#173 Hanging by a thread: the Society of Time trilogy (1962) by John Brunner

Originally published in 1962, John Brunner's Society of Time stories are set in an alternate Britain in the 1980s. It is 400 hundred years since the Spanish Armada was not defeated, and the Catholicism of the Spanish Empire rules much of the world. The Empire possesses the gift of time travel, though only a new pope is given the ultimate privilege of going back to witness the life of Jesus Christ...

These fantastic stories follow the adventures of Don Miguel Navarro, an agent of the Society of Time tasked with protecting the integrity of the timeline. They are fine examples of Brunner's hugely entertaining and thought-provoking early work.

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Transcript

Before he made history as the first British winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel with the massive, challenging Stand on Zanzibar (1968), John Brunner (1934 - 1995) was a prolific writer of shorter tales. Some of his strongest work can be found in his contributions to British SF magazines, some of which were repackaged for book publication in the United States. So it is with the wonderful Society of Time trilogy, three short novellas set in a world in which the Spanish Armada was victorious over the English fleet in 1588.

First collected under the title Times Without Number, these stories are not just examples of alternate history. They are also time travel tales with a unique flavour, in which time machines are the closely guarded secret of the Catholic Church and a Society of Time uses them to explore and document historical events first-hand. The trilogy follows Don Miguel Navarro, a young and earnest Licentiate of the Society who gains chilling insight into the mechanics of travel in time, and is charged with protecting the very existence of his timeline and everything in it.

Deft, thrilling, and economical, the Society of Time stories are an important and under-recognised part of John Brunner’s career. Returned to print in 2020, the trilogy is a thoroughly recommended read, a set of exciting SF adventures which in their imaginings about what time travel would mean become surprisingly moving.

The stories and their publication history

After the completion of his national service with the Royal Air Force in 1955, Brunner threw himself into writing science fiction. He published numerous stories in New Worlds and Science Fantasy, two UK magazines edited by John Carnell (1912 - 1972), a critical figure in the history of UK SF. As Mike Ashley has written, "when Carnell added a third title, Science Fiction Adventures, in 1958, it allowed Brunner the scope to develop longer stories and series". The Society of Time stories were a key example, published in three consecutive issues of Science Fiction Adventures in the summer of 1962. The stories are titled “Spoil of Yesterday”, “The Word Not Written”, and “The Fullness of Time”. This was the beginning of a protracted publication history.

In the US, the stories were promptly collected as Times Without Number in October 1962, one half of Ace Double F-161. However the stories were abridged to fit this format, and Brunner revised them for a 1969 volume under the same title also published by Ace. He expanded the stories again for another edition in 1974. All this means that there are four versions of the stories. In 2020 the original, unmodified stories were finally published in book form by the British Library, overseen by Mike Ashley and under the title The Society of Time. This edition also includes "The Analysts" (1961) and "Father of Lies" (1962), two other Brunner stories first published in Science Fantasy.

Tampering with yesterday

The trilogy opens in 1988. It is 400 years since the victory of the Armada and the Spanish Empire is the world’s preeminent power. Because Spain itself was lost in the course of another war with the Muslim world, Spanish-controlled Britain is the centre of political power. Due to the influence of the Catholic Church and the relative peace of recent centuries, technological development has long since stagnated. The one exception is time travel, made possible by apparatus - more alchemical than scientific - developed in the late 19th century by the Italian inventor Borromeo. The Empire entrusts time travel, which it regards as a precious gift from God, to the elite Society of Time.

The first story, “Spoil of Yesterday”, introduces Don Miguel Navarro as he attends a tiresome high society party in Jorque, which in our world is known as York. His boredom is alleviated when he discovers that his host, foolish wealthy widow Catalina di Jorque, possesses a magnificent Aztec mask which has been illegally imported from the past and threatens to change history. 

In “The Word Not Written”, Don Miguel is in Londres - or London - for a lavish New Year celebration. When a disaster strikes, one caused by reckless tampering with the past, the Society of Time must scramble to somehow rectify the situation. Lastly, in the excellent finale “The Fullness of Time”, Don Miguel is enjoying a well-deserved holiday in California, which is run by Native Americans allied to the Empire. The discovery of an object which does not belong implies a breach of the Treaty of Prague, which governs time travel. Don Miguel finds that his entire reality is hanging by a thread…

Honing his skills

The Society of Time stories are wonderful. At the time they were written, Brunner was rapidly developing his skills. He was working intensely, sharpening his ability to craft adventure stories which were fast-paced and entertaining, while still being thought-provoking. Certain aspects of their construction stand out clearly, especially their tight and regular structure. Each story consists of seven chapters, further divided into short episodes of around one or two pages each. Typically, these brief scenes end with a suspenseful stinger, which has the reader hurrying on to the next. 

Brunner’s economical approach allows him to summon up what seems like a fully-developed fictional world with great speed and efficiency. Keith Roberts would later showcase his own alternate history of a Catholic Britain with Pavane (1968). In its own way, Brunner’s propulsive style is every bit as impressive as Roberts’ more languid, descriptive ethos. As Jo Walton wrote of the stories in 2010, if Brunner’s book “had been written today it would be at least twice as long, and it wouldn’t be any better for it.”

The mechanics of time

One of the most distinctive aspects of the stories is their approach to time travel. The time apparatus invented by Borromeo consists only of a set of bars made of iron and silver, which are arranged in a precise way. This is a far cry from the sophisticated machine we might imagine, and situates the stories quite close to fantasy. Brunner describes the Treaty of Prague, which restricts time travel to the Empire and its rival power, the Confederacy. Don Miguel sees this treaty as “the most fragile bulwark ever interposed between man and the forces of primal chaos.”

The key thread which persists through the stories is Don Miguel’s growing and increasingly disturbing knowledge of the mechanics of time. Through discussions with the kindly recurring character Father Ramon, it dawns on Don Miguel that his timeline is incredibly vulnerable. If the Treaty of Prague is defied, he envisions “whole areas of unrealised history being swept into some unimaginable vacuum, into the formlessness of absolute not-being.” This is a chilling interpretation of time travel - time is no plaything, but a weapon of mass destruction on an incomprehensible scale. 

The imperfect efforts to regulate time travel make a contrast with some other time travel tales, especially Robert Silverberg’s lurid Up The Line (1969), in which Jesus’ crucifixion at Golgotha is crowded by thousands of people, most of them gawking time-tourists. 

The end of everything

The final story of the trilogy, “The Fullness of Time”, is easily the best. SF critic Rich Horton described it as the piece which takes the series from “pretty good” to “really good”. It represents the culmination of Don Miguel’s story, and of his unsettling learnings about the mechanics of time travel. It has an extremely powerful and moving ending which Horton called “purely brilliant”. Seemingly inevitable and yet somehow surprising, the conclusion of “The Fullness of Time” brings the trilogy to a perfect end.

Brunner’s reputation is dominated by his tract novels and especially Stand on Zanzibar. This is understandable, and that extraordinary book is well known among fans of classic SF for good reasons. But Brunner’s earlier work should not be neglected, and sadly almost all of it is long out of print - and was so even at the time of the writer’s untimely death in 1995. The Society of Time series is a set of beautifully deft and economical adventures, with an inviting warmth and likeable characters. It is a fine showcase for Brunner’s abilities which deserves a wider readership. In their speculations about time, they may even make us think about how contingent, fragile, and precious our existence is.