Micro Review 7 (2024) - Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize

 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)

Other reading projects meant that I didn't get round to reading the shortlist for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize until it was about to be announced and while this does mean I can read at my own pace rather than to a deadline it does take some of the surprise/guessing out of the reading.

The first one I picked up was The Ministry of Time and I found it to be a real roller coaster of a read - in a good way.

The official blurb for the book reads:

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?

I loved the idea of a time travel novel where it wasn't the protagonist moving through time but more about the way you can or can't adapt to a completely new place - whether a date or a country. The simple story of relocation then becomes a beautiful exploration of friendships and finally a romping spy/action thriller.

It sounds mad, and in many ways it really is and I don't think I've ever read anything like it but I loved it - and the characters.