Two things happened almost simultaneously a couple of months ago. The
first was that my brother pointed out that I hadn’t read any Andre Norton
in years, judging by my published reviews, and that I should do something
about that, especially since a number of her books were come back in
print just now. And then Ian Hamet
reviewed
The Time Traders on
his weblog, and that was the final nudge.

I did read quite a few of Norton’s books many, many years ago, most of
them while I was in my teens. Some of them I liked, some I didn’t; her
“Witchworld” series was famous, for example, but I was never able to get
through the first book. And over the years, I gradually got to thinking
that I’d outgrown her. But with two folks pushing me from two different
directions, I decided to give her another chance.

Time Traders is actually two complete novels,
The Time Traders and Galactic Derelict; both
were written in the late 1950’s. A lot of the Norton re-prints currently
in the stores are similar, packaging two or three of Norton’s classic
novels, so be warned.

The Time Traders is quite good; indeed, it’s surprisingly
good. It concerns a street kid and small-time criminal named Ross
Murdock who’s caught and given a second chance, working as a volunteer on
a top-secret government project called Operation Retrograde. It seems
that the Russians have found the secret of time travel, and have somehow
found a source of superlatively high-tech gadgetry somewhere in the past;
the Feds are resolved to find it and acquire the gadgetry for themselves.
They’ve got a time machine, but they need agents to go back in time and
hunt for the Russians. The agents need to be highly mobile, but they
also need to fit in; in short, they need to masquerade as traders, in
whatever form trade takes in that era.

It’s good, old-fashioned science fiction; and if it isn’t as rich in
detail and setting as the science-fiction being written today is, it’s
pretty darn good for the late 1950’s. And as Ian points out in his
review, Norton predicts the break-up of the Soviet Union with surprising
accuracy.

Galactic Derelict is a sequel of sorts; Ross Murdock and his
boss are present, but the viewpoint character is different. It seems that
the Feds have discovered a derelict spacecraft in the remote past. It’s
abandoned, but as our heroes discover it’s still in working order, and
they get taken on an unexpected tour of the galaxy. Of course the
derelict was found in the distant past, and it commenced its journey
shortly after it was brought forward to the present day, so the galaxy is
a little different than when the ship was built….

I didn’t like this one as well. It lacks the depth of its predecessor;
and though the places they visit have a certain “gosh, wow” quality at
first, they aren’t all that interesting in the long run. I don’t feel
I wasted my time, on it though, and the book’s worth buying for
The Time Traders anyway.