Like Time Traders, Gods and Androids is an
omnibus of two novels, Android at Arms and
Wraiths of Time. In this case, though, the two novels share
a theme rather than a narrative thread. The theme is a common one in
Norton’s work: a person stumbles into another world, a
world very different from his own, where in order to survive he must take
the place and identity of someone who has just died. Of the two,
Wraiths of Time is the better tale; it’s also one I remember
reading and enjoying when I was kid. Android at Arms has the feel of a
failed experiment–the plot flails around in odd ways, and doesn’t
deliver on all of its promises. Neither of them are particularly deep,
but the writing was pretty good; in places, Android at Arms
reminds me strongly of Jack Vance

The poorly named Android at Arms is the tale of Andas, the
heir to the throne of the planet of Inyanga. He wakes to find himself in
a cell in a strange prison. The power fails due to a lightning strike,
and with it the lock on his cell. He finds that he has been incarcerated
with half a dozen other people, all of them notables on their respective
planets, all apparently captured (no one knows by who) at a pivotal
moment in their planet’s history.

And though it seems like yesterday to each of them that they were last at
home, the last date each remembers are many decades apart. Clearly, some
of them have been on ice for a very long time.

A supply ship comes eventually, and Andas and the others manage to take
the ship and escape. Naturally they each wish to return to their home
planets, and Andas does manage to make his way back to Inyanga–where
decades have indeed gone by, and a man with his name and face is on the
throne. Who is he? Is he an android, put in place after the real Andas
was captured? Or is our Andas, he who escaped from prison, is he an
android, part of a plot that never came to fruition?

It’s at this point that the plot takes a dramatic right turn, and while
the denouement is entertaining enough, we never do find out where the
other Andas came from.

Wraiths of Time is more satisfying than
Android at Arms; the characterizations and settings have a
depth and solidity and Andas’ tale lacks.

Our heroine is Egyptologist Tallahassee Mitford, who is asked to identify
an ancient African artifact that’s recently been discovered. It’s not
quite like anything found before; on top of that, it’s quite radioactive.
Tallahassee tentatively ascribes it to the ancient Empire of Meroë, a
Nubian offshoot of the civilization of Egypt. Peculiar events ensue, and
Tallahassee finds herself in another world, in (unsurprisingly) the
Empire of Meroë–but a Meroë not of the distant past but of the present
day, a world in which ancient Meroë was nearly destroyed but was reborn
and is now one of the dominant world powers. She has been brought there
by accident, and the act has proved fatal to the one who brought her, a
priestess/princess named Ashake. Fortuitously, Tallahassee, who is black
as any Nubian, is Ashake’s double, Ashake as she was in our world. She
can touch the ancient artifact, a thing of great power, just as Ashake
could–for Ashake died to bring the artifact back to her world.

Politically, Ashake must not be dead; Tallahassee is compelled to take
her place.

All in all, not a bad book; I rather enjoyed making Tallahassee’s
acquaintance once again.