The Wall of Years

by Andrew M. Stephenson

TIME THIEF!

As the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred, later known to history as "the Great," prepared to battle the invading Danes, he welcomed two wandering Arabs to his court. He had no way of knowing their mission—or that they had "wandered" 1700 years to reach him.

Now a 26th-century time-traveler was at large in 9th-century England, intent on altering history and destroying the very fabric of the future. His pursuers had no choice but to destroy him first—if they could find him... and if they could keep themselves from being burned as witches or heretics at the stake!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy

431 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephenson is one of those sf authors who seems to have produced one (or maybe two) superior novels and was never heard of again. (This is his second; his first was Nightwatch, which I’ve never been able to locate.) In any case, I’m a sucker for time travel and alternate history plots, and this beautifully constructed and highly complex yarn has both. Jerlan Nilssen is second-in-charge of the bubble-protected City, a refuge for the extremely few who escaped the collapse of our world by time storm. The elect fled the early 21st century for the 26th, which is a desolate and ruined place, and have survived by raiding parallel lines for their resources. But the commissariat that was responsible for the original disaster was insufficiently liquidated and its ex-director has escaped to England in the 9th century, a few years before Alfred of Wessex beats the Danes at the Battle of Edington. Okay, this is a difficult book to explain. I can only say that (1) the characters are fully realized, in great depth; and (2) the milieu of Anglo-Saxon England is depicted with great accuracy (this is a period I happen to know a lot about) and in amazing detail, both politically and socially. A difficult book to find, but worth the effort.

[Ria · Rating 5 out of 5]

A VERY clever story, when i started this i thought it was just going to be a straight classic sci fi story but it turned out to be so much more.
Jerlan Nilssen is a resident of a futuristic city that makes frequent use of time travel but things go wrong when agents go missing so Jerlan is sent back in time to the court of King Alfred to investigate and is caught up in the war against the Danes, offset against the turbulent background he has landed in, he is up against an enemy agent already in this time period who is unknown to Jerlan and his time travel companion Yaer who is withholding more than he is revealing to Jerlan.
Can Jerlan and Yaer and their mysterious mute female companion Morwena actually track down and unmask the agent and find out his purpose and stop him before he destroys the future?
Exciting, different and a great blend of history and sci fi mixed together in a skillful way.
Definitely worth reading.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Used to know Andrew decades ago and decided to re-read TWOY sorting thru my library. A good decision. It's not a classical kind of time-travel story - or even a spacetime-travel story, or a parallel-worlds travelogue. It's a story about cultures and the people embedded within them and how exposure to others teaches them more about themselves. If you're fascinated by early history, then you'll enjoy it. And King Alfred doesn't burn the cakes once!

[Lee Schlesinger · Rating 2 out of 5]

A time travel novel I hadn't heard of? Bring it on! Unfortunately, while some of the descriptions of settings are quite beautiful, the premise and the plot are murky. Some of the peripheral characters are well drawn, but the main ones are less so.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, first time travel to make serious science sense to me, because it's more about more between realms... with this trip being the exception.

[Robert-Henrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got lost in the different time lines when I was 16. Picked it up again when I was 32... took some persistence and concentration but it truly is a fantastic novel.