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A Tale of Paradox and Coincidence: Invasion From 2500 by “Norman Edwards”
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A Tale of Paradox and Coincidence: Invasion From 2500 by “Norman Edwards”
Can our heroes foil an invasion based on a classic time travel paradox?
By Alan Brown
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Published on September 16, 2025
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In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
Today I’m looking at a rather short and straightforward book about a war with time travelers: Invasion from 2500, a book that was new to me. In my annual search for adventures stories that make for good summer reading, I found it in my favorite used bookstore a few weeks ago, along with City at World’s End by Edmond Hamilton, which I covered in my last review. The book appears to be a paperback original, published in 1964 with a cover price of forty cents by an outfit named Monarch Books, a publisher I didn’t remember encountering before. And I hadn’t heard of the author of this novel, Norman Edwards, either. But the book had interesting cover art by Ralph Brillhart, showing futuristic military vehicles pouring out of a gold energy ring, which looked promising. And there was a dedication on the title page that said, “To Terry Carr and Ted White, who made this book possible.” I’d heard of those two, and if they were behind this Norman Edwards guy, he must be a decent writer.
Imagine my surprise when I visited the online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, and found that the dedication was an in-joke, because Norman Edwards turns out to be a pseudonym used by Carr and White—used only once, when they wrote this book. I could not, however, find any reason why the two of them decided to use this pen name, only to quickly abandon it.
About the Authors
Terry Carr (1937-1987) was an American science fiction fan, author, and editor. He started his writing career in fan publications. The bulk of his fiction output consisted of shorter works. He was more widely known as an editor, working with Donald Wollheim at Ace Books from 1964 to 1971, where in addition to the “Ace Special” novel series, they produced an influential annual anthology series entitled “World’s Best Science Fiction.” He left Ace Books and produced his own anthology series, “The Best Science Fiction of the Year,” which ran from 1972 to 1987. He also edited the “Universe” anthology series, and produced a wide variety of other anthologies. In the 1980s, he returned to Ace, and edited a new “Ace Specials” series that published a number of influential novels, including Neuromancer by William Gibson. He won four Hugo Awards during his career, one for Best Fanzine, one for Best Fan Writer, and the last two for Best Editor.
Ted White (born 1938) is an American science fiction author, editor, fan, and critic. His earliest work appeared in fanzines, and he won a Best Fan Writer Hugo Award in 1968. He wrote over a dozen science fiction novels, with a number of them being collaborations. He was an assistant editor of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for five years in the 1960s, and then edited Amazing Stories and Fantastic magazines. He later worked at Heavy Metal and Stargate magazines. I have previously reviewed his work in this column, looking at his Captain America novel, The Great Gold Steal.
Time Waits for No Man
I have reviewed a number of books that featured time travel over the years, with characters going forward in time, back in time, and even sidewise in time (trips to alternate worlds where history turned out differently). The always-useful online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has an excellent article on the various types of time travel stories. Most of the books I’ve looked at, however, sidestep the issue of travelers from the future affecting the time from which they departed, something addressed in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction’s article on time paradoxes. And Invasion from 2500 leans into the idea of a time paradox as vigorously as any time travel book I’ve ever read. It portrays the invaders as knowing how to proceed in their attack, because for them, the war is a matter of history. They see their success as inevitable. Unless of course, this loop in causality is unstable, and the people in the present can find a way to disrupt the process…
Invasion from 2500
Jack Eskridge, an executive from a Chicago-based defense contractor, is driving to the South Dakota ranch of Senator Bates. This is not their first meeting, as during the Korean War, the two served in the Marines together, Bates as a lieutenant and Jack as a sergeant. Suddenly, there is a hole in Jack’s windshield, and he realizes someone is shooting at him. It is the senator’s beautiful daughter, Linda, who was out plinking with a .22, and with the road to their ranch usually empty, was not being too careful where she aimed. But this awkward meeting turns fortuitous, as the two of them hit it off, and before Jack leaves, they are on their way to being engaged.
As Jack drives back toward Chicago, though, he encounters a strange sight. He sees a large glowing arch and nearly runs off the road in surprise. He gets out to get a better look, and sees a river of torpedo-like tanks, and men in strange suits pouring out of the arch, which appears to be a doorway to another world. Jack is fired at by a laser, goes to ground, crawls back to his car, and heads out at a high rate of speed. Jack can’t imagine where these strange invaders are coming from (he obviously hasn’t had the opportunity to read the title of the book). He stops for gas to find that the invaders are appearing in multiple locations, and the whole country is on edge. He stops to pick up a hitchhiker, a Black man named Carl Brandon (a name that Carr had employed before, and that might be familiar to some readers). But unfortunately for them, the invaders arrive and release a gas that doesn’t need to be breathed to take effect; as soon as it touches them, they fall unconscious.
Jack awakens in a work camp, sees an invader without a suit for the first time, and realizes they are human. In addition to lasers, they have weapons that can kill people by overloading their nervous systems. Jack is given work papers, and assigned to a crew by an officer and soldiers who are bureaucratic to a fault. Jack meets a guy named Monroe, who is determined to escape. Monroe is zapped, but Jack makes it out of the camp.
The next chapter has a different feel from the preceding narrative (I suspect the chapter was written by a different co-author than previous chapters). Jack finds a house, asks for a meal and shelter, and his request is accepted. But when he sits down for dinner with the man and his family, it is an awkward affair. It turns out the man is a hard-core, communist-hating conservative, who looks at the invasion as an opportunity to remake the country into something more to his liking, and is enthusiastically collaborating with the invaders. He looks forward to them replacing our current government with something more efficient, and helping us rid the world of foreign adversaries like the Russians and Chinese. Jack is uneasy, and sleeps with his knife under his pillow—which comes in handy when his host sneaks into the room to kill him. But it is Jack that does the killing, something the newly widowed wife reacts to without much sorrow, making me wonder if she had been the victim of some sort of abuse. The chapter stands out from the rest of the book because of its rather pointed social commentary.
Jack makes his way to Chicago via Duluth, using a water route to avoid roadblocks. When he arrives, he finds much of Chicago is in rubble, and the Loop roadway in ruins. He tries to phone a friend, but the phones are bugged, and he is nearly captured. He finds out where the invaders have their local headquarters, and heads there (although what he thinks he might accomplish is beyond me). But (in one of those coincidences most writing guides warn authors to avoid), Jack arrives just in time to see Senator Bates and his beloved Linda arrive as prisoners. And then Jack is captured by a group of insurgents (in another improbable coincidence, led by an old friend), who are there to rescue the senator, but they only succeed in rescuing Linda. Thus, Jack and Linda find themselves becoming members of the Underground.
This resistance organization has been reduced to lurking in tunnels under the surface of Chicago. And their efforts are further complicated by the Jackals street gang, which fights both the invaders and the resistance. Jack and another man sneak into the invader headquarters, only to find its occupants expecting them. They are taken to the invader leader, who explains that The Conquest is preordained to happen in a certain way, as chronicled in The Book of Days, which guides the invaders’ every action. As his villainous monologue continues, he reveals that the invaders know what will happen because they are from the future. And then, because their book says so, the invaders release Jack and his friend to tell others that their defeat is inevitable. The invasion is based on a classic time travel paradox.
Jack is not willing to accept the inevitable, so he overpowers their escort, Ellick Twenty-three (I am so glad numbers for names went out of style decades ago), and they steal one of the enemy torpedo tanks. They encounter an invader officer, and try to bluff their way past him, but coincidentally (again with the coincidences), he is the same officer who checked Jack in at the work camp, Lieutenant Gann-Fourteen. He recaptures them, and has them drive him back to Chicago. Fortunately, when they arrive, the Jackals attack, which gives Jack a chance to escape back to the Underground. Jack sees another man being possessive toward his beloved Linda. He tries to tell the others about the invaders being from the future, but no one believes him. When they decide to crash a kamikaze plane into invader headquarters, the despondent Jack (who became despondent very quickly, but I guess the plot required it), volunteers to fly the plane. But then the invaders attack again, destroy the plane, capture Linda, and take her back to their headquarters. Jack, who finds out that she loves him after all, sets out to rescue her.
Jack sneaks into the enemy headquarters, to find Linda (coincidentally) in the hands of the seemingly ubiquitous Lieutenant Gann-Fourteen. Jack is captured yet again. But there is a servant in the quarters (coincidentally, it’s Carl Brandon, the Black man captured with Jack way back in the beginning of the book), who loosens Jack’s bonds. Jack escapes with Linda and a copy of The Book of Days. Now that the Underground has the full story of the invasion, they cook up a wild plan. They decide the time loop is not stable (could they have been inspired by Chicago’s now-ruined Loop?), and think that destroying the time gate might disrupt the loop and restore time to its original condition. Jack volunteers to bomb the portal (where he first spotted the invaders in South Dakota), and Linda goes with him, refusing to be separated from him again. Will it be possible to destroy the paradox along with the portal? Only time will tell…
Final Thoughts
I can’t say that I would recommend Invasion from 2500 to another reader without reservations. The book is indeed a briskly paced adventure story, full of action, battles, reversals of fortune, and misunderstood lovers, but the writing style is uneven, and it relies far too heavily on the type of coincidence an author should only use sparingly, if at all. It makes me wonder if the authors—who, from the exuberance of the narrative, seem to have had fun writing the book—also realized its weaknesses, and decided to use a pen name. The book certainly doesn’t reflect the quality of the work those authors produced later in their careers. But it was a fun read, and as a thin volume, had the advantage of being short enough to end before I grew tired of it.
And now I turn the floor over to you: If you have read Invasion from 2500, or know anything about the history of its creation, I would enjoy hearing from you.[end-mark]
The post A Tale of Paradox and Coincidence: <i>Invasion From 2500</i> by “Norman Edwards” appeared first on Reactor.
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