Unintential travel back in time...

[tbates]

I remember reading a book back in the late 70s early 80s where the main character was an astronaut doing repairs while in a shuttle type craft, a near miss by a meteor (?) causes his ship to be separated from the mothership. He finds a habitable world and lands to discover a primitive people. He eventually climbs back into his ship, takes a pill that puts him in suspended animation for many centuries. He wakes, finds people have advanced but not to a technological level that he wants. He repeats with various adventures. At one point he wakes to find a beautiful woman, who turns out to be a religious offering. Eventually he wakes and is contacted by his mothership. Turns out the meteor (?) sent him back in time to his destination.

Can you help me out? I can't remember the name or the author.

Thanks

[prion]

Hi there,
This is almost certainly "The Alien Earth" by Scottish author Michael Elder (1931-2004). Let's see if I remember correctly: Astronaut in distant future has accident in space, is thrown back in time and lands his capsule on Earth (what the reader soon realizes), but in the distant past. First act: Hadrian's Wall, interaction with Roman soldiers and Picts; no help possible for damaged spaceship, swallows pill, wakes up in more or less present time (from a 1950s point of view). Scenario: England, a little bit dystopian, WW3 looms on the horizon. Spaceship buried beneath the ground, in some unused lot. Befriends lonesome spinster, realizes that technological level is still too low to repair spaceship. Swallows pill as air-raid sirens herald nuclear holocaust. Third act: wakes up in distant future, in underground society who worships him and his spaceship. Realizes that people speak his language. Falls in love with beautiful priest lady, finally coming home. End of story as correctly remembered by you.

Cheers from Innsbruck, Austria
prion

[steve12553]

Fascinating. Bought the book with a group of other paperbacks probably 35 years ago. I remember enough about the story to be fairly certain I read it and have been packing it with me and keeping it in bookcases through two marraiges and several moves over seven hundred miles. I can see it right now. I'll have to reread it.