Time travel is one of the most– if not the most – science-fictional tropes of all time. Thanks mainly to good ol’ H. G. Wells, the idea of travelling through time and changing events has been used in thousands of books over the past hundred or so years.
With that in mind you might think there’s little left to tell using the trope. And to some extent I too thought that it’s an idea been done already, there’s little left to tell.
But then I was given The Ministry of Time to review – a book that takes all those ideas but then gives them a 21st century spin.
The plot’s not too out-there. Imagine that there’s a secret British organisation run by MI5 who have, as an experiment, picked up a number of people from various time periods, referred to as ‘expats’, that were about to die, and bring them to the present. On their arrival and as part of an experiment, the expats are given an acclimatisation programme which means that for a year they co-habit with a ‘Bridge’– a handler who is there to help them settle in, adjust and hopefully eventually assimilate into today’s world.
This story is told from the perspective of a biracial British-Cambodian translator who is given the chance to participate in an exciting new Government project by being the handler for Commander Graham Gore, a sailor who in real life dies on the fateful Franklin expedition to the North Pole in 1847. (The Afterword explains that Gore was a real person and the details of his life in the book that are used in this story.) Other expats include Anne Spencer from Robespierre’s Paris in 1793, a lieutenant Thomas Cardingham from the Battle of Naseby in 1645, Arthur Reginald-Smythe, an army captain from the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and Maggie Kemble from the Great Plague in 1665, although the focus is mainly on Gore and our narrator.
This may all sound rather grim and doom-laden, depressing or at least heavy with message, but it isn’t. Bradley manages to suffuse the drama with humour in a way that it balances out nicely. The narrator has that modern level of snark that I think readers will appreciate. I was pleased that this was so good – I’ve not read such a delicate balance since first reading Connie Willis or Jodi Taylor. What The Ministry of Time does is take these ideas and give them a modern perspective that involves PTSD, mental health, climate change, changing sexual habits and gender fluidity.
The result is surprisingly good – funny, scary and engaging. Obviously, there are the amusing comedy of errors caused by the refugees’ adjusting to the 21st century – the first sighting of an aeroplane, or their understanding of movies, or their experiences of Powerpoint, Tik Tok and Tinder, but at the same time the author also manages as well to discuss more serious issues – of the changes in attitudes towards colonialism, race and sexuality and of changes in general society whilst simultaneously managing to negotiate a contactless economy and a gender-fluid culture.
Of course, there’s a thriller aspect to create tension – as the book progresses and we get to know more about the characters, the concern over what happens to the experimental refugees once the experiment is over increases, not to mention that there’s all those activities by secretive paper-pushing bureaucrats in the background that come to a head by the end of the novel.
There is also romance – perhaps inevitable, although much of the tension in the book is created by the determination for it not to happen before bowing to the inevitable. Readers may enjoy this aspect, although for those less, erm – enamoured, it may be a dealbreaker. (Having said that, if you’ve got to that part of the book without expecting that something is going to happen… I would have thought you would have bailed before!)
The Ministry of Time may not use the newest science-fictional ideas, but it uses well-known tropes to their advantage. The reader doesn’t need detail on how these things work, the reader has read The Time Machine or The Time Traveller’s Wife or seen Doctor Who to not have to worry about explaining too many of the details.
The only minor issue I really had with the book was the cliffhanger ending, which may make some readers groan, whilst others will want to continue the story as soon as possible.
At the end I was reminded of Jodi Taylor’s St. Mary Chronicles series, which I love, and I hope that when I say that The Ministry of Time is as good as those, that is high praise indeed. The Ministry of Time is an astonishing debut novel, a great page-turner with engaging humour and characters you get to care about. I suspect that this will be the major genre hit of the Summer.
THE MINISTRY OF TIME by Kaliane Bradley
Published by Sceptre, May 2024
368 pages
ISBN: 978 1399 726 344
Review by Mark Yon
