The Time Traders

Executive Summary: I'm not a great gauge for Science Fiction, especially older works as I generally don't read and enjoy it as much as fantasy. There were elements here I liked, but not enough ever really get into the story. I considered giving this a 2.5 and rounding up, but opted to just stick to 2.

Full Review
Of all the science fiction tropes, time travel has always been one of my favorite. Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Looper, Primer, Terminator among others. You'll notice though that all of those are movies/TV and not books. I tend to enjoy Sci-Fi far more in video form than I do in the written word. I especially don't have the best track record with older works.

I was unfamiliar with Ms. Norton, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. She seems a decent enough writer, but I just never got sucked into this particular story. I read the revised edition of this book. I have no idea how much was revised, but the story itself didn't feel that dated. I grew up during the tail end of the cold war, so I get the context well enough.

Instead of the space race it's now focused on time travel. I'm a little unclear as to why however. There is a brief mention that space travel lost its appeal shortly after the moon landing. But why time travel? Both sides are afraid to change the past, so what do they hope to gain? Maybe that is made clear in later books, as this is the start of a series.

I didn't particularly like Ross Murdock either. I'm not sure how popular the anti-hero was back when this was written, but I've read plenty of anti-hero stories and this one just never pulled off the likable scoundrel that the best ones seem to.

Overall this was a quick read, with some interesting ideas that just seemed to fall flat for me. I'm glad to have given it a shot, and I'm not ruling out trying another story by Ms. Norton in the future, but I'm not rushing out for it, and likely won't read the second story that came with the first one.