The Crossroads of Time

by Andre Norton

Paperback, 1978

Status

Available

Call number

Fic SF Norton

Publication

Ace Books (1978), Paperback

Description

When Blake Walker foiled a murder attempt on one of his neighbors he somehow found himself drafted into a frantic chase for a dangerous criminal--through the almost infinite levels of alternate Earths. It was a chase that would take him through level upon level of unknown dangers in search of a ruthless genius who had found our Earth the perfect place to begin his series of conquests. If Walker succeeded, he would save Earth. If he failed, his homeworld could be enslaved, and he could be trapped on an alien Earth!

User reviews

LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck

When young, I found classic Andre Norton books to be an odd duck in American SF of the 1950's. They sold well, were read by many, were solidly written, but were never popular or talked about the way that Asimov or Anderson or the rest of the crew. (This changed in her later years, with the success

of the Witch World series.) No doubt much of that because she operated outside of Campbell's Astounding, or of the pulps in general. Another reason I think can be seen in this book. It is the tale of Blake Walker, who, in the first few pages, falls in with a band of agents who cross parallel universes in the hunt for a villain seeking a version of Earth ripe for conquest. As pulp-level adventure story telling goes, it's fine. The main character is neither invincible nor helpless. He is critical to the quest but not responsible for everything that happens. There's a good balance of action and time to think. There are cliffhangers with resolutions that as often as not depend on perseverance or intelligence. As science fiction, though, there is much to be desired. Norton is clearly content to pick up the tropes developed by other authors. If the quality of writing is the 1950's, the science fiction is the 1930's. Characters jump from parallel Earth to parallel Earth by pushing a large level back and forth on a platform, to generate a green energy bubble. You can just see the pulp cover in your mind's eye. Where she does better is in the depicting the various Earths Walker comes to. My decades-old memories of her interplanetary romances is that her depictions of other societies were well-done glimpses that sufficed to set the scene, hinted at more behind the setwork, and avoid particularly egregious info-dumps. That's true here as well, as Walker visits two parallel Earths, one quite altered and only partially explicable, and one much closer to our own. Still, all in all, this is an adventure tale, with SF trappings. Leigh Brackett, if you will, with a lot less color.

Show Less

4 more

LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

A fun adventure. Light and short. Better than the covers - they're all just wrong. Be aware that, though not overtly racist, race is often mentioned, implication being that it matters, somehow. And the only female is an ogress (/hag/crone). Recommended if you run across a copy and are in the mood

for alternate reality fluff.

Show Less

LibraryThing member KateSherrod

My first ever Andre Norton -- I know, I know, but it won't be my last -- is an interesting time/dimensional travel romp with some psychic power tropes thrown in. And a bit of a manhunt storyline.

Blake Walker, student, has always known he was a little bit different from other people, in that his

little premonitions of danger are always correct. What he doesn't know is that he's a latent psychic, and that in the universe next door his ability would make him as common as he is unusual here. Hell, he doesn't know there are universe's next door, until his unique ability lands him in a heap of trouble with some agents from that universe, who tell him not only that time travel is possible, but that it is also possible, within a time or "level", to visit all the alternate versions of that time. One where, say, Napoleon won at Waterloo, or one where the petroleum economy got started a few hundred years earlier, or where Abed was the one who had to go downstairs to pay the pizza man -- basically, the many worlds theory with which any science fiction or comic book reader is pretty familiar.

The agents, several men about Blake's own age, are in pursuit of the worst kind of time traveler, one whose psychic abilities are developed to the highest possible degree, but who seems to be a stone cold psychotic megalomaniac, who is shopping for just the right world in which he can exploit his powers, knowledge and lack of scruples to become World Dictator. Hey! This could explain how Arslan got to be Arslan, am I right?

So this is all very well and good but since it's played straight (i.e. no Epicene/Mary Margaret Wildeblood types here) it would all be a bit ho-hum for the modern reader, except for two things: the chase and escape plot, and the protagonist. O, Blake, you orphan with latent powers, you should be dull as ditchwater, but you're just the right combination of intrepid and resourceful without being a complete over-the-top can-do Boy Scout, and I've grown fond of you in that kid brother kind of way.

The chase/escape plot is nicely taut while still giving us a chance to explore some of the radically different worlds (two words: robot dragons) in just enough detail. Norton really let herself go nuts there, with enjoyable results.

Ultimately, though, there isn't quite enough book here. The novel dates from a period when a lot of science fiction/fantasy authors, Norton included, were churning out stories at a fantastic rate. The deadline pressure and the need to keep it short and sweet are both palpable throughout this quick little read. With the luxury of conducting my reading life decades later than this period, I can't help but wonder what might have been if this had been the universe in which Norton got to take her time and spin this out into the epic it clearly wanted to be. And I wonder if that universe might not also have been the one in which Jorge Luis Borges spun out whole novels instead of just his weird little gemlike short stories. But I'll never know, at least until someone invents or discovers the Carrier and lets me visit and see for myself, right?

Until then, I must content myself with its sole sequel, Quest Crosstime, soon. Fortunately, this was an omnibus edition of the pair of them. Thank you, Baen Books!

Show Less

LibraryThing member JohnFair

By modern standards, this might be a slight book and short on character development, but it's still almost as full of interesting characters as books many times its length. Andre Norton's protagonists tend towards the young, and as someone in his early twenties, Blake Walker could be considered to

be quite ancient as he finds himself caught up in the strange affairs of a group of men he initially assumed were operatives of the FBI but are quickly revealed to be out-of-time agents, Wardsmen of Vroom's crosstime trade network chasing a rogue traveller who's out to build a powerbase for himself, When they find it impossible to make Blake forget about the more outré aspects of the case, they recruit him into helping but an attempt on the outlaw's lair sends Blake careering across the varying historical options hat this history missed. Norton doesn't spend too much time on most of the places Blake found himself in, but the reality in which Hitler managed to send an invasion force to America is the one where Blake finds himself stuck for a significant part of the book. By not focussing too much on the technology, the book remains relatively free from 'lost technology' syndrome.

Show Less

LibraryThing member ikeman100

Good early work by Andre Norton. This is when I like Norton best. Her early works were SF rather then fantasy and she always did a reliable job. Typical Golden Age SF adventure.

Fewer