[doug1937]

I read this in the 70s when I was a kid...it was a paperback about some kind of research station established on prehistoric Earth, back before there was any animal life at all. The planet seemed to contain only water, air, and land. Perhaps the oceans held life, but there was nothing on the land yet.

Apparently modern/future mankind had developed time travel and used it do establish the research base on primitive Earth.

That's all I can remember, unfortunately. I loved it enough to give my copy to a teacher of mine for him to read. He never gave it back, though, and the jerk probably never even read it. (lol)

Any help? Thanks!

--Doug

[ArthurFrayn]

It sounds a bit like Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg. But that's about a penal colony in earth's early past, not a research station.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425036790/qid=1148862255/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-2472937-9155158?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[Priestvyrce]

I read this in the 70s when I was a kid...it was a paperback about some kind of research station established on prehistoric Earth, back before there was any animal life at all. The planet seemed to contain only water, air, and land. Perhaps the oceans held life, but there was nothing on the land yet.

Apparently modern/future mankind had developed time travel and used it do establish the research base on primitive Earth.

That's all I can remember, unfortunately. I loved it enough to give my copy to a teacher of mine for him to read. He never gave it back, though, and the jerk probably never even read it. (lol)

Any help? Thanks!

--Doug

Sounds like Julian May's The Many Colored Land saga.

Check out this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_May

[doug1937]

Hawksbill Station sounds like it might be the story. The cover seems familiar, though the my meory of the cover image is fuzzy. I'm not sure I remember enough of the book to recognize it even if I read Hawksbill Station. Sigh.

Now, if my teacher was a poly-sci teacher, that would lend much credence to the possibility.

I wish I could remember what he taught (lol).

Thanks!

[ArthurFrayn]

There are two versions of the novel. The extended version is the one with the political backstory. You may have read the version without that stuff.

The desolate landscape is populated only by the prisoners, and trilobytes.