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Jul. 26th, 2025 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThere are some books that I can't read until I've achieved a pleasing balance of people whose taste I trust who think the book is good, and people whose taste I trust who think the book is bad. This allows me to cleanse my heart and form my own opinion in perfect neutrality.
As it happened I hit this balance for The Ministry of Time some time ago, but then I still needed to take a while longer to read it because, unfortunately, I was cursed with the knowledge that a.) it was Terror fanfiction and b.) it was on Obama's 2024 summer reading list and c.) I had chanced across the phrase "Obama says RPF is fine" on Tumblr and could not look at the front cover of Ministry of Time without bursting into laughter. And I wanted to come to this book with a clear heart! an open mind! so I waited!
.... and then all of that waiting was in fact completely fruitless, I was never going to be able to come to this book with a clear heart and an open mind, because, Terror fanfiction aside, I'm like 99% sure that it's either a direct response to Kage Baker's Company series or Kaliane Bradley is possessed by Kage Baker's ghost. Welcome back, Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax! The mere fact that you're so much less annoying this time around means I'm grading on a huge curve!
Okay, so the central two figures of The Ministry of Time are our narrator -- a second-gen Cambodian-English government translator whose mother fled the Khmer Rouge, and who has gotten shuffled into a top-secret government project working with 'unusual refugees' -- and Polar Explorer Graham Gore Of The Doomed Franklin Expedition, who has been rescued from his miserable death on the ice and brought forward into the future by the aforementioned top-secret government project.
The project also includes a small handful of other time rescuees -- Graham Gore is the only actual factual historical figure, and frankly I think the book would be better if he wasn't, but that's a sidenote. Each time refugee gets a 'bridge' to live with them and help them acclimate; in Gore's case, that's our narrator. The first seventy to eighty percent of the book consists mostly of loving, detailed, funny descriptions of the narrator hanging out with the time refugees as they adapt to The Near Future, interspersed with a.) dark hints about the sinister nature of the project and the narrator's increasing isolation within it that she repeatedly apologizes to us for ignoring, b.) dark hints about the oncoming climate apocalypse, c.) reflections the narrator's relationship to her family history, and d.) intermittent bits of Terror fanfiction about Gore's Time On the Ice.
I do not think this part of the book is necessarily well-structured or paced, but I did have a great time with it. Does it feel fanfictional? Oh, yes. The infrastructure that surrounds this hypothetical government project is almost entirely nonexistent in order to conveniently allow the narrator long, uninterrupted stretches to attempt to introduce Graham Gore to various forms of pop music;genarti described it cruelly but perhaps accurately as "Avengers tower fanfic". But I like the thematic link between time travelers and refugees, and I like the jokes, and I like the thing Bradley is doing -- the thing Kage Baker does, that I am extremely weak to -- where just when you're lulled into enjoying the humor of anachronism and the sense of humanity's universal connection you run smack into an unexpected, uncrossable cultural gap and bruise your nose.
Now, this only ever happens with Gore, because Gore is the only one of the refugees who is a real person in several ways. Margaret (the seventeenth-century lesbian) and Arthur (the gay WWI officer) are likeable gay sidekicks, and then there's a seventeenth-century asshole whose name I've forgotten. At one point Arthur tosses off a mention to his commanding officer 'Owen who wrote poetry' and I nearly threw the book across the room. Have the courage of your convictions, Kaliane Bradley! None of these coy little hints, either do the work to kidnap Wilfred Owen and Margery Kempe from history or don't! But Gore is obsessively drawn and theorized and researched, because, of course, the whole book is largely about Being Obsessed With Gore, about interrogating why the narrator, a not-quite-white-passing brown woman from an immigrant family, has built her whole life around this sexy British naval officer turned time refugee, symbolic of the crimes and failures of empire in six or seven different directions. A bit navel-gazey, perhaps, but as a person who spent five books begging Kage Baker to think at all critically about the horrible British naval officer turned time refugee she'd built, I'm just like, 'well, thank God!'
And, again, for the five people who care, I cannot emphasize enough just how similar Gore is to Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax and yet miraculously how much less annoying. They both have a code of ethics formed by the loyal and genuine belief in the good work done by the British Imperial project (thematically and historically reasonable); a shocking level of natural charisma combined with various secret agent skills at weaponry, deception, strategy and theft (extremely funny, extra funny with Gore because as far as I can tell what we know about him From History is 'normal officer! popular guy!'); and -- such a specific detail to have in common! -- Big Sexy Nose That The Man In Question Is Really Self-Conscious About.
And both of them, of course, end up struggling to navigate their positionality in the Imperial machine, between government operative-with-agency and experimental-subject-with-none.
So that's the first seventy to eighty percent of the book, and then, in the last twenty to thirty percent of the book, the dark hints finally resolve into the actual plot, in which it turns out that:
a.) the sinister people who have been showing up to possibly do crimes are far future refugees trying to prevent Britain's crimes in the future climate apocalypse
b.) the narrator's mean boss is in fact the dark future version of the narrator herself, who has been engineering the entire project to ensure The Future happens the way she wants
c.) in The Future, Gore and the narrator have a mediocre marriage, Gore has risen to head of the whole evil time travel government service, and the two of them are together responsible for Britain's future climate apocalypse crimes
d.) but in THIS timeline, things are different, because at a critical point the narrator told Gore about The Holocaust instead of 9/11 which means that now he's consumed with worry about crimes against humanity instead of being consumed with worry about protecting imperial interests from terrorism
On the one hand, the book is very interested in complicity and the different kinds of trauma that push displaced people to try to find a sense of safety by collaborating with the forces in power at the expense of people they care about, and thematically having the narrator and Gore build the very cage that has been closing around them the whole book is really fun! it makes emotional sense and brings the themes full circle!
ON THE OTHER HAND THE WAY IT'S EXECUTED IS SO SILLY. the whole sci-fi edifice around which the plot and themes are constructed is a folding table with three broken legs. So I keep saying 'well, it worked for me thematically!' and then stopping and going 'well, did it work if it didn't actually work ....'
And then on the third hand, it is making me annoyed at the whole genre of literary crossover sci-fi -- not the authors but the publishers thereof -- because I feel like this book kind of exemplifies the way in which coherent sci-fi worldbuilding is discouraged in that genre in favor of Feelings, Themes, and Vibes. All of which would in fact hit harder if the worldbuilding and plots were in fact coherent.
So I go back and forth on all of this; for the past two daysshati and genarti and I have been holding extensive philosophical discourse and I hope they post their takes soon. On one thing however we are agreed: it is absolutely wrong that this book attempts to hold out hope for a happy ending where the narrator finds Gore in Alaska after he's fled the ministry. In order to make the Terror fanfiction bits thematically coherent, the true ending is the narrator setting out to find Gore in Alaska and then dying tragically of starvation on the ice.
As it happened I hit this balance for The Ministry of Time some time ago, but then I still needed to take a while longer to read it because, unfortunately, I was cursed with the knowledge that a.) it was Terror fanfiction and b.) it was on Obama's 2024 summer reading list and c.) I had chanced across the phrase "Obama says RPF is fine" on Tumblr and could not look at the front cover of Ministry of Time without bursting into laughter. And I wanted to come to this book with a clear heart! an open mind! so I waited!
.... and then all of that waiting was in fact completely fruitless, I was never going to be able to come to this book with a clear heart and an open mind, because, Terror fanfiction aside, I'm like 99% sure that it's either a direct response to Kage Baker's Company series or Kaliane Bradley is possessed by Kage Baker's ghost. Welcome back, Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax! The mere fact that you're so much less annoying this time around means I'm grading on a huge curve!
Okay, so the central two figures of The Ministry of Time are our narrator -- a second-gen Cambodian-English government translator whose mother fled the Khmer Rouge, and who has gotten shuffled into a top-secret government project working with 'unusual refugees' -- and Polar Explorer Graham Gore Of The Doomed Franklin Expedition, who has been rescued from his miserable death on the ice and brought forward into the future by the aforementioned top-secret government project.
The project also includes a small handful of other time rescuees -- Graham Gore is the only actual factual historical figure, and frankly I think the book would be better if he wasn't, but that's a sidenote. Each time refugee gets a 'bridge' to live with them and help them acclimate; in Gore's case, that's our narrator. The first seventy to eighty percent of the book consists mostly of loving, detailed, funny descriptions of the narrator hanging out with the time refugees as they adapt to The Near Future, interspersed with a.) dark hints about the sinister nature of the project and the narrator's increasing isolation within it that she repeatedly apologizes to us for ignoring, b.) dark hints about the oncoming climate apocalypse, c.) reflections the narrator's relationship to her family history, and d.) intermittent bits of Terror fanfiction about Gore's Time On the Ice.
I do not think this part of the book is necessarily well-structured or paced, but I did have a great time with it. Does it feel fanfictional? Oh, yes. The infrastructure that surrounds this hypothetical government project is almost entirely nonexistent in order to conveniently allow the narrator long, uninterrupted stretches to attempt to introduce Graham Gore to various forms of pop music;
genarti described it cruelly but perhaps accurately as "Avengers tower fanfic". But I like the thematic link between time travelers and refugees, and I like the jokes, and I like the thing Bradley is doing -- the thing Kage Baker does, that I am extremely weak to -- where just when you're lulled into enjoying the humor of anachronism and the sense of humanity's universal connection you run smack into an unexpected, uncrossable cultural gap and bruise your nose. Now, this only ever happens with Gore, because Gore is the only one of the refugees who is a real person in several ways. Margaret (the seventeenth-century lesbian) and Arthur (the gay WWI officer) are likeable gay sidekicks, and then there's a seventeenth-century asshole whose name I've forgotten. At one point Arthur tosses off a mention to his commanding officer 'Owen who wrote poetry' and I nearly threw the book across the room. Have the courage of your convictions, Kaliane Bradley! None of these coy little hints, either do the work to kidnap Wilfred Owen and Margery Kempe from history or don't! But Gore is obsessively drawn and theorized and researched, because, of course, the whole book is largely about Being Obsessed With Gore, about interrogating why the narrator, a not-quite-white-passing brown woman from an immigrant family, has built her whole life around this sexy British naval officer turned time refugee, symbolic of the crimes and failures of empire in six or seven different directions. A bit navel-gazey, perhaps, but as a person who spent five books begging Kage Baker to think at all critically about the horrible British naval officer turned time refugee she'd built, I'm just like, 'well, thank God!'
And, again, for the five people who care, I cannot emphasize enough just how similar Gore is to Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax and yet miraculously how much less annoying. They both have a code of ethics formed by the loyal and genuine belief in the good work done by the British Imperial project (thematically and historically reasonable); a shocking level of natural charisma combined with various secret agent skills at weaponry, deception, strategy and theft (extremely funny, extra funny with Gore because as far as I can tell what we know about him From History is 'normal officer! popular guy!'); and -- such a specific detail to have in common! -- Big Sexy Nose That The Man In Question Is Really Self-Conscious About.
And both of them, of course, end up struggling to navigate their positionality in the Imperial machine, between government operative-with-agency and experimental-subject-with-none.
So that's the first seventy to eighty percent of the book, and then, in the last twenty to thirty percent of the book, the dark hints finally resolve into the actual plot, in which it turns out that:
a.) the sinister people who have been showing up to possibly do crimes are far future refugees trying to prevent Britain's crimes in the future climate apocalypse
b.) the narrator's mean boss is in fact the dark future version of the narrator herself, who has been engineering the entire project to ensure The Future happens the way she wants
c.) in The Future, Gore and the narrator have a mediocre marriage, Gore has risen to head of the whole evil time travel government service, and the two of them are together responsible for Britain's future climate apocalypse crimes
d.) but in THIS timeline, things are different, because at a critical point the narrator told Gore about The Holocaust instead of 9/11 which means that now he's consumed with worry about crimes against humanity instead of being consumed with worry about protecting imperial interests from terrorism
On the one hand, the book is very interested in complicity and the different kinds of trauma that push displaced people to try to find a sense of safety by collaborating with the forces in power at the expense of people they care about, and thematically having the narrator and Gore build the very cage that has been closing around them the whole book is really fun! it makes emotional sense and brings the themes full circle!
ON THE OTHER HAND THE WAY IT'S EXECUTED IS SO SILLY. the whole sci-fi edifice around which the plot and themes are constructed is a folding table with three broken legs. So I keep saying 'well, it worked for me thematically!' and then stopping and going 'well, did it work if it didn't actually work ....'
And then on the third hand, it is making me annoyed at the whole genre of literary crossover sci-fi -- not the authors but the publishers thereof -- because I feel like this book kind of exemplifies the way in which coherent sci-fi worldbuilding is discouraged in that genre in favor of Feelings, Themes, and Vibes. All of which would in fact hit harder if the worldbuilding and plots were in fact coherent.
So I go back and forth on all of this; for the past two days
shati and genarti and I have been holding extensive philosophical discourse and I hope they post their takes soon. On one thing however we are agreed: it is absolutely wrong that this book attempts to hold out hope for a happy ending where the narrator finds Gore in Alaska after he's fled the ministry. In order to make the Terror fanfiction bits thematically coherent, the true ending is the narrator setting out to find Gore in Alaska and then dying tragically of starvation on the ice.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 02:36 pm (UTC)I am absolutely convinced the narrator is deluding herself at the end (she is very good at it!) and that if she actually does find Gore and Margaret, it will end in horrible tragedy. Best case scenario is Gore kills her, worst case scenario is she accidentally delivers them all back into the unloving, in fact murderous hands of the imperial state.
Maybe her dying alone on the Arctic ice is the happiest possible outcome.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 02:43 pm (UTC)(& yes I absolutely agree, there is NO good outcome from finding Gore and Margaret)
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Date: 2025-07-26 03:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 03:21 pm (UTC)Oh. The suddenly and inexplicably rapey series? Is this book less... like that?
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 04:53 pm (UTC)I have not achieved perfect neutrality of opinion, but I've definitely achieved perfect zen about never reading this book. Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 06:05 pm (UTC)I know diddly/squat about The Terror or fanfic about it but those bits seemed reminiscent of Arctic exploration fandom in general (which I personally remember starting in around the late 90s with Caroline Alexander's illustrated book, but ofc there were dramatic retellings long before that). Le Guin wrote somewhere on how reading about Scott's expedition influenced Left Hand, which was one of those "of COURSE" moments for me (I hadn't realized that even after reading "Sur"). People already mentioned Frankenstein but Poe got into the icy wastelands too, and there's even Anna Kavan's Ice, which I found through Brian Aldiss, lol. Plus Mallory's been a subject of cultural fascination ever since he disappeared. And of course Krakauer made his reputation with Into Thin Air. -- Anyway, all that meant that I was less put off by the "Terror fanfic" side but it also wasn't a hook for me and so it read like fanfic when you don't know the canon.
I also found the Grand Romance really squicktacular and I don't think the author meant it that way. It would have been really striking if she had, but it seemed more like an epic love story on top with some really dubious but unintended undercurrents.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 06:13 pm (UTC)... But I was still entertained!! I still wonder why. Authorial audacity? Commitment to the bit? I have no idea, but I did finish it, and pretty fast. I relate to a lot of what you're saying about What Could've Been about the book, especially: None of these coy little hints, either do the work to kidnap Wilfred Owen and Margery Kempe from history or don't! I thought it was a total waste that the other two were made historical randos in order to comfortably supportive-gay-sidekickzone them, essentially, or possibly because their fame would overshadow the narrative--but commit, I say!
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 06:21 pm (UTC)I haven't seen Ministerio del Tiempo, so I am judging only from descriptions, but it sounds like the only things they have in common are government agencies in charge of time travel and the title. If that's grounds for a lawsuit, the estates of Fritz Leiber and Andre Norton should be lawyering up.
Ministerio del Tiempo did seem to have a better case against Timeless, though.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 06:29 pm (UTC)That is so interesting! I thought the book's main virtue was that it was absolutely aware of how squicktacular the Grand Romance was, in terms both of what the narrator does to manipulate Gore and in terms of what the narrator ignores in order to turn Gore into a figure of romance. The first three-quarters of the book reads like an attempt to charm the reader into ignoring that the narrator is absolutely complicit with, participating in, fascist authoritarianism, and the major problem with the ending is that it undercuts itself not only by its gonzo plotting but with its determination to make Gore sympathetic.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 06:54 pm (UTC)I thought it was....fine? It's fairly well-written, a lot of it's very entertaining, and I never felt the need to reread it or think much about it once I was done. If anything it's more interesting to me as a relic of pandemic culture.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 06:55 pm (UTC)The transcendence is more in dying on the ice with other people.
(I love the show and have not wanted to throw myself on this book.)
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:15 pm (UTC)That is interesting! I thought it was more that they were both aware how they were manipulating each other and she was definitely complicit in the authoritarianism at first, but then the story turned more into love conquers all and we were supposed to read the ending as at least hopeful. I guess it depends on how self-aware you think the narrator is, and one major flaw for me was that the writer didn't seem to be able to pull off the difficult challenge of a central character who knows very little and doesn't figure it all out until it's much too late.
Maybe I was spoiled by reading "The Second Inquisition" too young re stories about interior narratives and ambiguity and self-deception, hah.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:28 pm (UTC)It was weird because I didn't much *like* the book and wouldn't exactly recommend it, but it was very compelling and somehow I had to just keep reading more and more -- what Steven King calls "the gotta" ("yeah, I have to go to work in the morning but I gotta see what happens next"). So it was this weird combo of a highly polished style but not much weight or depth in the actual story.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:28 pm (UTC)I whole-heartedly appreciate this review.
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Date: 2025-07-26 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:37 pm (UTC)The author said at the end that she wrote this originally to entertain a few friends which is fine, I've done that, but what it ends up being is sixty percent historical figures humorously adjusting to the modern day with a love story and an apocalypse plot + serious message kind of pasted on. I am sure plenty of people will find this entertaining and it was a pretty breezy read but just doesn't get past the 'lark written for a few friends' level to me.
ETA: And Skygiants, you are SO right about how it just should have been Wilfred Owen and Margery Kempe.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:39 pm (UTC)Agreed that it was compelling and I enjoyed the slice of life bits, but everything genre (both the time travel and the espionage) was painfully bad and written/edited with complete ignorance or disregard.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:55 pm (UTC)What this really cements for me is that this year's Hugo ballot was epically weak in the novel category.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 08:21 pm (UTC)Apologies for ambiguity: I have read the novel of The Terror, I have not read The Ministry of Time. It was actually the last novel I read by Simmons also, because the ratio of what it did well and what I wanted to throw it against the wall for were out of synch. Agreed on the environmental angle, which was good.