This was one of my Most Anticipated releases of the year and I’m happy to report that it pretty much lived up to my high hopes. I rightly had in mind that it would be a zany time-travel romance involving a modern-day civil servant falling in love with her charge, who was a real-life Victorian polar explorer. The blurb had me expecting something rather light and one-dimensional, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that this nuanced debut novel alternately goes along with and flouts the tropes of spy fiction and science fiction, and makes clever observations about how we frame stories of empire and progress.
The unnamed first-person narrator is, like Bradley, a young British-Cambodian woman. She is blasé about her government work in languages and relishes the chance to do something a bit different. After a rigorous set of interviews for the Ministry’s mysterious new project, she is hired as a “bridge” helping to resettle one of five “expatriates” from history in near-future London. Her expat is “1847,” 38-year-old Commander Graham Gore, rescued before his death on Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated Arctic expedition.
Two of the other expats, Arthur aka “1916” and seventeenth-century nonconformist Margaret Kemble (both queer), become Gore’s close friends. It’s a delight to watch these characters take up new vocabulary and technology and handpick the things they appreciate about popular culture. There are some hilarious scenes of the gang all together, particularly those involving music: Arthur and Graham put on a ‘disco’, the narrator teaches them all to do the electric slide before a clubbing outing, and they have a go on a theremin.
Gore lives in the narrator’s flat while she oversees his adjustment. At times he is like her “overgrown son,” testing the boundaries and expressing knee-jerk disapproval of things he doesn’t understand. Gradually their bizarre housemate situation turns into an odd-couple romance. “He was an anachronism, a puzzle, a piss-take, a problem, but he was, above all things, a charming man. … I was concussed with love for him. I bent my head to the cudgel.”
Although this feels like wish-fulfilment (imagine choosing a historical figure you find vaguely hot, bringing them back to life, and then giving your fictional stand-in a chance with them), Bradley doesn’t completely gloss over the difficulties their backgrounds and mores would cause. Most noteworthy is his exoticization of her as a mixed-race woman. Occasional passages in archaic font introducing vignettes from Gore’s time in the Arctic suggest that his reaction to the narrator may be informed by a pivotal encounter he had with a bereaved Inuit woman. The expats undergo intense sensitivity training, but the imperial mindset is hard to root out, and even the narrator, whose mother was a refugee from the Khmer Rouge, isn’t sure she’s always getting it right when it comes to racism and assimilation.
Bradley’s descriptive prose is a highlight (“he looked oddly formal, as if he was the sole person in serif font”; “A great graphite pencil inscribed the diagonal journey of water on the air”), memorable but never too quirky just for the sake of it. At a certain point, plot starts to take over and pushes aside the quiet playfulness of the culture shock scenes. I did miss the innocent joy, but that’s Bradley’s point: mess around with the past and grave consequences are bound to follow. We learn that the Ministry has a double agent, that there are visitors from later centuries as well as previous ones, and that the narrator’s own future is at stake.
Maybe because I don’t read hard SF, it didn’t bother me that the explanations and world-building are a little bit thin here. You just have to suspend disbelief at the start and then go with it. The result is a witty, sexy, off-kilter gem. I haven’t had so much sheer fun with a book since Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy, and I will be looking out for whatever Bradley writes next. 
With thanks to Sceptre for the free copy for review.
Buy a copy from Bookshop.org UK! [affiliate link]
May was a big month for new releases and I have lots more review books on the go or waiting in the wings to be reviewed in catch-up posts!
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
I was very keen to read this but saw some middling media reviews, so glad to hear you enjoyed it. I think it sounds like a lot of fun.
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I saw those. The Sunday Times in particular thought the world-building was sloppy, but if you just suspend disbelief it should be fine. I didn’t care too much about the details of how the time travel worked; I was just interested to see the expats’ behaviour and interactions.
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I was a bit doubtful about this one but yours is the third enthusiastic blogger review I’ve read. Happy to trust your opinion over media reviewers!
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Great to hear that!
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This definitely wasn’t on my radar. It still isn’t really. But I wouldn’t reject it out of hand any more.
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I suppose it would technically be filed under science fiction, but I read that genre rarely to never and I still loved this.
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As an SF refuser, this is good to know.
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I’m about 40% of the way through this right now and pretty much agree with everything you say here. The worldbuilding and time travel obviously isn’t meant to be taken seriously, and is just a plot device rather than serious SF. However, despite the fun, I am finding it a very slow read; for some reason, it’s not pulling me back in whenever I put it down. I do wonder if it needs to be as long as it is. Will report back when I’ve finished!
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You’re a true SF fan and I am not 😉 I found it a much brisker read than so much of the lit fic on my piles.
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True, but the lack of SF isn’t my problem with it!
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I’m looking forward to it now, my copy is on the way. I like it when authors make you go with the flow rather than doing a lot of explanation.
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Explanation can be so tedious. I was happy to just go with it!
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There are 62 holds on this at my library system! I haven’t decided if I want to give it a try.
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Wow, sounds like it might be even more popular there than here! I know you enjoy romance, and the SF elements weren’t off-putting for me.
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This does sound like fun. I had to look up the electric slide and am still mystified why anyone would do this at a disco, however between quotation marks it is. Absolutely no line dancing was going on at the last disco I went to. Maybe Dutch disco bars are different.
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It was a staple at 1990s family wedding receptions I attended! I’ve never been “clubbing,” but I guess some themed nights might be retro enough to include it.
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I’ve heard several mixed reviews about this one so I’m glad to hear a more positive reaction. I’m not sure this would be a book for me but it does sound like a softer sci fi style that I wouldn’t mind.
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A good one for people who are dubious about sci-fi. I thought it was a lot of fun. Maybe there’ll be a TV or movie adaptation in future that you could try.
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I am very excited to read this one! Though I still have ~12 weeks to wait for a copy from the library ;-/
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It seems very popular on both sides of the pond! Since when do you read my blog? 😉
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Mostly I was just happily reading along enjoying how much you had enjoyed it (stubbornly trying to NOT add any more new novels to my stack) but then that last sentence. Now I MUST go a-hunting. Thank you?
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Gotcha! I pretty much never read anything that could be classed as a romance, so that may be the main reason this reminded me of the Sittenfeld, but also just in terms of how engaging and fun it was to read.
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I’m on the hold list now! Grrrrrr. LOL
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[…] The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley: This nuanced debut novel alternately goes along with and flouts the tropes of spy fiction and time travel sci-fi, making clever observations about how we frame stories of empire and progress. The narrator is a “bridge” helping to resettle a Victorian polar explorer in near-future London. You just have to suspend disbelief and go with it. Bradley’s descriptive prose is memorable but never quirky for the sake of it. I haven’t had so much fun with a book since Romantic Comedy. A witty, sexy, off-kilter gem. […]
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[…] The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley […]
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[…] The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley: This nuanced debut alternately goes along with and flouts the tropes of spy fiction and time travel sci-fi, making clever observations about how we frame stories of empire and progress. The narrator is a “bridge” helping to resettle a Victorian polar explorer in near-future London. You just have to suspend disbelief and go with it. Bradley’s descriptive prose is memorable but never quirky for the sake of it. I haven’t had so much fun with a book since Romantic Comedy. A witty, sexy, off-kilter gem. […]
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[…] The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley […]
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This book split our book group in two. I was on the side of the haters. In fact I couldn’t finish it, and I rarely do that to a book group choice. I found her arch and way too aware of when she was choosing an ‘interesting’ simile or metaphor, and the premise behind the whole thing was too ridiculous to contemplate. In fact it’s making me quite cross as I sit here commenting!
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Ha ha, I can see why it was a divisive choice! I’ve DNFed book club books before and just commented to a limited extent based on what I did read (or skim).
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