Title: The Ministry of Time
Author: Kaliane Bradley 
Genre: fiction, science fiction
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Publication Date: May 2024
Format: Paperback
Length:  332 pages

Read if you like: time travel, dry humour, unlikeable characters, spy thrillers, diverse cast, critiques of colonialism, workplace comedy 

Rating: 

The Ministry of Time was a novel that caught my eye when I started seeing it on “Best Of” lists in 2024. The premise—a civil servant assigned to work with a historical figure who has time-travelled to the present against his will—sounded exceedingly fun. It was this, but it also was so much more. It was funny, clever, thought-provoking, and observant. It was lighthearted, while also taking a critical look at the post-colonial world and the concepts of otherness. I was wildly entertained, and also introspective the whole way through. 

I really, really enjoyed this book. It’s not every day that you stumble onto something so unique that it sticks with you so significantly, but that’s what The Ministry of Time did for me. I can’t wait to read more of Bradley’s works in the future, this was such an outstanding debut.

The Book Synopsis: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

The Review

The Ministry of Time was an exceedingly clever book with a delightful balance of humour, wit, and critical observation of the nature of race, colonialism, otherness, and societal development. It’s not easy to balance these elements, observing such heavy content alongside witty cleverness that sometimes has you laughing out loud, but Bradley did just this expertly. 

I loved the premise. The notion that the UK would create a bureaucratic division responsible for time travel and then use it in both profound and mundane ways unique and also surprisingly funny in an “of course this is what would happen” kind of way. I loved the way that Bradley incorporated characters from across time, building a loveable cast while contrasting the eras and their various inequities and prejudices against each other, including our own. It was entertaining and thought-provoking at almost all times, and while I found myself falling in love with the characters, I also found myself constantly reflecting on their unique traumas and challenges based on the eras that they represented. Even the present-day cast, such as the Bridge from whom the story’s perspective is told, holds a complicated relationship with colonialism and oppression. There are so many interesting lenses through which this story is told. I loved seeing all the different facets. 

Speaking of the cast, the character work within the book was superb. There was a great balance of likeable and unlikeable characters and seeing how they engaged with each other and how these unlikely relationships formed out of mostly proximity had me completely hooked. Bradley does a great job of drawing a picture of the workplace friendship, which I often feel is one born truly out of circumstance above any common ground, and dialling up the stakes so that it’s exponentially more entertaining, and with much more dire consequences, than it is in real life. 

The commentary on race and otherness and on the general nature of Western civilization through time provided some profound opportunities for reflection, particularly in watching them unfold from the Bridge’s perspective. She seems so steeped in a combination of trauma and assimilation that parsing her bias from those around her is itself its own exercise in observing the various ways that racism is inherently ingrained in both structures and narratives of our society. She vacillated between denial and/or avoidance and tacit acceptance, and the internal conflict she routinely endured as a result of this was challenging and, at times, infuriating to witness. She was complex in some ways, simple in others, and often lacking, but also clearly shaped by her experiences and the environments in which she needed to operate. Honestly, she wasn’t overly likable but she was definitely memorable. I feel like I’ll be thinking about how her narrative unfolded for a really long time. 

This book was equal parts unique and impactful, and I loved how cleverly it was delivered. It was such a joy to rip through this story with all it’s twists and turns. This was an easy 5 star read for me.