The Defiant Agents

About This Book

Published in 1962, The Defiant Agents is a science fiction novel by Andre Norton (1912–2005) and the third book in her Time Traders series. In a Cold War escalated into space, the United States and Soviet Union are racing to colonize distant planets using volunteers whose ancestral memories have been activated by alien technology. The American contingent — all Apache — are sent to the planet Topaz under Operation Cochise, where they crash-land and find themselves reliving the warrior culture of their ancestors.

Travis Fox, an Apache descendant introduced in Galactic Derelict, must navigate between his modern training and the powerful ancestral memories now flooding his mind, all while confronting Soviet colonists who have been similarly regressed to the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan. Norton's respectful treatment of Apache culture and her interest in how identity persists across generations give the novel more depth than typical Cold War space opera. Andre Norton published over 130 novels and was the first woman inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. The Defiant Agents is in the public domain and freely available through Project Gutenberg.

Excerpt

No windows broke any of the four plain walls of the office; there was no focus of outer-world sunlight on the desk there.— Opening of The Defiant Agents

What Critics Say

Third and best in the space-and-time-travel series— New York Herald Tribune

Fine heroic narrative, imaginative, inventive, told with the compelling pulse of the true storyteller— New York Herald Tribune

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