The Ministry of Time audiobook review
Actor Katie Leung narrates this genre-bending debut in which a Victorian Arctic explorer is catapulted into our brave new world.
The Ministry of Time opens in the middle of a job interview. The applicant, a nameless British Cambodian civil servant, is in line for a role that involves working with expats of “high-interest status and particular needs”. When she asks where these expats come from, she is told:
“History.”The interviewer adds, casually,
“We have time travel.”
Listeners concerned about the practicalities of this time-hopping tale will be reassured by our protagonist’s observation that contemplating the physics leads to a
“crock of shit”,so it is best not dwelled upon.
“All you need to know is that in your near future, the British government developed the means to travel through time but had not yet experimented with doing it.”Her job, then, is to act as minder or “bridge” to individuals removed from their eras and bounced into the present.
Kaliane Bradley’s debut novel straddles sci-fi and romance as it grapples with the climate crisis, colonialism and forced migration, and uncovers the strangeness of our world as seen from the past. It does all this without feeling overly busy or heavy-handed. The narrator is actor Katie Leung, who strikes a smart balance between comedy and seriousness. She is joined by George Weightman, who reads the chapters from the perspective of Commander Graham Gore, a real-life naval officer and polar explorer who went missing during the Franklin expedition of 1845-1848. Here, Gore is catapulted into a brave new world of modern plumbing, online streaming and where the British white male no longer rules the waves.
Available via Sceptre, 10hr 23min
Further listening
Indignity: A Life Reimagined
Lea Ypi, Penguin Audio, 10 hr 28 min
Blending memoir and historical fiction, Indignity begins with the discovery of a photograph of the author’s grandmother sitting on a sun lounger in Italy. Ypi goes on to trace this young woman’s story in an era shaped by war and upheaval. Read by the author and Rachel Bavidge.
Butter
Asako Yuzuki, Fourth Estate, 17 hr 12 min
Hanako Footman reads this hit novel about a gourmet cook who has been convicted of the murders of a succession of lonely businessmen, all of them lured by her home cooking, and who strikes up a friendship with a young journalist.
