Status Updates From The Horn of Time

Progress: a crew of Mayrai merchant sailors infiltrates a secret Beneghali project-a nuclear fusion powerplant. And destroys it. To preserve the status quo and allow the various cultures of the world to mature, and to prevent another ruinous War of Judgement.

Marius: Etienne Fourre confronts Jacques Reinach, the general who won the third world war, and tries to convince him to give up his emergency powers and let democracy have a chance to flourish once more.

The Man Who Came Early: a US soldier stationed in Iceland during the Cold War is struck by lightning and transported back a thousand years to before Leif Eiriksson’s voyage to Vinland.

The High Ones: a ship from Earth (escaping from the united world soviets) runs into a hostile alien race and tracks it back to its planet of origin. There they find the perfect collectivist race. A civilization millions of years old, with the people nothing more than mindless drones servicing computers like termites in a great colony.

A Man to My Wounding: after three world wars, the nations of Earth realize war is too dangerous. Disagreement must still be resolved, so “war” now consists of ritualized assassination of political leaders. But how long until somebody breaks these unspoken rules and goes after other targets?

The Horn of Time the Hunter: an expedition to an abandoned colony world has an unfortunate run-in with the locals: an aquatic humanoid species which turns out to be the descendants of the colonists.

"Progress": the only Maurai story in this book, which I had already read as part of the book "Maurai And Kith". That's why I don't understand this book being classified as part of the Maurai series... it's at the same time a very small part, and redundant

"Marius": a very near future (actually, given some historical facts mentioned, in our current -- 2023 -- past) about mutiny, a new "psychosocial" science, and the futility of war. Very dated, but despite that, surprisingly good.

"The Man Who Came Early": nice time-travel tale in the style of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", well written and entertaining.

"The High Ones": the only thing dumber than communism is anticommunism... this story reads like it was custom-ordered for the latter. My rating: 2 stars, and then only because of the +moderately well thought) twist at the end.

This is a hard-to find book but can be borrowed and read online here, for free: https://archive.org/embed/hornoftime0...

#1, "The Horn of Time the Hunter": read it already as part of "Maurai and Kith", and it was not great, so just skipped it here.

#2, "A Man of my Wounding": quaint little spy tale with a touch of 60s. Really dated but kinda interesting. 3 stars.