Times Three

Dust jacket illustration by John Picacio.

An omnibus edition.

In Times Three, Science Fiction Grand Master Robert Silverberg presents a trio of ingenious variations on one of science fiction’s most durable themes: time travel. These three novels, all of them prime Silverberg, approach that subject from a dizzying variety of perspectives. The result is a remarkable display of ingenuity, erudition, and sheer narrative power.

In Hawksbill Station, political prisoners from the 21st century are sent on a one-way journey to the late Cambrian era — a half billion years in the past. Their struggle to survive the privations of this bleak, almost lifeless world forms the centerpiece of a deeply affecting account of loss, exile, and repression.

Up the Line, by contrast, is a comic/erotic romp featuring Judson Daniel Elliott III, Time Courier and tour guide to the wonders of the past. While on a routine assignment in ancient Byzantium, Jud unexpectedly encounters his true Heart’s Desire, and his well-ordered life slides inexorably into chaos.

In Project Pendulum, identical twins Eric and Sean Gabrielson become the primary participants in the very first experiment in time travel. From a fixed point in time, they move by equidistant, steadily increasing arcs toward both the remote past and the unimaginable future. Their alternating viewpoints constitute a dazzling portrait of the wonders — and terrors — of a constantly evolving universe.

Filled with moments of intimacy, epic grandeur, and mind-bending temporal paradox, these novels provide entertainment and intellectual excitement on virtually every page, offering further proof, if any were needed, of Robert Silverberg’s genuine — and enduring — importance.