away when she wrote this book), a time travel project, and an unexpected connection to alien contact. Fast paced. A little bit low on character development, but since she wrote it through the viewpoint of a teenager it seemed to reflect those perspectives.
I was surprised at her prescience on so many things about the 21st Century. She assumed that the Soviet Union had fallen, but that U.S.-Russia conflict would resume in another way. Perspectives on how criminal punishment might evolve with science ... and the uncertainties about whether scientific advances are relevant to that. It was fun. I was glad to read it again. Still 4 stars.
I wanted to re-read this classic I'd read as a child, to see if it held up. It's still a fun read, and thoughtful for its time. Norton did a great job of combining a look at at the far future (the mid-21st Century, 100 years away when she wrote this book), a time travel project, and an unexpected connection to alien contact. Fast paced. A little bit low on character development, but since she wrote it through the viewpoint of a teenager it seemed to reflect those perspectives.
I was surprised at her prescience on so many things about the 21st Century. She assumed that the Soviet Union had fallen, but that U.S.-Russia conflict would resume in another way. Perspectives on how criminal punishment might evolve with science ... and the uncertainties about whether scientific advances are relevant to that. It was fun. I was glad to read it again. Still 4 stars.
July 27, 2016
When the petty criminal Ross Murdock stands is offered the choice between a prison sentence or volunteering for a secret government project, he takes the latter, and after some adjustment difficulties he becomes an inter-temporal spy and jumps back to the early bronze age to put a stop to Russian time-shenanigans. So the premise is "The cold war expanded into the fourth dimension." (The book was written i 1958, so very topical)
However, I did not much care for the the story. I appreciated the historical awareness of it, and the writing style is actually - once I grew used to it - pretty punchy. However, the characters are little more paper thin, nowhere near developed enough to drive the story by themselves, and neither were the stakes or the machinations of the plot interesting enough to keep me invested. Aside from a few rare pieces of dialogue, most of the book is descriptions of things happening, with no reason to care about any of it.
It picked up a bit by the end, but that was really too little and too late to make a enough of a difference. It's a short book, but it really feels like a too long outline for a meatier story.
However, I did not much care for the the story. I appreciated the historical awareness of it, and the writing style is actually - once I grew used to it - pretty punchy. However, the characters are little more paper thin, nowhere near developed enough to drive the story by themselves, and neither were the stakes or the machinations of the plot interesting enough to keep me invested. Aside from a few rare pieces of dialogue, most of the book is descriptions of things happening, with no reason to care about any of it.
It picked up a bit by the end, but that was really too little and too late to make a enough of a difference. It's a short book, but it really feels like a too long outline for a meatier story.
December 20, 2012
During the Cold War, writers used this subversive conflict as a base for literally thousands of novels. An archenemy was the ticket to the best seller list. The Time Traders combines science fiction with Cold War intrigue and takes the reader back to almost the beginning of time. Ross Murdock, as a young prisoner is offered a chance at redemption. If he joins a secrete program, his sentence will be commuted. Figuring that almost anything will be better than wasting away where he is, accepts and is flown to a secrete base on the North Pole. His mission is to travel to the British Island 2000 years BC in search of communist agents. If this doesn’t catch and hold your attention, mix a band of ALFs and you’re bound to run out of the door in search of this book. The Time Traders (published in 1958) is the first in a series of seven books. I can’t yet speak for the others but this one should be on everyone’s science-fiction list or on their library shelf.
February 15, 2025
The story is competently told, in that it kept me turning the pages to find out what happens next. However, in retrospect, it leaves me unsatisfied because the story as a whole is not particularly plausible or interesting. Reading it passed the time, but left me wondering whether my journey had been at all worthwhile.
Characterization is rather uninteresting and lacking in variety. Although the author was a woman (1912–2005), women hardly appear in it; perhaps partly because of the parameters of the story, and partly because of the tastes of readers at the time.
If you decide to read sf of the 1950s, you shouldn’t expect much of the writing style. The writing here sometimes seems a bit clunky, but mostly I suppose it’s no worse than many other tales of that period.
I first read it 5 years ago, and read it again now (2021) because I’d forgotten everything about it, so I felt I was reading it for the first time, again. At least for me, it’s unmemorable.
Characterization is rather uninteresting and lacking in variety. Although the author was a woman (1912–2005), women hardly appear in it; perhaps partly because of the parameters of the story, and partly because of the tastes of readers at the time.
If you decide to read sf of the 1950s, you shouldn’t expect much of the writing style. The writing here sometimes seems a bit clunky, but mostly I suppose it’s no worse than many other tales of that period.
I first read it 5 years ago, and read it again now (2021) because I’d forgotten everything about it, so I felt I was reading it for the first time, again. At least for me, it’s unmemorable.
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