Seven out of time

The Classic SF of Romance and Peril in the Far Future! When he is hired to investigate the disappearance of Evelyn Rand, young attorney John March is faced with baffling mystery. It is a disappearance intimately bound up with a strange black amulet, in the shape of a snake; and with a queer little man who seems to appear out of nowhere, discusses Evelyn Rand with John March, and disappears — all between the chiming of two bell notes! The mystery deepens when March, who is falling in love with the unseen, elusive Evelyn, discovers an ancient book called “The Vanished”, which deals with “a scant few of those who from the earliest dawn of history have vanished quietly from among the living yet are not numbered among the dead. Like so many whispering whorls of dust they went out of space and out of time ” Among those vanishings: Elijah, Prophet of ancient Israel. King Arthur of Camelot, John Orth, Archduke of Tuscany, Francois Villon, thief, lover and poet, the Lost Dauphin, and how many unrecorded others? Then in a strange old house March encounters Achronos Astaris, a man who seems more than human, who offers March a choice: fulfill his mission and follow Evelyn Rand to wherever she is — or turn back and give up his search. John March’s decision sends him across great gulfs of space and time, to a distant era when humanity has evolved beyond crime and war and want. But also beyond emotion and art and joy. There March finds Evelyn, and those others “Vanished” from history whose names have been merely legends to him before. He discovers love, and also deadly danger from the super-humanity of this future world, who are sacrificing the little band of ancient humans one-by-one infatal experiments whose purpose none of the band understand. Seven Out of Time is a thrilling tale of romance and high-adventure, with deep meaning and resonance for our own time. Its strangely assorted characters, King Arthur, Elijah, the Dauphin, Villon, and the rest are skillfully portrayed. Arthur Leo Zagat brought to the writing of Seven Out of Time a galvanic imagination, a smooth skill of expression and the depth of philosophic reflection readers look for in a science fiction story. No wonder The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction hails Seven Out of Time as “Zagut’s best novel,” a tale of “seven humans studied by people of the future to rediscover the value of emotions.”