Brilliant moments and innovative thinking melded with fanfic, a strange mixThis is a hard book to review, so I'll try to outline the basics with some external perspective that may help the considering reader:In its essence, this book evolved from fan fiction centered on Commander Graham Gore of the doomed Franklin Arctic expedition in the 1800s. Sadly, all that is left of the crew of the two ships is a few artifacts (some chilling), some letters, and a set of pre-expedition daguerrotypes that make at least a few of the officers appear, well, hot. Thus...fan fiction.Apparently said fanfic turned into a book, because the author wasn't getting to grips with the book she was trying to develop about her Cambodian heritage - which absolutely becomes a topic in this book.So....what we have is a science fiction/speculative fiction/fantasy novel that is also largely a romance, has historical fiction elements, and also tackles (in subtle and sometimes effective ways) issues of identity, racism, colonialism, diaspora, and genocide.The author also has a taste for galloping metaphors that verges on insanity.Given that, of course it is a bit of a mess. That said, it's sometimes a charming mess, and the flashes of brilliance are truly, truly brilliant. The anchor concept - it's set in Britain, time travel does exist, it is managed by an endless bureaucracy; people are plucked out of the past, and these people, being suddenly in what appears to be the mid-21st-century, require what the book calls "bridges" and a spy novel might call "agent runners". Our nameless protagonist is one of these.I didn't find the book hard to follow at all. It's entertaining - very very funny in places, heartbreaking in others. Bradley keeps the story going; there are some major twists; and her vision of a future Earth, which we really only glimpse, is incisive and clever. The protagonist isn't a very good person, it seems, or maybe is just ruled entirely by fear, but she is hard to identify/sympathize with, which makes the entire story a bit sad.My biggest issue with Ministry of Time was the fanfic bit: it really reads like Wattpad in some places, which was the final straw for me and almost a three-star review. I came away with the feeling that Bradley is a great writer in the making, with a muddled and slightly bizarrely written debut. I don't regret reading it at all; parts of it stick in my mind; I will be excited for her next book; but if you only read a few books a year, I would point you in the direction of something like Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, or Real Americans, or something more purely in the science fiction vein.23
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