Galactic Derelict

The adventures of Murdock and Ashe continue but the main point of view character is a young man by the name of Travis Fox, an Apache who runs across the Time Agents when they set up a survey for alien star ships in his brother's land. Inducted into service almost against his will, Travis finds himself way back in time as the ancient ice sheets withdraw from North America where the trio have to evade the local wildlife and exploring tribes. When they find a near perfect ship they call through their tech team to bring the vessel through time, but this is a geologically unstable time and a massive series of volcanoes force the Project members back to their home time before the ship has been sent forward. All members of the team, that is, show more except Ashe, Murdock, and Fox and, a tech aboard the ship who hadn't been aware of the impending catastrophe. As it looks like they're all doomed, the time grid round the alien vessel is activated and they're dragged forward in time. But their troubles aren't over as the ship is activated by this rough handling and the four aboard are sent hurtling through the galaxy as the ship traces it's homeward route.

Most of the story is taken up with the group dynamics of the explorers as they are stuck aboard the ship, mostly from Fox's point of view and while there is little of the angst you'd see from more modern novels, there is a bit of antagonism between Fox and Murdock, the muscles of the team. show less

Great adolescent Science Fiction story by Andre Norton. I have never been a big fan of Norton. Most of her fame is from her fantasy novels rather then SF. Some of her early works were SF and good adventures. This is the second in her "Time Traders" series and I enjoyed it as much as the first. If this book doesn't get a teen interested in SF then neither will early Heinlein or Asimov.

Adventurous, but somewhat pointless. I do like Travis, aside from his understandable prickliness over "beads and warpaint". But...he falls into the group (was the canyon on the ranch's land? If not, whose land was it, and why did Travis think he could bring the cattle to water there?), gets forcibly recruited, has a nice past-time adventure. Then the three of them and the tech accidentally get shanghaied onto the ship and off into space (just lucky it wasn't time as well!). The tech remains pretty much a cipher throughout; so does Ashe, except as the trophy in the competition between Ross and Travis (I can't tell whether it's entirely in Ross's head or Travis really is trying to get close to Ashe). And Ross spends a lot of time show more displaying his nasty, greedy, over-anxious side. So there's a lot of space travel, some truly weird creatures and adventures, little to no character development, and they get home and the story ends. Plop. No real conclusion, just - whee, we're home! End. Not even debriefing. Frustrating, a bit. But I will no doubt read it again, the next time I want to read the series. show less

Before it was politically correct Andre Norton was populating her books with minority characters and making them people with the same strengths, fears and needs as the majority. Perhaps this is why I have been drawn to her books for over 40 years. Believable characters. This is one of her shorter books and is a nice lead into the next book Defiant Agents. It is a quick read but very satisfying.

Andre Norton, aka Andrew North, was one of the first women to write science fiction "thrillers" for an adolescent audience. An award-winning novelist, she is regarded as the grand dame of science fiction and fantasy. Since 2005 the Andre Norton Award is annually for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult market.

This book features many of the themes that appeared repeatedly in Norton novels but the story is rather boring. The protagonist is an alienated young man who finds himself caught up in an intergalactic voyage. The four protagonists discover a functioning space ship and while they are on board automated systems launch the ship and send it on an interstellar journey to an unknown destination. show more Unfortunately, the characters are one-dimensional and the story is predictable.

For the first 150 pages the plot consists of the ship traveling to a new destination where nothing particularly interesting happens. Norton describes each planet and each situation in detail but the focus in on description; Norton fails to generate a sense of tension or suspense. The plot is bereft of action and the action that does occur is rather tame and uninteresting. Norton finally introduces a more significant conflict in the last quarter of the book as the four explorers help a primitive native population defend itself against a predator. However, they then leave on a return voyage home and the book concludes with a flat, anticlimactic, ending. show less

Part 2 of the Time Traders series. It introduces the second protagonist of the series, the Apache Travis Fox, but apart from that this adventure seemed a bit pointless. Murdock, Ashe and Fox get accidentally lost in space when an alien spaceship they're exploring suddenly starts off on an automated journey to other systems/planets. The main objective of the story is to survive and get home again, but apart from a few fights against alien wildlife, there's not much these three can actually do. There's not much conflict between them either, so all in all it seems more like a filler to give a foundation for the following installments and the actual deliberate exploration of alien worlds.

This was the first book I ever read. It gave me chills and thrills of something new with every chapter. Adventure into deep space into that held me as a kid, and yet survived to be readable in the digital age as a pure lite adventure for an adult. This story's writing holds firm and crisp enough to withstand time and technological advance.