To better suit the modern reader, technologies and circumstances have been updated over the original 1958 novel.
This, indeed, makes The Time Traders feel less quaint and adds to an already solid novel.

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This Kindle omnibus (available free courtesy of Baen ebooks) contains the first 2 novels of the Ross Murdoch series - "The Time Traders" and "Galactic Derelict".

"The Time Traders" (1958) -187 pgs; finished 4/5/20; 3.5*
I enjoyed the fast paced action & the main character, Ross Murdock, a criminal loner who "volunteered" for Operation Retrograde as an alternative to the new penal 'treatment' (of a type left unspecified but which I assume was some sort of mind altering treatment). However, certain aspects of the plot were dated - the U.S.'s 'greatest adversary' is (of course) Russia. And the science of the time travel is strictly left alone - no explanations about how this technology worked, not even vague ones.

"Galactic Derelict" (1959) -192 pgs; finished 4/9/20; 4*
While Ross Murdoch is present in this 2nd book, the focus is shifted to a new character, Travis Fox, an Apache who stumbles upon Murdoch & Ashe setting up a secret site in the desert. Fox has a background in archeology (as does Ashe, we learn) and, more importantly, an ability to sense the difference between artifacts and recently made imitations, no matter how well done.

This second book does have a certain amount of time travel, but most of the plot involves instead an unexpected trip into outer space when the ship of the "Baldy"'s they are investigating suddenly activates its automatic pilot. A fun and fast read. I look forward to the rest of the series! ( )

A swashbuckling non-sensitive time travelling sci-fi from the 1950's. The characters were deeply delved into but the story had a lot of action and plot twists crammed into 220 pages. Scene transitions were quick. This story could have been written w many more pages. But I liked the ending w its pro-America Cold War tilt. I read this book 40 years ago in high school. It was really enjoyable. ( )

The kind of story that really shows it age. Not a particularly good read, at least it is fast, and make no pretension about intellectualism or art. Very much on the pulpy side. If you want to read classic science fiction, save yourself for Ray Bradbury. The plot has holes you could drive a truck through, bad worldbuilding, the characters are less than two dimensional, and I did not care one bit for the story or the characters. ( )

This book is an omnibus of Norton's first two Time Traders books, The Time Traders, and Galactic Derelict.

In The Time Traders, Ross Murdock, a young man and a minor criminal, who has taken some advantage of the services offered by the New York Public Library, is caught one more time. This time, he gets a judge with a reputation for harsh sentences. He has a little talk with a Major Kelgarries, and is offered a choice between "rehab," and ?joining the Major's project, which is not explained. "Rehab" isn't explained, either, but Murdock knows about it, and quickly decides that the unknown project is a better bet.

He's not quite so sure when he's loaded into a very unusual aircraft, and taken to the arctic.

The artic isn't the final destination, though. He's going someplace else, once he gets some training. Well, a lot of training. Self-defense, including the use of bronze knives, boy and arrow, spears. Languages he's never heard of. Bronze Age people called the Beaker People. He's going to travel through time, looking for high tech the Russians have apparently found by traveling into the past. But how could Earth have had a civilization, so deep in the past that no trace of it has been found yet, that's so far ahead of 21st century Earth? (I will note here that what we do see of Norton's 21st century, concocted in the 1950s, doesn't in fact clash much with our 21st century.)

In Galactic Derelict, Ross is now an experienced time agent, and he's found the answers to some of the questions about where that ancient high tech came from. Yes, it came from alien ships that crashed on Earth--twelve to fifteen thousand years ago. They need to find at least one in American territory--and maybe they have. It's in the American west, and the evidence they have says that yes, it crashed at the time the Folsom people were hunting mammoths and giant sloths. Ross Murdock, his guide and partner from his trip to the Bronze Age, Gordon Ashe, are preparing to go back and look.

While they're preparing, Travis Fox, a young Apache man with an interest in archaeology and now working on his brother's ranch, accidentally wanders into their staging area. He's seen too much to just let go, but a quick check into his background reveals he might be a good recruit. Travis decides to take the chance, though he doesn't entirely believe what they're telling him.

They go back, encounter scary animals, successfully avoid actual contact with the Folsom people, and find the derelict ship they're looking for--except it's not a derelict. It's intact, but the crew are all dead, for no obvious reason. They don't have Russians to cope with here, and they set to work preparing to move the ship to the 21s century. A major volcanic eruption starts when they're just about ready--and the eruption and accompanying earthquake trigger the ship's engines, That happens at just about the same moment the time transfer is started. They may have made it to the 21st century, but they're also headed for whatever destination the dead pilot had logged into the ship's computer.

They're headed into hyperspace, and they don't know what their destination is. The involuntary crew is Ashe, Fox, Murdock, and a tech named Renfry, who has been working on figuring out the controls of the ship. He hasn't gotten far, and they have no idea where they'd be if they exited hyperspace before reaching their destination. They're in for quite an adventure, with no idea whether they'll be able to get home afterward. And while it seems unlikely that the civilization that made the ship they're on still exists, they can't know for sure.

I was a little worried when I started reading, because I remember these books with great fondness, and too many fondly remembered books from that era don't stand up well to rereading. I was surprised, relieved, delighted. At this point, Norton was still avoiding certain issues by not including women as major characters, but the ones we do meet, in the Bronze Age, are intelligent, strong, respected members of their tribes. That the USSR collapsed and then eventually Russia started getting aggressively expansionist with its neighbors, is almost a throwaway, and yet surprisingly accurate.

The characterization is good, and satisfying. I don't know if Native Americans would find Travis Fox and what he has to say about his own culture to be really satisfying, but it did at least feel respectful. Good plotting, good pacing, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Recommended.

I bought this book. ( )