REVIEW: The Ministry of Time

By Denise @ Life With No Plot on July 14, 2025 • ( 0 )

About the Book

Title: The Ministry of Time

Author: Kaliane Bradley

Genre: Science Fiction, Romance

Pages: 339

Edition Read: Hardcover

Dates Read: June 16-23, 2025

Blurb: 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 machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.

Review

This is one of the most unusual books I think I’ve read in a while. It may have been that I was expecting something different. As the winner of the GoodReads Award for Best Science Fiction last year, I was expecting something along the lines of a more traditional sci fi story – outer space, other planets, alien life, space ships, etc. Other than the time travel aspect, I wouldn’t characterize this as a science fiction story at all, definitely not a conventional one.

None of this is a criticism. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was an interesting concept: studying time travel by bringing over people who would have died in years past and seeing what happens. There is obviously a lot of humor involved. How exactly do you describe the modern world to someone from the 1800s? It’s not easy! Misunderstandings abound, especially when the two people in question have to live together in a small apartment, one being a white man from 1847 and the other being a British-Cambodian woman from the current (or near future) time. Watching both of them navigate this situation is incredibly funny at times. Of course, romance will ensue in this situation.

There are other characters, both time expats and bridges, that also stand out, particularly Margaret. She’s from 1600s London and would have died from the plague, but instead gets to enjoy the comforts of modern life, including living openly as a lesbian. Of all the expats, she seems to adapt the quickest to our way of life and, I’ll be honest, it seemed a bit too easy for her. I don’t think someone from her time period would have accepted all of this technology, which surely looks like witchcraft or other such nonsense, with such grace. But Margaret is such a fun character that it was easy to overlook this. We’re already talking about time travel, so why not suspend your disbelief a bit more?

The ending was a roller coaster of twists and turns. The British government is the one running this program (the “Ministry of Time,” of course), but are they really doing so altruistically? Could this technology be used for nefarious purposes? There are people who want to stop the program, people who want to take over the program, and several people who are willing to kill for it. All of this leads to a gripping story that I couldn’t put down – I had to know what the heck was going on! So while it was a bit strange and definitely trying to stretch a bunch of genres all in one, I definitely still recommend it.

GoodReads rating: 4 stars