Crosstime Agent

(aka) as Quest Crosstime

~ 2nd Novel in the Crosstime Series by Andre Norton

(Series aka) Blake Walker

Synopsis ~

Write-up from the front flap of the 1975 dust jacket ~

Marva had disappeared. Even telepathic communication with her twin sister, Marfy, had ceased. The girls were members of a team from the planet Vroom seeding life on a forbidding, sterile world, a world which could only be reached by crosstime travel.  The distraught Marfy set off with Blake Walker to report the tragedy to the girls' father on Vroom. But they were not to reach their destination: their crosstime journey was sabotaged, and Marfy and Blake found themselves on an unfamiliar time level - on a world inhabited by lizard warriors ruled by turtles. It was clear that whoever had spirited the missing Marva away, and who was now responsible for Marfly and Blake's predicament, was also intent on destroying Vroom itself.

Once again Andre Norton gives us fast-paced adventure which at the same time includes a penetrating foretaste of our own planet's future.

Write-up from an old Amazon.com post ~

The universe had opened up to Blake Walker when he discovered that his world - our own Earth - was just one of hundreds ranked side by side on alternate timelines, each stranger and more wondrous than the last. All coexisting at once, and all available to Blake Walker and the few natives of those other earths who could break the barriers between timelines. But Blake’s new existence is threatened now – his time traveling patron’s daughter has been kidnapped. The engineers who could control the time travel process are in open rebellion. And Blake himself has stumbled across a plot by a powerful and dangerous band of conspirators to ravage all of the Earths in their reach. Blake must stop them. He knows that somewhere in the infinity of time there lies the key to solving this crisis. If he only knew to look.

Write-ups from fans ~

Vroom, the "alternate world" that has discovered crosstime travel, now has political troubles in the person of Saur To'Kekrops and his "Limiter" party, which wishes to restrict and control all crosstime travel.   Blake Walker (hero of CROSSROADS OF TIME) is sent on a supply run to the barren lifeless world where a scientific project to attempt to seed life is being undertaken.  There he finds that one of a pair of female twins of one of the "Hundred Families"--the rulers of Vroom, has disappeared.  The girls had been allowed to join the Project team as a sort of holiday, but now one of them is missing and her disappearance will have grave repercussions back on Vroom.  The Project Head had objected to having the girls there, and now orders Blake to go find her and bring her back.  The remaining twin insists on going with him on the search because she knows (through the "twins' link) that her sister is no longer on that world.  But their shuttle is sabotaged, and they wind up on a jungle planet where reptilian wildlife is intelligent, and determined to destroy the shuttle Blake and Marfy arrived in.  Eventually help arrives and Blake and Marfy are returned to Vroom.  But the sister is still missing, and Marfy believes she was enticed into a crosstime adventure on World E625, where the followers of the Feathered Serpent religion still ruled.  And one of their practices was the sacrifice of a virgin. ~ SL

This is an odd one. This is an Alternate worlds set-up, where every decision anyone makes leads to another reality. These range from Barren worlds where no life has developed to those devastated by nuclear wars to those with thriving cultures. On an analog called Vroom, many people have developed telepathy. With Vroom having been ravaged by nuclear wars, their population has survived by trading with other "levels" using time-hoppers. Blake Walker, a master "Wardsman" (cop?) is investigating a station where Marfy and Marva Rogan, twin telepathic daughters of a Vroomian bigwig have been visiting. Marva has disappeared Blake and Marfy have many hair-raising adventures caused by a dissident group, the Limiters who want to take over and loot all the levels for their own gain. A page-turner that I had forgotten all the details for. ~ PG

Reviews ~

Various reviews ~ For more info and other listings see Articles Over the Years

1966 by P. Schuyler Miller in Analog Science Fiction -> Science Fact, May
2015 by James Nicoll ~ as; Quest Crosstime
2018 by Judith Tar as; Quest Crosstime

Dedications and Acknowledgements ~

For Richard Benyo,
who first visualized the "sterile" world.

Bibliography of English Editions ~

• (1975) Published by Gollancz, HC, 0-575-01931-X, 978-0-575-01931-7, £1.75, 256pg ~ UK printing ~ cover by David Smee {Brown Paper Boards, ISBN on Rear Flap, # 4DE on Front Flap}