The Time Traders
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This book offers a thrilling blend of Cold War espionage and prehistoric adventure, with a misfit protagonist whose journey of survival and self-discovery will keep you turning pages.
Edition details
Book Summary
A young criminal named Ross Murdock is recruited for a secret government project that uses time travel to counter Soviet agents in the prehistoric past. As he navigates Bronze Age Britain and encounters alien technology, Ross must survive hostile environments, shifting loyalties, and his own misfit identity to complete his mission.
Ross Murdock, a juvenile delinquent, is coerced into a covert time-travel program at an Arctic base. After a failed escape attempt with fellow recruit Kurt Vogel, Ross learns the truth: the project sends agents back in time to thwart Red (Soviet) operations. He undergoes training and is sent to Bronze Age Britain with his mentor Ashe, disguised as Beaker traders. Their outpost is destroyed, and they survive attacks from hostile tribes and Red agents. Ross is captured by a mysterious alien force operating from a globe-shaped spacecraft, but he resists its psychic control. After a series of escapes, captures, and harrowing journeys through prehistoric wilderness, Ross reunites with Ashe and McNeil. They discover that the aliens are ancient beings whose technology influenced Earth's past. The project is ultimately shut down, but Ross's resilience and unconventional skills prove invaluable, cementing his place as a hero despite his criminal background.
Reading guide
Go deeper in The Time Traders
Character guides, themes, chapter companions — plus Character Web, narrative arc, and theme heatmap teasers that unlock fully beside the text in BetterReads.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Closing
This is the story's dramatic climax because Ross reaches an emotional and psychological peak by consciously re…
Ross Murdock
Ross enters the project as a reluctant recruit with a delinquent's instincts and a talent for keeping his mouth shut while his eyes work. Captured by horsemen who plan to sell him to a hairless, fire-wielding chief, he must argue, bluff, and endure while bound and bleeding. His outsider's suspicion—of his captors, his rescuers, and the enemy alike—makes him the reader's wary guide into a war fought across centuries.
Ashe
Ashe moves through the past as Assha of the traders, a man known and trusted in villages where a wrong word could unravel centuries. Standing over the crater that was Outpost Gog, he reads the dead with grim precision and decides to walk into Nodren's town grieving and asking questions. His steady competence and willingness to shoulder danger—even staging a quarrel with a god—give the mission its spine and Ross a standard to measure himself against.
McNeil
McNeil is the mission's memory, able to recite Sanford's informant network from Britain to Brittany and to swear no warning ever came. He explodes at dead ends and needles Ashe for a plan, but his knowledge of the dead agent's methods is what keeps the investigation moving. His raw frustration gives the hunt for the Reds a human cost, and his sharp questions push the team toward the truth.
Lal
Lal is a small man caught between great powers, frightened of Lurgha yet shrewd enough to know that quarrels of gods are not for him. When Ashe stages a fiery display and offers the rare wolf skin for the Mother's shrine, Lal accepts the bargain and promptly removes himself from the village so he cannot be asked questions. His cheerful cowardice and practical cunning make him both a liability and an asset—and a window into how the past's ordinary people survive the agents' war.
Kurt Vogel
Kurt arrives at the arctic base with ingenious devices and a plan to reach his own rendezvous, and he nearly sells Ross on the gamble. When the project's mechanical hound and Kelgarries's team close in, his boasted immunity proves hollow and his friends walk into a blast. His only visible emotion comes when he learns what happened to them, a flicker that makes the Reds feel less like abstractions and more like men Ross might have become.
Assha
Assha is known from his father's post to the marsh villages as a trader of his own race, one who pulled Gurdi from a flooded river and paid for it with his goods. That reputation is armor: it explains his presence, his questions, and his movements among people who would otherwise be suspicious. When Ross, concussed and reciting a borrowed identity, is hauled before a chief, it is Assha's name and standing that keep the story—and the mission—alive.
Identity and Disguise
The protagonist Ross Murdock constantly adopts false identities—from a meek prisoner to a Beaker trader—blurring the line between his true self and his roles, highlighting how survival and espionage require the suppression of one's real nature.
Time Travel and Historical Exploration
The narrative centers on traveling into the prehistoric past to uncover advanced civilizations and counter enemy operations, exploring how time itself becomes a frontier for espionage and discovery.
Survival and Resilience
Ross repeatedly faces physical danger, capture, and isolation in hostile environments, relying on his wits, adaptability, and inner strength to endure and escape.
The Misfit as Hero
Ross is a criminal and societal misfit whose unconventional skills and rebellious nature make him uniquely suited for time agent work, suggesting that those who don't fit in can become invaluable assets.