{"id":1423,"date":"2018-12-29T17:33:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T23:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2018-12-29T17:33:11","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T23:33:11","slug":"robert-silverberg-in-thebes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/robert-silverberg-in-thebes\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Silverberg in Thebes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“Thebes of the Hundred Gates”
\nMost recently reprinted in Hot Times in Magma City<\/em><\/a>
\nebook $2.99<\/p>\n

In the comments to my previous post<\/a>, Randy suggested that “Thebes of the Hundred Gates” was one Robert Silverberg’s best time travel stories.\u00a0 I hadn’t read it, but I did have a copy on one of my ereaders.<\/p>\n

So I read it.<\/p>\n

I’ll agree with Randy.\u00a0 It’s a very good story.\u00a0 So Randy, thanks for the tip.<\/p>\n

Here’s the situation:<\/p>\n

A relatively inexperienced agent of a time traveling organization is sent back to Ancient Egypt to search for two missing agents.\u00a0 They were supposed to go to Rome, but something went wrong.\u00a0 After a year and a half, the organization has managed to narrow down where the missing agents are, but there’s a decent margin of error.<\/p>\n

The inexperienced agent is sent after them because none of the other agents are willing to make the trip.\u00a0 They warn him that things might not go as well as he hopes.\u00a0 He should have listened.<\/p>\n

Time travel produces nausea and illness, especially if you aren’t used to it.\u00a0 The farther back you go, the worse the symptoms.\u00a0 He has some pretty bad symptoms.<\/p>\n

The result is that he ends up in a temple where the priestess is one of the agents he’s looking for.\u00a0 Remember that margin of error?\u00a0 The missing agents have been in Egypt for years, long enough to learn the language and establish identities for themselves.<\/p>\n

They aren’t exactly eager to go back.<\/p>\n

The way time travel works in this story, a portal will open exactly one month after the agent arrives.\u00a0 He has to be at his arrival point when that happens or spend the rest of his life in ancient Egypt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The rest of the story concerns the tension between the agents who were stranded and their would-be rescuer and between the stranded agents themselves.\u00a0 This is where the story rises above the typical time travel tale.\u00a0 Silverberg does an excellent job of showing the inner conflict of the two agents who have been stranded.\u00a0 They’re quite a bit older and have built lives for themselves.\u00a0 Do they really want to go back and give up their wealth and privilege?\u00a0 On the other hand, they are getting older.\u00a0 Medical treatment in the ancient world can only do so much to counter the effects of aging.\u00a0 And what about the people they used to know?\u00a0 Would they want to see them again and find out what’s been going on?<\/p>\n

If written by a lesser writer, the tension described would seem like inconsistencies of character.\u00a0 But this is Silverberg we’re talking about.\u00a0 In his hands, the complexities of his characters are deftly handled.<\/p>\n

I didn’t much care for the resolution of the story.\u00a0 I would have written it a little differently.\u00a0 But I’m not Silverberg.\u00a0 I agree with Randy that this is an excellent time travel story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Thebes of the Hundred Gates” Most recently reprinted in Hot Times in Magma City ebook $2.99 In the comments to my previous post, Randy suggested that “Thebes of the Hundred Gates” was one Robert Silverberg’s best time travel stories.\u00a0 I hadn’t read it, but I did have a copy on one of my ereaders. So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[666],"tags":[857,781],"class_list":["post-1423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-time-travel","tag-robert-silverberg","tag-time-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-mX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1428,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions\/1428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}