What would happen if the modern-day British government discovered time travel? If Kaliane Bradley’s highly lauded 2024 novel The Ministry of Time is speculating accurately, there would be a lot of paperwork.
The novel follows an unnamed civil servant as she takes part in a top-secret program to help doomed historical figures (in her case, a Victorian naval officer about to perish in an Arctic expedition) adjust to the modern world after they have become unwitting test subjects in a government time-travel project. The typical time-travel story hijinks ensue—romance, murder, blue sci-fi lasers.
Bradley’s novel is an enjoyable, fast-paced read offering a unique spin on travel through time. While much of the narrative is devoted to watching a straightlaced Victorian gentleman adjust to the modern world with bumbling wonder, the government’s larger plans soon catch up to him. Our characters may have been rescued from lives that would have seen them die of disease or in battle, but if they want real freedom, it will require something even harder to achieve than time travel: escaping a bureaucracy.
