Books like Wraiths of Time

When I was in college, I was a hardcore sci-fi and fantasy reader. There was a bookstore in town about a ten minute walk or so from my dorm and I went there a lot with my roommate Judy. We could usually be found in the back, sitting on the floor pulling out paperback novels and carefully selecting what we would spend our hard-earned work study cash on. The front of the shop sold pipes and tobacco, so turning the pages of our books released a whiff of tobacco. Andre Norton is one of the authors I read in those days and this book, Wraiths of Time, is probably one of the books I bought from my favorite used bookstore but never got around to reading. Maybe if I had read it at the impressionable age of 19, I would have enjoyed it. The adult me found the story cringe-inducing and somewhat incomprehensible.Tallahassee Mitford is an archaeologist at (as far as I can tell) an unnamed museum. She is called in to verify an unusual artifact of possible African-Egyptian origin. It is a small wooden box decorated with ivory and gold inlays. Although she does provide some information, she tells the owner that a specialist at the museum should also examine the artifact. She and an FBI agent (who also happens to be her cousin), take the box back to the museum and lock it in her supervisor’s safe. While doing so, they have a run-in with another scholar at the museum who definitely has a problem with Tallahassee, either because she is black or because she is a woman (or both). Later, Tallahassee receives an urgent call from her supervisor to return to the museum. Someone had broken into his office, clearly looking for something of value. Dr. Carey, the unpleasant scholar, is also in Dr. Greenley’s office. They take the mysterious artifact out of the safe to examine it, but Dr. Carey pushes Tallahassee and Dr. Greenley aside to open the box. When he does so, he releases some kind of powerful force that takes over Tallahassee’s body and forces her to seize the ankh from the box and another artifact from a secure case in another office. After she has both items in her possession, she loses consciousness and wakes up in the past—in a Nubian kingdom called Meroë.Soooo….nothing about the plot made any sense to me. The author does a terrible job of explaining the political situation of the time and what exactly one group (the one Tallahassee becomes a part of) is fighting the other group for. It seems to me it comes down to groups of other areas (often called “the barbarians”) are trying to seize control of this woman-controlled empire by appealing to disaffected and power-hungry members of the empire. The “barbarians” are turning these people away from their traditional gods/goddesses and customs. A mysterious stranger from another world/time, Khasti, uses technology they don’t have to subdue them and take Tallahassee aka Ashake, a warrior princess, hostage. These people are a strange combination of advanced technology (they have something like airplanes and a translation device), but otherwise they seem to operate like an ancient Egyptian civilization. Some people have a magical force akin to telepathy and telekinesis called the Talent, but not everyone. Also, you must also be of the Blood (pure royalty?) in order to possess the Talent…Tallahassee, of course, is not of the “Blood,” but because she has Ashake’s memories and looks like her, she has the Talent as well. A lot of characters are introduced along with their titles and frankly, I just didn’t care enough to keep them straight. There are long sections of conversation about all the various parties involved and again, it was so convoluted and uninteresting I began skimming it. I essentially finished the book just to find out what happens. I’m not sure it was worth the effort. The time wraiths of the book’s title are sort of like displaced time ghosts and while they may make for a jazzy title, they don’t seem to be worthy of much attention. The book was written in the 1970s and you can definitely tell. Because this is a matriarchal society/empire, not all the men are happy about it and of course, those are the men who are fighting to overthrow it. Dr. Carey, Khasti, some others, are such outright misogynists and so obvious in their loathing of powerful women, that I couldn’t take them seriously. They are cartoon villains. Even though I believe the author had a feminist message with the book, she continually described Tallahassee as the “girl.” It was a childish way of referring to her heroine who is an educated woman and later, a warrior princess who controls magical objects of power. Also, this book is supposedly described as science fiction, but I didn’t see much of that genre in the book. However, there are many elements of the fantastical, so I’m categorizing it as magic/fantasy.This entire book is a mess. My reaction while reading it: ??!!!. My reaction upon finishing it: ??!!!%%$@**% what the fuck was that??? Maybe someone else will enjoy the weird incomprehensible mess of Wraiths of Time, but I did not.