THE MASKS OF TIME By Robert Silverberg

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Welcome to Time Travel Week on this blog! For the next week I’ll be presenting Time Travel books and movies you might find engaging. I’m starting with a Robert Silverberg novel from 1968 where the Future comes to visit us. Vornan-19 appears in Rome on Christmas Day. He claims he’s from the year 2,999–a thousand years in the future. The U. S. Government assembles a team of scientists to study Vornan-19 to determine if he is truly from the future or if he’s just a brilliant con-man pulling off a hoax on the world. Particle physicist Leo Garfield–who has actually moved a particle two seconds into the past–joins the team in hopes of learning the secrets of time-travel from Vornan-19. But the man from the future is vague and enigmatic. The Masks of Time shows a world on the brink of the Millennium looking for direction. The Masks of Time was nominated for a Nebula Award. Time is very tricky in this book!

22 thoughts on “THE MASKS OF TIME By Robert Silverberg

  1. Jeff Meyerson

    I’ve liked Silverberg’s short stories and novellas a lot and many have a time travel theme. I’m looking forward to seeing what else is coming on Time Travel Week, a week I’d like to visit! TIME AND AGAIN is one of my all-time favorite books.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Jeff, I considered TIME AND AGAIN but decided to go with some more obscure choices. Maybe I’ll do TIME AND AGAIN for Time Travel Week next year!

      Reply
  2. Jeff Meyerson

    I did read the novella version of “Hawksbill Station” in Silverberg’s Collected Stories.

    Reply
  3. Jeff Meyerson

    I didn’t mean for you to do TIME AND AGAIN, since I’d guess a lot of people have read it. I just meant it’s a favorite. I’m glad to read about books I don’t know.

    Reply
    1. george Post author

      Rick, I read a lot of Silverberg back in the Sixties and Seventies when he was so prolific. I hope you and the other visitors to the blog enjoy the Time Travel books and movies I’ll be presenting the rest of the week.

      Reply
    1. george Post author

      Steve, I had trouble deciding which Silverberg Time Travel novel to feature this week. UP THE LINE is terrific. I picked THE MASKS OF TIME because I assumed even Silverberg fans might not be familiar with it.

      Reply
  4. Wolf Böhrendt

    I just remembered:

    Isaac Asimov in 1955 (!) also wrote a time travel novel with a very interesting premise:

    The End of Eternity

    It was quite a surprise for me – totally different from his usual stuff. Will you write about it too?

    Wikipedia has a nice article on it which also mentions Poul Anderson’s Corridors of Time and other books related/inspired by Asimov’s.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Eternity

    Reply
  5. Carl V. Anderson

    I picked up some Silverberg both at Half Price Books and on my trip to Minnesota recently. I haven’t read much of his fiction, but have enjoyed the few short stories I’ve read and I love his articles in Asimov’s.

    Reply

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