Critical Response
The story was selected for Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 15 (1953) (DAW books, 1986) and for The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1954 (Fredrick Fell, 1954), as well as for The NESFA Core Reading List of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Rich Horton wrote, "One of Alfred Bester's glorious run of 50s stories is 'Time is the Traitor', a madly odd story of obsessive love." Reviewing The Dark Side of the Earth, Joachim Boaz wrote, "Bester is at his best when he blends his satirical/comedic side with a fascinating concept — for example, an inventive theory of time travel in 'The Man Who Murdered Mohammed' — or a gritty strain of film noir-esque action adjoined smartly to the sci-fi premise ('Time is the Traitor')." Fiona Kelleghan wrote, "The id often wins in Bester's stories, imprisoning the conscious mind with obsessions. Characters may be tormented by flashbacks, or compelled to repeat the same actions over and over, as is John Strapp—whose name suggests both punishment and restraint—in 'Time is the Traitor'." Arthur D. Hlavaty, a former editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction, has written, "Believing that people are brutal and devouring ids under a thin veneer of civilization, Bester often saw human creativity as inextricably bound to that destructiveness. It is this union of the artist and the criminal that is often considered Bester's defining theme. John Stapp, in "Time Is the Traitor," developed a genius for business prediction after the same disaster that made him a serial killer, and his associates dare not fool with the latter for fear of destroying the former." Kirkus Reviews judged it to be "more style than substance."
Read more about this topic: Time Is The Traitor
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