The Ministry of Time

“She would never refer to herself as a refugee, or even a former refugee,” I added. “It’s been quite weird to hear people say that.”

“The people you will be working with are also unlikely to use the term. We prefer ‘expat.’ In answer to your question, I’m the Vice Secretary of Expatriation.”

“And they are expats from…?”

“History.”

“Sorry?”

[the Vice Secretary] shrugged. “We have time-travel,” she said, like someone describing the coffee machine. “Welcome to the Ministry.”

Our protagonist (who stays anonymous) is the daughter of a refugee Cambodian mother and a white father. She can pass as white. She joins the Ministry of Time simply seeking advancement because it the job requires top secret clearances and therefore pays better. When she is accepted for the new job and discovers that she is a minder/modernity-tutor (called “a bridge”) for a newly arrived “immigrant”, Commander Graham Gore of the Royal British Navy (c.1809–c.1847).

Commander Gore has been snatched from the Lost Franklin expedition. Note: Gore is an “expat” because the strategy for avoiding a time travel paradox is to bring only otherwise imminently doomed individuals (whose disappearance won’t change the past) into present day. Besides Gore, there are another five expats whose experiences affect the story.

From the second they meet, there is sexual frisson between the bridge and Gore so we get to enjoy the will they/won’t they of the relationship between two very interesting, attractive characters. Also there is the continuing tension of operating on orders as a worker bee in a compartmentalized agency: “Why have these people been brought here from the past?”, is the question that the narrator (and the reader) can only speculate on.

There are many elements to unpack in this story: the general awkwardness and opacity of English bureaucracy, the terror of ongoing climate change catastrophe, and its set amidst the overall background of a grown up Britain still dealing with its colonial chickens come home to roost. The overall plot is a hybrid of a slow burn romance that suddenly becomes a thriller when the espionage elements come to the foreground. But for me, along with the romantic plot, the through line of the story is the charming humor of the various immigrants from history who must adapt to near-future English political correctness, the skeletons in it’s british-empire-closet and modern technology.

Having recently read The Third Law of Time Travel I am immediately drawn to compare this story with that tome which annoyed me to the point of near abandonment. Yet the only thing that compares is that I was equally confused by the time travel plot twists which seem inherent in the genre.

In conclusion, I started reading this on a long day of travel, enjoyed it to the exclusion of my other books and thus pushed my current reading queue further into arrears. oh well. I am hereby joining the general acclaim for this time travel novel.