Name: Emma Cragg's review of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Item: The Ministry of Time
Rating: 3
Author: Emma Cragg

Kaliane Bradley

'Fast moving and riotously entertaining, a genre-busting blend of wit and wonder' 10 best new novelists for 2024, Observer A 2024 literary highlight in the Sunday Times, BBC, Grazia, Dazed, Sunday Express, GQ, i-D, Stylist, Bookseller and Literary Friction, and an Elle Collective Book Club pick 'Outrageously brilliant' ELEANOR CATTON, author of Birnam Wood 'Make room on your bookshelves for a new classic' MAX PORTER, author of Shy 'Thought-provoking and horribly clever - but it also made me laugh out loud' ALICE WINN, author of In Memoriam 'Funny, moving, original, intelligent, beautifully written and with a thunderous plot' NATHAN FILER, author of The Shock of the Fall 'As electric, charming, whimsical and strange as its ripped-from-history cast' EMILY HENRY, author of Happy Place 'Clever, witty and thought-provoking' KATE MOSSE, author of The Ghost Ship 'A feast of a novel - singular, alarming and (above all) incredibly sexy' JULIA ARMFIELD, author of Our Wives Under the Sea 'A weird, kind, clever, heartsick little time bomb of a book' FRANCIS SPUFFORD, author of Golden Hill 'You'll want to fall in love with these characters over and over again' DIANA REID, author of Love & Virtue A BOY MEETS A GIRL. THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE. A FINGER MEETS A TRIGGER. THE BEGINNING MEETS THE END. ENGLAND IS FOREVER. ENGLAND MUST FALL. In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more. But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?

One of the Observer's Debut Novels of 2024

The Ministry of Time

A time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel 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 machine,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But he adjusts quickly; he is, after all, an explorer by trade. Soon, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a seriously uncomfortable housemate dynamic, evolves into something much more. Over the course of an unprecedented year, Gore and the bridge fall haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences they never could have imagined. Supported by a chaotic and charming cast of characters—including a 17th-century cinephile who can’t get enough of Tinder, a painfully shy World War I captain, and a former spy with an ever-changing series of cosmetic surgery alterations and a belligerent attitude to HR—the bridge will be forced to confront the past that shaped her choices, and the choices that will shape the future. An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks the universal question: What happens if you put a disaffected millennial and a Victorian polar explorer in a house together?

A Novel

Clara Gauthier

I know how much you've longed for your future to lean down and cup your face, to whisper "Don't worry, it gets better." The truth is, it won't get better if you keep making the same mistakes. It can get better, but you must allow yourself to imagine a world in which you are better.

Jemima Scott

‘If you ever fall in love, you'll be a person who was in love for the rest of your life.’

‘But, you know, you can make yourself feel lonely and miserable and out of joint just by falling in love with someone who can't or won't love you back.’

‘One never understands one's use but through the opinion of others.’

Emma Hak-Kovacs

At some point in our planet's future, the skyscape will change. There might not be people left by then, not if the Brigadier's world was anything to go by. These stars were a temporary, beautiful gift of our era- the era that we all shared, a human era. I'd die one day, just like everyone else, so I had better try to live.

I had always thought of joy as a shouting, flamboyant thing, that tossed breath into the sky like a ball. Instead it robbed me of my speech and my air. I was pinned in place by joy and I didn't know what to do.

I could have written to you without including them; after all, the things that happen between lovers are lost to the work of history anyway. But I wrote it down because I need you to bear witness to it. He was here, by and with and in my body. He lives in me like trauma does. If you ever fall in love, you'll be a person who was in love for the rest of your life.

He was an anachronism, a puzzle, a piss-take, a problem, but he was, above all things, a charming man. In every century, they make themselves at home.

I started to laugh, a real, happy, unglamorous laugh. As true laughter does, it summoned smiles from the others. Margaret leant towards me, grinning, and I saw Graham catch Arthur's eye and roll his. It was a moment among moments, but every one was held in it, captured in a small and easy joy. I n again and again to this memory. It's proof, you see. Not everything I did was wrong.

Graham smiled at me sometimes, a vague confused smile as if I was a task he needed to complete but had forgotten the genesis of.

When I first joined the Ministry and they'd pressed me through HR, a woman ran her finger down the column with my family history. “What was it like growing up with that?” she asked. She meant it all: Pol Pot Noodle jokes on first dates, my aunt's crying jags, a stupa with no ashes, Gary Glitter, Agent Orange, we loved Angkor Wat, regime change, not knowing where the bodies were, Princess Diana, landmines, the passport in my mother's drawer, my mother's nightmares, fucking chink, you don't Look it, dragon ladies, fucking paki, Tuol Sleng was a school, Saloth Sar was a teacher, my grandfather's medals, the firing squad, my uncle's trembling hands, it's on my bucket List, Brother Number One, I've got a thing for Latinas, the killing fields, The Killing Fields (1984), Angelina Jolie, do you mean Cameroonian? do you mean Vietnamese? will you say your name again for me? 

“I don't know,” I said. “What was it like growing up without it?”

“It doesn't improve my mood to catastrophise, so I don't.”

 “And what about hope? Have you ever been in love, Graham?” Fitzjames had asked. “Ever lived for the bestowment of a fair smile?”

“Ah, love, life's greatest catastrophe.”

It was my turn to cook. I made the dish I thought was most likely to symbolically kill a Victorian child with the ingredients I had to hand, which was mapo tofu with a belligerent amount of garlic and mala.

Language informed experience - that we did not simply describe, but create our world through language.

“I don't think it's very polite of you to say there are germs in my mouth.”

“There are germs in everyone's mouths.”

“There'll be germs on your shoes and under your nails. It's just how the world works. An aseptic environment is. Well. It's a dead one.”

“I’ll write a strongly worded letter of complaint."

kamille

Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.

Rebecca Harwood

Life is a series of slamming doors. We make irrevocable decisions everyday. A 12 second delay, a slip of the tongue and all of a sudden your life is on a new road. 

Lindsay

When something changes you constitutionally, you say 'the earth moved'. But the earth stays the same, it's your relationship with the ground that shifts.

I note all this, because I think male writers are often mocked for their lengthy descriptions of women's breasts. But I do think some breasts provoke them, even from me.

This was one of my first lessons on how you make the future: moment by moment, you seal the doors of possibility behind you.

An underrated symptom of inherited trauma is how socially awkward it is to live with.

abi a

Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time travel.

Nick Cotton

I needed this to be a bit pacier. Started well but never really recovered from the lull in the middle.

Emma Cragg

even i, a lesbian, am not immune to a victorian man in a leather jacket 

i read 75% of the book in one sitting and finished a month later but this book does everything it wants to do well. banger romance, banger contemporary sci-fi, and absolutely banger prose and narration

made me feel like sobbing like all good novels do!

even i, a lesbian, am not immune to a victorian man in a leather jacket 

i read 75% of the book in one sitting and finished a month later but this book does everything it wants to do well. banger romance, banger contemporary sci-fi, and absolutely banger prose and narration

made me feel like sobbing like all good novels do!

This was a good book, I think I’d recommend it to a friend. There’s a lot of really good themes and lines to mull over, and since I read it over the course of a couple weeks while also listening to other books, I don’t think I was SO absorbed that I saw every twist and turn coming, but I did get to experience how pleasant the character development was for the expats. I was tempted to say I didn’t really feel that same development for the main character, but maybe it’s like the handler says - we were all young and green once. This one stays on my bookshelf for now. 

Coley T

wish this had more courting from graham rather than smut -.- also people saying how shocking the ending was,, unfortunately i saw it coming which made the reveal way less dramatic than intended. the writing style was great, the characters (maggie, arthur, graham my beloveds) were so well flushed out and developed and the premise was cool :-)

The ending redeemed this some for me but I was really bored in the middle of it and had to take a break. 

Liyah 🤎

Loved this so much! Reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time — the firebird trilogy. Maybe it's the series lover in me but despite the phenomenal writing and riveting plot, I feel like it left a little something to be desired???

Overall a solid read and definitely up there with my faves 🩵 Gore we love you sm 🥰

Nicole Grace

Loved this so much! Reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time — the firebird trilogy. Maybe it's the series lover in me but despite the phenomenal writing and riveting plot, I feel like it left a little something to be desired???

Overall a solid read and definitely up there with my faves 🩵 Gore we love you sm 🥰

sometimes the prose lands like a clunky pair of boots and other times it has me face down in the bog. i get it. 

shaye

I didn’t love the writing but the characters have soul

Alice Argentino

I didn’t love the writing but the characters have soul

cried

Lots of good ideas here-- I particularly liked time travel as an allegory for the immigrant experience, the way in which forgiveness can change the future-- but the execution was botched. None of the ideas felt fully fleshed out and the plot felt disjointed and confusing at points. 

Jordan Chan 

read in audiobook (narrated by katie leung !) except for the last chapters, switched to epub

Nica

OK. An interesting premise. And I enjoyed the central character. But it never really engaged me. It sure if skittered, like a pebble on ice. Maybe that says more about me than the book… and I’m not a great fan of having the premise explained to the central character as an ending.. 

Jan Jackson

so painfully dense and forced at times but the twist at the end was fun (and lowkey a mindfuck). I wish she’d pick one primary theme- either the romance, or the time travel, or the neocolonialist-whatever it was…all together it was too disconnected 

Netra

the pacing was a bit off for me but obsessed with the story 

Marsh

Eh... Not my kind of time travel book. I don't love it when they have a little bit of an explanation throughout the book then suddenly throw a bunch of time mumbo jumbo at you at the end of the book with no time to properly explain it.

Alana May

The book has an original time-travel premise, great characters and an engaging story. Too bad it fumbles its ending.

Frederik De Bosschere

I wanted to like this so much more than I did. The potential was promising, and there were parts of the book I liked. But overall it fell flat (in my opinion). It was a slow burn that led to a bunch being jam packed into the last 40 pages of the book. 

Elyse 

I think this would've flourished without the romance, which felt shoehorned in to me, and the sex scenes did very little in terms of fleshing out characters and developing plot points aside from I guess foreshadowing their would-be futures. 

The prose was beautiful and many metaphors made me go "oh!!" out loud, but this was dry, and felt... anti-Black? At the end? And while I do see the line that the author was trying to create between migrant/immigrant families and those between times, I think it could've tightened up significantly. There are multiple converging metaphors here that simply could've flourished if MC didn't like. Weirdly gawk at Gore in intervals of this book, we could've really had something special. 

So much potential! But overall, it just wasn't very interesting. This would've been a great reader x character fic for The Terror. Not so much for an original novel. Sorry.

cee 

I think this would've flourished without the romance, which felt shoehorned in to me, and the sex scenes did very little in terms of fleshing out characters and developing plot points aside from I guess foreshadowing their would-be futures. 

The prose was beautiful and many metaphors made me go "oh!!" out loud, but this was dry, and felt... anti-Black? At the end? And while I do see the line that the author was trying to create between migrant/immigrant families and those between times, I think it could've tightened up significantly. There are multiple converging metaphors here that simply could've flourished if MC didn't like. Weirdly gawk at Gore in intervals of this book, we could've really had something special. 

So much potential! But overall, it just wasn't very interesting. This would've been a great reader x character fic for The Terror. Not so much for an original novel. Sorry.

Very fun and funny sci fi time travel thriller! It took me a while to get into the first half of the book but I loved the characters and plot twist at the end hehe

Allegrachatterjee

Zoë Mauldin

Lexie 

“Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”

this is going to be in the top 3 of books i read this year. brilliant story, writing, and characters. its severance meets loki meets babel. bonus points for all the big words i had to look up the meaning of😅 

Janet Akisanmi

“Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time-travel.”

this is going to be in the top 3 of books i read this year. brilliant story, writing, and characters. its severance meets loki meets babel. bonus points for all the big words i had to look up the meaning of😅 

Interesting concept and some redeemable parts, but I didn't really enjoy the romance. I think a full third could be cut out of the middle and the story would still work—it would improve, even. But a spin-off with what Margaret gets up to, now that I would read.

Katelyn Caillouet

Was not expecting the hot victorian era love interest to be an actual historical figure BUT here we are. This was good, I enjoyed my time reading it and I thought it was an interesting spin on time travel. I do think this book suffered a little from trying to do to much which left some elements feeling underwhelming (this may be the only time you find me asking for more romance & less plot). 

Alli

Dare I say, best book of 2024? Why's no one talking about this book? This book took me to a best rollercoaster ride. The plot was plotting, the characters are charactering, and the lines are line-ing. I laughed, I cried, I got scared, literally you can feel every emotions when reading this. Mind you, when I read THAT SCENE, I screamed at the top of my lungs because it was so good and well-written. THIS BOOK DESERVES MORE HYPE! 

Nick Cotton &
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

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The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley