Up the Line

English language

Published 1981

ISBN:
978-0-345-29696-2
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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!

19 editions

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I thought I had read some Silverberg before, I may have been mistaken. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but this was a lot more raunchy (Heinlein and then some) than I was expecting, and there's definitely some racist language to get over.returnThink Heinlein-esque (but again, raunchier) 60s free love romp, without all the heavy political commentary. Instead we get a pretty decent time travel as corrupt capitalism story that's not half bad. The future world, culture, and subcultures are believable and I think at least at the time it was written most of the historical bits were at least semi-accurate (obviously some literary license is taken). The twist ending was unexpected and fun. It was, overall, a little heavy in parts on the history lesson, but at least it works within the framework of the time traveler as travel guide structure.returnIf you like Heinlein and his ilk, …

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