Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Sphere (1975), Paperback, 208 pages
Description
Science Fiction. Young Adult Fiction. Being a Time Courier was one of the best jobs Judson Daniel Elliott III ever had. It was tricky, though, taking group after group of tourists back to the same historic event, without meeting yourself coming or going. Trickier still was avoiding the temptation to become intimately involved with the past and interfere with events to come. The deterrents for any such actions were frighteningly effective. So Judson Daniel Elliott played by the book. Then he met a lusty Greek in Byzantium who showed him how rules were made to be broken...and set him on a family-history-go-round that would change his past and his future forever!.
User reviews
LibraryThing member RandyStafford
My reactions to reading this book in 1992. Spoilers follow.
This book was a lot of fun, a lot better than I expected. Along with Robert Heinlein’s "All You Zombies" and Alexander Jablokov's "Ring of Time", it's one of the most complicated time travel stories I've read. I read recently a scientist
This is one of those few books that lives up to that sf reviewer's cliches about an author throwing off in a paragraph ideas others would base a novel. (And Silverberg would do fine either way.) Silverberg gives us the idea of killing one's ancestors (one of the very oldest and hoariest time travel ideas) as a form of suicide and revenge on one's father. Linked to this is the idea (with more or less incestful connotations) of sleeping with your female ancestors (not your mother though). Silverberg introduces the idea of financial schemes via time travel: currency manipulation, planting antiques to be found by archaelogists, smuggling artifacts. Of course, there is the possibility of altering history (a possibility guarded against by the comically fanatical and boorish Time Patrol) by saving JFK, poisoning Christ, killing Hitler. Silverberg has his Time Couriers fully use time as a fourth dimension of travel to set up alternate lives in history, to meet each other at non-sequential points in their lives. And he comes up with what I believe is a new question for time travel: the Cumulative Paradox. If many time travlers through the centuries go back to a fixed point in space and time (say the Crucifixion), why doesn't the historical record show thousands of people at an event instead of a few.
Silverberg has a broad knowledge of history (he's written several non-fiction books on history) so it's no surprise that he's able to bring history alive as well as his Time Courier protagonist who carefully arranges the order and length of time jumps he shows his charges. Silverberg, with brief passages, brings history alive. And he knows what kind of things people me want to see in history: assassinations (including Huey Long), plagues (there's a special Black Plague tour), riots, revolts.
So, I expected the history to be well-done, but I didn't expect such clever variations on the time travel theme, and I certainly didn't expect the light, breezy style and comedy -- most of it being of the sexual farce variety. If this novel were filmed, it could be a porn movie with the sex scenes in it (in the text there's not that much explicit sex. Amongst the many things SIlverberg has written is porn, so that adds an extra punch to the sexcapades of the hero (including a not so great, rather mechanical session, with the infamously rapacious Theodora) who concludes there's a lot of truth to the notion that "jazzing one snatch" is much like "jazzing" another. Our hero, Judson Daniel Elliott III, also says, self-mockingly, sex with love with his ancestor Pulcheria is better than sex without love.
It's not only a plenitude of sex that marks this as a late sixties book but a plenitude of drugs. The sex is mostly heterosexual but homosexuality is mentioned. A case of child molestation is integral to the plot. A major mention is madeof race relations. (Here a black named Sambo Sambo befriends Elliott -- who he describes as a loser. Sam feels sorry in a pitiful way for Elliott when he screws up by duplicating himself temporally and incurs the fatal wrath of the Time Police, so he gets him a job as a Time Courier. The element of race is played up in some witty repartee between Jew Elliott and Sam. Sam is also a product of genetic purification of black genes. There is some element of Black Pride with Sam's life in Africa. Another element of the sexual farce is Elliott watching himself -- with first cold terror, then clinical detachment at the comic, rather grotesque sight -- copulate. Synaesthia -- experimental subject of some 50's and sixties' sf -- shows up here.
Silverberg manages a clever ending with Elliott just waiting for the Time Patrol to catch on to his temporal sins, and then he vanishes into never existence in mid-sentence.
This book was a lot of fun, a lot better than I expected. Along with Robert Heinlein’s "All You Zombies" and Alexander Jablokov's "Ring of Time", it's one of the most complicated time travel stories I've read. I read recently a scientist
Show More
saying that Silverberg did about all you can do with time travel in this novel, and that's true. This is one of those few books that lives up to that sf reviewer's cliches about an author throwing off in a paragraph ideas others would base a novel. (And Silverberg would do fine either way.) Silverberg gives us the idea of killing one's ancestors (one of the very oldest and hoariest time travel ideas) as a form of suicide and revenge on one's father. Linked to this is the idea (with more or less incestful connotations) of sleeping with your female ancestors (not your mother though). Silverberg introduces the idea of financial schemes via time travel: currency manipulation, planting antiques to be found by archaelogists, smuggling artifacts. Of course, there is the possibility of altering history (a possibility guarded against by the comically fanatical and boorish Time Patrol) by saving JFK, poisoning Christ, killing Hitler. Silverberg has his Time Couriers fully use time as a fourth dimension of travel to set up alternate lives in history, to meet each other at non-sequential points in their lives. And he comes up with what I believe is a new question for time travel: the Cumulative Paradox. If many time travlers through the centuries go back to a fixed point in space and time (say the Crucifixion), why doesn't the historical record show thousands of people at an event instead of a few.
Silverberg has a broad knowledge of history (he's written several non-fiction books on history) so it's no surprise that he's able to bring history alive as well as his Time Courier protagonist who carefully arranges the order and length of time jumps he shows his charges. Silverberg, with brief passages, brings history alive. And he knows what kind of things people me want to see in history: assassinations (including Huey Long), plagues (there's a special Black Plague tour), riots, revolts.
So, I expected the history to be well-done, but I didn't expect such clever variations on the time travel theme, and I certainly didn't expect the light, breezy style and comedy -- most of it being of the sexual farce variety. If this novel were filmed, it could be a porn movie with the sex scenes in it (in the text there's not that much explicit sex. Amongst the many things SIlverberg has written is porn, so that adds an extra punch to the sexcapades of the hero (including a not so great, rather mechanical session, with the infamously rapacious Theodora) who concludes there's a lot of truth to the notion that "jazzing one snatch" is much like "jazzing" another. Our hero, Judson Daniel Elliott III, also says, self-mockingly, sex with love with his ancestor Pulcheria is better than sex without love.
It's not only a plenitude of sex that marks this as a late sixties book but a plenitude of drugs. The sex is mostly heterosexual but homosexuality is mentioned. A case of child molestation is integral to the plot. A major mention is madeof race relations. (Here a black named Sambo Sambo befriends Elliott -- who he describes as a loser. Sam feels sorry in a pitiful way for Elliott when he screws up by duplicating himself temporally and incurs the fatal wrath of the Time Police, so he gets him a job as a Time Courier. The element of race is played up in some witty repartee between Jew Elliott and Sam. Sam is also a product of genetic purification of black genes. There is some element of Black Pride with Sam's life in Africa. Another element of the sexual farce is Elliott watching himself -- with first cold terror, then clinical detachment at the comic, rather grotesque sight -- copulate. Synaesthia -- experimental subject of some 50's and sixties' sf -- shows up here.
Silverberg manages a clever ending with Elliott just waiting for the Time Patrol to catch on to his temporal sins, and then he vanishes into never existence in mid-sentence.
Show Less
LibraryThing member pgmcc
I found this to be a very funny, tongue-in-cheek time-travel tale. A friend recommended it to me and I remember loving its quirky approach to time travel, especially the approach to time-tourism.
The protagonist becomes a time-courier taking tourists on guided tours to interesting events in history.
A few yeas ago I recommended this to a friend and her initial reaction was to thank me for pointing her towards a quite raunchy novel. I had forgotten entirely that there is relatively significant amount of sex in the story.
It has a great paradoxical ending.
The protagonist becomes a time-courier taking tourists on guided tours to interesting events in history.
Show More
Watch out for the over-crowding.A few yeas ago I recommended this to a friend and her initial reaction was to thank me for pointing her towards a quite raunchy novel. I had forgotten entirely that there is relatively significant amount of sex in the story.
It has a great paradoxical ending.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ScoLgo
This book is definitely a product of the times in which it was written. Set squarely within the mindset of the sex & drugs counter-culture that sprang from 1960's America, much of it simply falls flat today. I get that Silverberg was going for humor - and there are a few humorous situations - but
The creepy sex stuff kept rearing its squicky head but, behind all that unnecessary cruft, there was a pretty cool time-travel story/history lesson trying to catch my attention. Unfortunately, every time the story started to get interesting, along would come some poorly-inserted boinking. Ah well, I did enjoy the ending - partly because the book was finally over (hah!) - but also because it happened to be a fun little twist. At the end of this one, Silverberg continues to be hit & miss for me. Too bad this one was mostly a miss.
Show More
the rampant sex, the misogyny, the pedophilia, and the incest pretty much ruined it for me. I very nearly quit at about 1/3 of the way through but decided to persevere. I guess I'm glad I finished because it did get better. By better, I mean that it went from a DNF 1/2-star rating all the way up to a less-than-mediocre 2 stars.The creepy sex stuff kept rearing its squicky head but, behind all that unnecessary cruft, there was a pretty cool time-travel story/history lesson trying to catch my attention. Unfortunately, every time the story started to get interesting, along would come some poorly-inserted boinking. Ah well, I did enjoy the ending - partly because the book was finally over (hah!) - but also because it happened to be a fun little twist. At the end of this one, Silverberg continues to be hit & miss for me. Too bad this one was mostly a miss.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Hamburgerclan
Up the Line is an earthy, rather pessimistic tale for adults. It was written in 1969, so sex and drugs are woven throughout the tale. So why am I keeping this on my shelf? (Out of the kids' reach, of course) Well, I'm a big fan of time travel tales and Up the Line is an interesting one. Instead of
--J.
Show More
focusing on Time Police, as many tales do, it has a Time Tour Guide as its protagonist. Silverberg offers a believable picture of what Time Tourism might be like. The central tale, about the rise and fall of a Time Courier, is hardly a masterpiece, (I had forgotten it from my first reading of the book) but its good enough to keep you reading.--J.
Show Less
LibraryThing member annbury
Terrific time travel novel from Silverberg, in which travelling through time has become so much a matter of course that one of its major aspects is -- time tourism! Silverberg's hero (or perhaps more accurately his central character) is a Greek American time travel guide obsessed with Byzantium --
Show More
and, eventually, with one of his own ancestresses in Byzantium. Wonderful detail on the workings of the time travel business and on Byzantine history, and some great characters. The ending, shall we say, has issues, and modern day Turks may not love this novel. But it is a very funny book, and a terrific read. Show Less
LibraryThing member jerry-book
Up the Line (1969) is a time travel novella by American science fiction author Robert Silverberg. The plot revolves mainly around the paradoxes brought about by time travel, though it is also notable for the liberal dosage of sex and humor. It was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1970.
LibraryThing member ikeman100
Pretty good story. This guy can write. Lots of SEX. Sometimes it adds to the story and sometimes just to add lots of sex. Not a book for teens.
LibraryThing member majackson
"Up the Line" by Robert Silverberg 1981
A time travel story that starts slowly—as it builds up detail and background and a love interest, but doesn't really promise much. In fact, it took me a while to figure out why "up the line" meant going backwards in time: as a river flows "down" and upstream
That being said, most of the book describes the training and excitement of being a time-tourist-guide. Sex plays a major role in the life of a time courier (as they're called) and having an affair with his great-great grandmother promises to make life complicated for the hero. But something else, much worse, interferes.
The climax of the book is a roller-coaster ride that, sadly, ends very predictably. It's a mildly interesting story, with a thrilling—and convoluted—last third; but an oh-so-obvious finish.
A time travel story that starts slowly—as it builds up detail and background and a love interest, but doesn't really promise much. In fact, it took me a while to figure out why "up the line" meant going backwards in time: as a river flows "down" and upstream
Show More
is earlier than downstream, time flows in one direction only and, by analogy, must flow "down". Hence the past is "upstream" or "up the line".That being said, most of the book describes the training and excitement of being a time-tourist-guide. Sex plays a major role in the life of a time courier (as they're called) and having an affair with his great-great grandmother promises to make life complicated for the hero. But something else, much worse, interferes.
The climax of the book is a roller-coaster ride that, sadly, ends very predictably. It's a mildly interesting story, with a thrilling—and convoluted—last third; but an oh-so-obvious finish.
Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — Novel — 1970)
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1969)
Seiun Award (Nominee — 1975)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1969
Physical description
208 p.; 17.8 cm
ISBN
0722178352 / 9780722178355
Local notes
Omslag: Ikke angivet
Omslaget viser en mand, der holder en lille beholder op med højre hånd, mens han står på en dynge af kranier
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Omslaget viser en mand, der holder en lille beholder op med højre hånd, mens han står på en dynge af kranier
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Similar in this library
Pages
208
DDC/MDS
| 813 |