Up the Line
Robert Silverberg

I’m a sucker for a good time travel story.  It’s one of my favorite subgenres.   Robert Silverberg has written just about all subgenres in the field. Up the Line is definitely a well constructed time travel tale, although not entirely to my taste.

Before I go on, though, I want to note that this novel is currently out of print, and there’s no electronic version available. That’s why there’s not link above.

Up the Line was published in the summer of 1969, which means it was probably written in 1968, a year after the Summer of Love.  It reads like it, too.  Lots of sex.  Lots of drugs.  No rock n’ roll, though.

Judson Daniel Elliiot III takes a job as a time courier escorting tourists to some of the high points of history.  His specialty is the Byzantine Empire.  During the course of the novel, he meets a fellow time courier, Metaxas, who has created a second identity in the past.  Metaxas lives a life of total decadence and breaks all the rules, including those about sexual relationships with your ancestors.

By the end of the book, Jud will be trying to seduce his multiple times great grandmother.  All I’ll say is that it won’t end well.  I liked the way Silverberg ended the novel, even though the gimmick he used has been done before.

Up the Line is definitely a product of the time in which it was written.  Not exactly my cup of tea.  What I really liked about the novel, and what kept me reading, was the Byzantine history.  Silverberg did his homework, and it shows.  The time couriers have to know their stuff, and Jud does his best to be a good tour guide.

Silverberg also handles the time travel aspect, codifying the rules in a logical way and then sticking to them and the consequences when one of the characters breaks them.

Up the Line won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you don’t mind some of the sexual excesses, then you’ll probably like this one.