Terrific

Brilliantly read. Funny, clever and thought-provoking. Was totally gripped. Possibly my favourite book of 2024.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

interesting view of the future

This made you think of how the future and present time overlap, or could occur. This depends on how you imagine it.provoked by the book. Very interesting and well presented.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Speculative and historical and gorgeous

I was very lucky to have stumbled onto this book only a few days after it came out. This is the kind of book I'm always looking for but never really find. I don't much like romances because they're usually too soppy and unrealistic. But I still look for books with romance in them because romance is one of the things that, as a part of life, makes it worth living. This book has that kind of romance in it.

I love time travel, but I'm often disappointed by the formulaic nature of time travel novels. This book is not like that.

Another way novels often disappoint me is when they or their writers don't care how terrible they make a reader feel, and in fact seem to strive for that - making readers feel terrible, I mean. This book treads difficult and dangerous waters and conversations and situations, but never made me feel like I had to put it down because reading it was getting too depressing.

Kaliane Bradley made me fall in love with a historical figure whom I'd never heard of, who is apparently only a tiny footnote in the history books. She also reminded me that hope is not stupid. It is everything there is. A motivating force for good. We need that in the world right now.

The saddest thing about this book is that I fear I will never find another one that I adore as much. Of course, I hope that's not true!

Thank you, Ms. Bradley. What a splendid story. I hope you'll soon write more novels for me to devour in next to no time.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Couldn't stop listening!

This is a truly wonderful story. Original and captivating, I didn't see the twist coming!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Okay

Good performance. Story was a bit cliche. I could guess the ending very early on. Started off interesting, went a bit Bridgington, then full on action/spy, then Bridgette Jones.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

The Time Tunnel

By coincidence, I’m watching cult 1960s U.S. TV series The Time Tunnel - about a top secret government project (Operation Tic Toc…) which successfully sends two operatives back in time. The only slight hitch is that it’s proving tricky to bring them back - though this does have the advantage of perpetuating the series. It’s a forerunner to Quantum Leap. The Ministry of Time is on similar terrain - well, sort of. It’s set in the UK of the near future, when a secretive government department has perfected time travel. People are spirited forward from the past to the present day - but only in cases where they were about to die anyway. This should head off any problems with disruption to the space-time continuum. No one really knows if time travel is safe, and what the side-effects are. The sci-fi element isn’t overplayed here - at least to begin with. Instead this is really a kind of love story with action/thriller elements, and a healthy helping of satire. Are time travellers effectively immigrants? And if they are, that poses potential problems for the Home Office - already struggling to limit the number of migrants coming into the UK in our own time. But it’s done with a light touch. One of those transplanted into the modern era is Commander Graham Gore. In 1845, in real life, he served under Sir John Franklin as First Lieutenant (the third most senior rank) on the Erebus during the Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended with the loss of all 129 officers and crewmen in mysterious circumstances. In the novel, Gore is assigned an unnamed female civil servant to be his guide or ‘bridge’ - filling him in on what Spotify is and how to operate a washing machine (and what is a washing machine…) The bridge is our narrator. There’s plenty of comic potential here - and for the most part Bradley skilfully weaves together the comedy and the action/adventure/thriller elements. Jack Finney’s brilliant 1970s time travel novel Time and Again explores similar territory, including a secret government project; in Finney’s story, a female character from the 1880s travels to the America of the 1970s. This is a rich genre with a long history. The Ministry of Time arguably also references Doctor Who - there’s a mysterious, menacing character called The Brigadier. The text is peppered with occasional flashbacks to Gore’s own tragic backstory. Pacing is a bit of a problem. I felt the story lost some momentum in places and at times even toyed with giving up - but I’m glad I persevered. Like a lot of time travel fiction, it can get confusing. The denouement is clever, with some excellent twists. I broadly understood what had happened - but couldn’t swear to it! Possibly it would be better to read it than listen, but the narration does work well. It can get a bit convoluted but the core of the story is simple, even if it does raise big questions about a variety of topics - from climate change to the British Empire. This is a clever, funny, poignant, thought-provoking novel - and well worth making time for…

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Great story

The story kept me captivated from beginning to end. The two readers never faltered and I enjoyed it enormously.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Immersion pretty much instant

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. The scope and threads drew me in. Hope there is more to come from this author.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Glorious

The writing lends well to the spoken format. Superbly lyrical writing and an excellently unpredictable story.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Tricky reading performance

This is a great book but I had to revert to reading it myself as I found this audible performance very oddly cadenced, with pauses where there shouldn’t be and no pauses where there should.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!