The Crossroads of Time

The Crossroads of Time is a science fiction novel by American writer Andre Norton, first published in 1956 by Ace Books as one of their double novels.[1] The story takes its protagonist through several versions of Earth as it might have been if history had gone differently. The book has been translated into Spanish, Italian, and German.

The Crossroads of Time
First edition
AuthorAndre Norton
Cover artistEd Valigursky
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesCrosstime
GenreScience fiction
Published1956 (Ace Books)
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages169 (Paperback edition)
OCLC904427840
Followed byQuest Crosstime 

Premise

In an odd twist on the theme of time travel, Norton has her characters traveling across time, rather than forward or backward. The dates do not change as the men travel from one timeline to another, but the histories of those worlds differ from each other. Tacitly postulating a kind of two-dimensional time, Norton anticipated Hugh Everett III's many-worlds interpretation of the quantum theory by one year. She called it the "possibility worlds" theory of history.

Main characters
  • Blake Walker: He was found abandoned in an alley at age two and his parents were never traced. Growing up, he discovered that certain forebodings of danger always came true. One of those gets him into an adventure that might help him discover his origin.
  • Mark Kittson (Com Varlt - Master Wardsman, Section leader): His ID card says he is a Federal Agent. He is not.
  • Jason Saxton (Horman Tilis - Master Wardsman): The senior member of Kittson's team.
  • Stan Erskine (Pague Lo Sig - Apt Wardsman): Member of Kittson's team.
  • Hoyt (Fal Korf - Apt Wardsman): Member of Kittson's team.
  • Kmoat Vo Pranj: Typical self-indulgent psychopath/sociopath who wants to rule the world, because pushing people around assuages his sense of uselessness and futility.
  • Lefty Conners: Pranj disguised as a petty crook.

Plot summary

In the fall of 1955, in New York City, as the snow begins to fall, Blake Walker has come from Ohio to attend college. Goaded by one of the forebodings that have punctuated his life, he rescues a man from a kidnapper and then discovers that the kidnapper's friends have taken an unhealthy interest in him. The man he rescued, Mark Kittson, arranges for him to disappear into an organization that occupies a hidden apartment. There he meets the other members of Kittson's team, Jason Saxton, Stan Erskine, and Hoyt.

The next day, alone in the apartment, Blake hears someone trying to break in. At the same time he is subjected to a telepathic assault that knocks him out. When he regains consciousness he tells Kittson and the others what happened. Kittson explains to him that he and the others are agents from an alternate Earth, one more advanced technologically and psychically than is Blake's Earth. They are hunting a criminal, Kmoat Vo Pranj, who may have been the burglar Blake semi-encountered. Discerning that their hideout has been discovered and may be subject to a police raid, the men move their operation to a house on Patroon Place in the Mount Union section of the city, picking up a stray kitten that Hoyt begins to train telepathically.

As he returns to the house from a local drug store, Blake is kidnapped by gangsters working for Pranj and taken to Pranj's hideout. There he is thrown into a dark cellar with a timid petty crook named Lefty Conners. Searching the cellar for a way out, the two men come upon a square platform that has a rod like a crowbar jutting up from it. Lefty tries to pull the rod loose and activates a mechanism that takes the platform and both men into a laboratory on an alternate Earth.

As he explores the building above the laboratory Blake becomes trapped. He manages to escape and discovers that Lefty is really Pranj. He returns to the weird vehicle in the laboratory and activates it just as one of the world's natives shoots him in the left shoulder with a heat ray. The carrier then takes Blake to a world in which Manhattan is a bleak landscape dotted with stone towers and patrolled by carnivorous hag-like creatures accompanied by giant robot centipedes.

Escaping from that world and trying to get back to his own world, Blake comes to a similar one, a world in which New York has been bombed into ruins. As he confronts one of the natives, the carrier activates itself and vanishes. The native takes him to Sarge, a benign dictator whose group has colonized Central Park and hopes to restore some measure of civilization on Manhattan after they have cleared out the "hiders", the criminal element that preys upon them. Sarge tells Blake about a shadowy character called Ares, who appears to be organizing the hiders, and Blake assumes that it is Pranj, using his teledynamic abilities to control the lesser men.

Believing that Kittson and his team will eventually come to this world, Blake leads a team to the Patroon Place house, pointing out the drug store on the way so that some of the men can scavenge its contents. At the house the men find evidence of a recent visit and they leave Blake and one young man to wait. Warned by his sense of foreboding, Blake pushes the young man into the garage just as the booby-trapped house explodes. Blake takes the injured man to the drug store to hole up for the night and wait for the rest of Sarge's men to return.

The next day Kittson and his team show up. They hope to capture Pranj at a mass meeting of the hiders, where Pranj intends to hand out advanced weapons. Sarge's men show up as well and a battle rages. Blake and the others thwart Pranj's plan, leaving the battle to be won by Sarge. They return to Blake's original timeline to find Hoyt and Pranj locked in a teledynamic duel, a true battle of wills. With reinforcement Hoyt wins the battle and the men capture Pranj. Because Blake knows too much he is obliged to accompany the men to their home timeline.

Publication history
  • 1956, US, Ace Books (Ace Double #D-164), Paperback (169 pp), with Mankind on the Run by Gordon R. Dickson.[2]
  • 1958, Germany, Alfons Semrau Verlag (Abenteuer im Weltenraum #9), Paperback (96 pp), as Am Kreuzweg der Zeit (At the Crossroads of Time); author is mistakenly given as Philip K. Dick.[2]
  • 1962, US, Ace Books (#D-546), Paperback (169 pp)[2]
  • 1962, Argentina, Cenit Ciencia Ficcion (#33), Paperback (236 pp), as Las Encrucijadas del Tiempo (The Crossroads of Time).[2]
  • 1964, Germany, Moewig Verlag (Terra Extra #55), Pub date 1964 Oct, Paperback digest (65 pp), as Am Kreuzweg der Zeit (At the Crossroads of Time); author is mistakenly given as Philip K. Dick.[2]
  • 1966, US, Ace Books (#F-391), Paperback (169 pp).[2]
  • 1969, US, Ace Books (#12311), Paperback (169 pp).[2]
  • 1970, Italy, Casa Editrice La Tribuna (Galassia #110), Pub date 1970 Jan, Paperback digest (184 pp), as I corridoi del tempo (The Corridors of Time).[2]
  • 1974, US, Ace Books (#12312), Pub date 1974 Jun, Paperback (190 pp).[2]
  • 1976, UK, Victor Gollancz Ltd, ISBN 0-575-02077-6, Pub date 1976 Feb, Hardback (176 pp).[2]
  • 1978, US, The Gregg Press (The Space Adventure Novels of Andre Norton), ISBN 0-8398-2418-1, Pub date 1978 Feb, Hardback (190 pp).[2]
  • 1978, US, Ace Books, ISBN 0-441-12313-9, Pub date 1978 Jul, Paperback (242 pp).[2]
  • 1980, US, Ace Books, ISBN 0-441-12314-7, Pub date 1980 Feb, Paperback (vii+242 pp).[2]
  • 1982, US, Ace Books, ISBN 0-441-12315-5, Pub date 1982 Sept, Paperback (vii+242 pp).[2]
  • 1985, US, Ace Books, ISBN 0-441-12316-3, Pub date 1985 Aug, Paperback (vii+242 pp).[2]

Reviews

The book was reviewed by

  • The editor at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Sep 1956).[2]
  • P. Schuyler Miller at Astounding Science Fiction (Nov 1956).[2]
  • Frederick Patten at Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review (Feb 1979).[2]
gollark: Not everyone makes everything in a kitchen sink pack, mind you.
gollark: Not Krist-as-actual-economy.
gollark: That's just Krist-for-artificial-gating.
gollark: ... no.
gollark: Or in short, ~~money~~ things can be exchanged for goods and services.

References
  1. Schlobin, Roger C. and Irene R. Harrison, Andre Norton: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, Pg 5, NESFA Press (Framingham, Massachusetts)
  2. Found on Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase at http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2503

Sources
  • Clute, John. "Norton, Andre." The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight. Gollancz, 2 Apr. 2015. Web. 12 June 2015.
  • Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. pg. 331. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
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