Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsThis is not just another book about time travel!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 May 2024
This is not just another book about time travel! The Cambodian narrator is a disaffected and sardonic female civil servant working for a government which has found a time travelling portal and has ‘extracted’ five people from the past – at the point of their deaths – and brought them to the present. The narrator’s main involvement is with Commander Graham Gore who died on the ill-fated Franklin Expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Her job is to act as a ‘bridge’, introducing him to life in the present and helping him to accustom himself to modern day living.
There’s a lot that happens, some of it funny and some more thoughtful and Gore emerges as an interesting character while it is fair to say that the narrator struggles both with her job and her life. The other extracted time travellers feature as well.
Of course, the time travelling machine has not simply arrived coincidentally and the government’s interest is hardly philanthropic so things get murky and also dangerous for the time travellers. And then, there’s an even more surprising ending even if it is a little chaotic.
It’s a good read. You’ll find out quite a lot about the Franklin expedition, reflect on the nature of time, and wonder, if you could go back, what would you change and what would then be the impact on the present. You’ll also find you can’t help liking Commander Gore!
(The Ministry of Time is published by Sceptre. Thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advance copy.)