Time Traders Books In Order

Publication Order of Time Traders/Ross Murdock Books

“Time Traders” is a series of novels by Andre Norton, real name Alice Mary Norton, an American fantasy and science fiction novelist. The first novel in the series was the 1958 published “The Time Traders” that paved the way for a very popular series that culminated in “Atlantis Endgame”, the seventh novel of the series published in 2002. Andre Norton the author always had a love for the humanities since she was in high school. Getting much-needed inspiration from a charismatic teacher, she started penning novels when she was still a teenager. Given the time she was born in and the genre she had chosen, the publishers advised her to go with her pseudonym, as Alice Norton simply would not sell. She adopted several pseudonyms including Allen Weston, Andrew North, and even changed her legal names to Andre Alice in 1934.

In 1934, Andre Norton published her debut and has never looked back since winning several groundbreaking awards in fantasy and science fiction. She was the first woman to be awarded the World Science Fiction Society’s Gandalf Grand Master Award in 1977. She won the SFWA Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1983. Andre was also nominated for several prestigious awards including two time nominations for a Hugo, and three time nominations for a Lifetime Achievement World Fantasy Award. Her works have won several awards in the genre and had many of her works regularly feature on bestselling or best novels of the year polls. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named their outstanding young adult literature in science fiction and fantasy after Andre Norton. The award has been given to some of the best science and fantasy fiction writers that have made great contributions to the genre in a given year. Publications such as Time, Publishers Weekly, literary organizations such as Science Fiction Writers of America and biographers such as J.M Cornwell have often called Andre “The Grand Dame of Fantasy and Science Fiction”. Having been an author for more than 70 years and with more than three hundred novels to her name, her works have been read by more than four generations of fantasy and science fiction enthusiasts. Some authors that cite Andre Norton as their major influence include Catherine Asaro, Greg Bear, KD Kentworth, Lois MacMaster Bujold, David Weber and CJ Cherryh among many others.

The premise of the “Time Traders” series of novels is a confrontation between the Reds, the Western heroes, and a mysterious alien race of Baldies that comes back to Earth from a future time using time travel. In writing the novels of the series Norton makes the assumption that the physics of space travels ate vastly different from that of the physics of time travel. For instance, the hyper drive propelled spacecraft may be discovered by one civilization who will not necessarily have access to other technologies that have been developed by other civilizations. The physicists on Earth have cracked the code of time travel. On the other hand the scientists and engineers who for the most part use the time travel consoles they built have discovered a clever way to get information on space travel. They steal or snoop on the secrets of those that have that information. The lead characters in the novels are persons that go back in time to take and look and if possible bring back some of the alien technologies brought to Earth by space faring alien races. They soon finds themselves in time travel that takes them back to a range of times in the Earth’s history when aliens ruled the world. The space travels of discovery are mainly funded by the Americans upon learning that their major foes the Soviet Union have discovered the secret of space travel leaving them on the back foot. They know that to maintain their leadership status and even protect their national integrity they need to get access to the same secrets. The leads are hurled back into some of the earliest periods of man’s evolution and life where they have to put into action their volatile intelligence if they are to survive in the prehistoric world.

“The Time “is the first enthralling first novel of the “Time Traders” series of novels by Andre Norton. The Americans in their constant battle against the Russians have theorizing that if space could be conquered then time could be conquered too. Maybe the Russians have learnt how to go back in time so that they can get access to possibly life changing secrets from the past. They have just the man to try to obtain the information from the Russians. Ross Murdock is independent nonconformist and very intelligent man that they intend to use in the highly secret government project. His nonconformist ways that made him a misfit in normal society are some of the most valuable in the new mission that will see him go back in time to interact with prehistoric Bronze Age people. Using a time machine the American government transports him into the Baltic where he interacts with a lost galactic civilization that requires utmost courage if he is to survive.

“Galactic Derelict” is an unputdownable second novel of the “Time Traders” series of novels. The lead stumbles upon a time travel project and is forcibly recruited. The government sends him back into time in prehistoric United States where he together with a team put together by the US government are supposed to find and document the technology left behind by an alien race of space travelers. They find the wreckage of an alien space craft, but for them to do any meaningful work on it, they have to bring it back to Earth through the time portal. They activate the engines and soon find themselves taking an involuntary journey as in the alien ship as it traverses space and time. They find the ruins of ancient civilizations that were far much advanced than the Earth and take notes. Full of suspenseful and chilling scenes of the unknown, the big question is Will they find a way to travel back to their own time and world?

One Response to “Time Traders”

1. steve crain: 9 months ago

   I’ve read ALL but FIREHAND I will find a copy and BUY it to make a set! I enjoyed EVERY one. I started in 1956 and read them 4-5 times. now I’m 75 and will read ’til I can’t see anymore!

   Reply