I’m pretty sure The Time Traders by Andre Norton (aka, Alice Mary Norton) was the first time travel novel I ever read. And, of course, I’ve read it numerous times over the years. The main character is a criminal called Ross Murdock. Murdock is given a choice: undergo a new medical procedure called Rehabilitation or volunteer to join a secret government project. Hoping for a chance to escape, Murdock decides to join Operation Retrograde and is taken by Major John Kelgarries to a secret base under the ice near the North Pole. Here, Murdock is teamed with an archaeologist, Gordon Ashe, Murdock undergos training for the role of a trader of the Beaker culture in Bronze-Age Europe. Imagine Murdock’s surprise when he actually travels in time back to the Bronze Age! And, of course, a crashed alien starship enters into the plot. I loved this book as a kid, especially the memorable Virgil Finley cover. Do you remember your first time travel book?
THE TIME TRADER SERIES:
The Time Traders (1958)
Galactic Derelict (1959)
The Defiant Agents (1962)
Key Out of Time (1963)
Firehand (1994) (with Pauline M Griffin)
Echoes in Time (1999) (with Sherwood Smith)
Atlantis Endgame (2002) (with Sherwood Smith)
Don’t remember my first, if there was one earlier, but in the 70’s as an adult, I read “Time and Again” by Jack Finney, which is still my favorite. “Replay” by ? was also a favorite, and I love this stuff, so I’m surprised to not being able to recall reading many or going after it more. Lotta good movies too, including “Time after Time,” HG Wells stuff (sort of, and so yes, read those as a kid), and the one in SF with Malcom Macdowell. Probably some other favorite films too, which I don’t recall at this moment. Cheers!
Ken Grimwood wrote REPLAY. the book won a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1988.
Jerry, thanks for the ID of the author of REPLAY. An underrated novel.
Roy, I loved Time Travel stories as a kid. Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps” and DOOR INTO SUMMER had a big effect on me.
I read all of the Andre Norton’s books that I could get in the 60s but of course I don’t remember in which sequence.
As a student I didn’t have too much money – even though someone imported US paperbacks at a good price, just took a long time and some times you got the wrong title.
My main source for SF however was the library of the “America House” in Tübingen – I remember the series “The years’s best SF” edited by ??? – don’t remember who it was …
THE YEAR’S BEST SF series you’re thinking of was most likely the one edited by Judith Merril, Wolf. The twelve volumes ran from 1956 through 1967.
No, I seem to rember two male editors – but I’m not sure. There are two stories I remember vividly:
One is about a mutant Earthman who gets caught by the bosses in a kind of galactic empire including non humans and is interrogated – in the end he shows his true nature (a kind of nuclear furnace) and the flower/plant-being among his interrogators opens its petals, so the last sentence is:
All flowers love the sun ..
The other is not a time travel story but about being able to produce movies of the past – thereby learning what really happened at Golgatha or Waterloo or on the ides of March. Also a deeply fascinating idea.
Maybe when I return to my library in my German home town in a few weeks I will find those books – that’s the only problem I have:
With two houses here in Hungary and in Germany I can’t have two copies of the books …
Wolf, I have multiple copies of books I forgot I bought years ago. It’s just one of the consequences of a Large Book Collection.
Wolf, books didn’t cost much when I was a kid. You could still buy paperbacks for a quarter. I mowed lawns so I had ready cash to buy ACE Doubles and other favorite paperbacks. Andre Norton was a big favorite.
I remember those prices 25, 35 and later 50 Cent – but in Germany the books were much more expensive! I remember the $ being worth at least 4 Deutsche Mark until the beginning of the 80s so a holiday in the USA would have been prohibitively expensive.
A bit OT (maybe I wrote about this before):
My first business travels to the USA in the mid 80s came as a complete surprise – I was invited to accompany a group of IT mangers of a well known German bank because they needed someone who could pose intelligent questions to those IBM presenters etc …
Only in the late 80s did my regular visits to NYC begin – each time I took home books from Forbidden Planet worth several hundreds of $s …
Writing this also is a kind of time travel story for me!
Wolf, you have some great memories! I can remember buying massive amount of books at used bookstores over the years. But, they’re all gone now.
TIME AND AGAIN by Finney and TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN, which I love with a passion.
Patti, I may have to go back and reread TIME AND AGAIN.
This may have been my first time travel novel, George. It was either this or DANGER: DINOSAURS by “Richard Marsten” (Evan Hunter). Both have stayed with me over lo this many years.
Jerry, I read DANGER: DINOSAURS! right around the same time as THE TIME TRADERS. But THE TIME TRADERS came first for me.
My first was Evan Hunter’s FIND THE FEATHERED SERPENT, which I’ve mentioned numerous times on my blog. I didn’t remember that one of the characters in the Norton novel was Gordon Ashe, a familiar name to some of us crime-fiction fans, but not because of this book.
Bill, I forgot all about Gordon Ashe! I have a bunch of those John Creasey novels yet to read!
For those who are not as versed in the field as Bill, Gordon Ashe was one of John Creasey’s many pseudonyms.
I can’t remember my first either, probably THE TIME MACHINE by Wells, but TIME AND AGAIN and REPLAY are certainly at the top of my favorites in a sub-genre I love.
The Malcom McDowell/Jack the RIpper movie Roy refers to was TIME AFTER TIME (1979), another classic.
Jeff, I remember seeing THE TIME MACHINE movie around that time, too. The early Sixties was a great time for fans of Time Travel.
Mine was DANGER: DINOSAURS!, as I was reading the Winston books at the time, all that the library had. I didn’t read this one until a decade later, but did read it and the second one. I have them now in a two-novel omnibus. I reread them last year, or perhaps the year before.
Rick, I love GALACTIC DERELICT (one of the great SF titles ever!), too. TOR reprinted THE TIME TRADER series in omnibus volumes a couple years ago.
Galactic Detelict would be a good name for a rock band.
Wolf, Forbidden Planet still exists, here in New York as well as in London.
Yes, I was a regular customer at the London shop – they even had books signed for me and held them until I would come by car, three or even four times a year, rewarding their efforts with some German beer I brought over …
And after closing time we would have a beer or two at the Cafe Munchen.
The Manhattan shop however moved from a two storey place on Broadway to a much smaller location on the other side of Broadway and became rather insignificant as I remember. They even had a second location once near Roosevelt Island.
Remembering those shops is like a time travel journey for me too!
This is such a great book. I read it for the first time a few years back and really enjoyed it. Need to continue on with the series.
I’m not sure if I can remember the first time travel book I read, all that keeps coming to mind is books I’ve read in the last decade or so.
Carl, I remember being wowed by THE TIME TRADERS when I read it as a kid. And GALACTIC DERELICT is terrific, too!
If I ever read a time travel book it is lost in the labyrinth of my memory. I recall reading some short stories but not their titles or authors. The one that stands out best in my mind is the one in EC Comics with Trumpets in the title (The Trumpets of Dawn? The Trumpets of Time?) Wally Wood was the artist, IIRC. How’s that for a definitive answer?
Bob, I’m sure Art Scott owned that EC Comic illustrated by Wally Wood.