Photo by Wil C. Fry, 2021
★★★★ (of 5)
- Full Title: The Future Of Another Timeline
- Author: Annalee Newitz
- Year: 2019 (mine was library hardcover)
- Pages: 340*
- Genre: Science Fiction, Time Travel
- Publisher: Tor (Macmillan)
- ISBN 978-0-7653-9210-7 (hardcover)
- Wikipedia page
- Author’s Wikipedia page
(* 340 pages does not include “Historical Sources: A Guide” or Acknowledgements, but [oddly] does include three title pages, the copyright page, and a couple of blank pages at the beginning.)
Summary
Newitz’s second novel, The Future Of Another Timeline was a finalist for the 2020 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction novel — along with Ancestral Night, which I reviewed in 2019, and losing to Charlie Jane Anders’ The City In The Middle Of The Night, which I haven’t yet read.
The central story is that of time traveler Tess, who is publicly a geoscientist studying specific time periods but privately a member of a secret women’s organization that attempts to “edit” the timeline in favor of women’s rights. It becomes obvious quickly that Tess’s timeline isn’t ours — none of the characters in 2022 remember abortion ever being legal in the U.S., for example. Another story is that of Beth, a teenager in the 1990s, and the reader quickly begins to suspect that this an earlier version of Tess, though there’s a spoiler about that which I won’t reveal. In all the time periods, but especially the 1890s, the women characters struggle against (real-life) villain Anthony Comstock and his followers (I don’t think the word “incel” is used, but the futuristic cabal of Comstock supporters definitely resembles the real-life anti-women movement) who regularly try to edit the timeline to remove women’s rights. Abortion’s legality is a touchstone measurement by which the time traveling women can measure whether any edits were successes or failures (though they also check for changes to slavery and suffrage laws). Moving easily from the 2020s to the 1990s to the 1890s and other time periods, the book is a refreshing take on themes like: what causes social/historical change (Great Men or social movements) and when or whether violence is an appropriate tool.
Praise
I had fun reading it, which I think is my primary measurement of fiction books. The first lines — the first few paragraphs, really — set a mood and tone that carries throughout the book, a mood of urgency yet pleasantly exciting at the same time. (“Drums beat in the distance like an amplified pulse.”)
I like that the book is unapologetically political, rather than my usual experience of sci-fi books pretending political acts don’t affect regular people, or implying that mentioning politics should be taboo, or — perhaps even worse — stating that each side of every political debate has equal merit. Politics is personal and has real-life effects, especially for anyone on the unpleasant side of power imbalances, which this book definitely gets, and preaches. At the same time, it paints characters (even some of the villains) as realistic people with conflicts. (Some of the villains, perhaps rightly so, are not given the benefit of the doubt, like Comstock and his modern day cousins, the anti-abortion protestors.)
The cast is diverse, but not in that weird cringey way where we simply list a bunch of ethnicities or genders so our readers know we’re thinking of diversity. No, due to the subject matter, the various characteristics of the people in the story are crucial to the narrative. Character C.L., for example, is nonbinary, a gender expression that would be outlawed if the Comstockers get their way. Berenice is transgender, not because it’s temporarily edgy to include trans characters, but because the story needs this inclusion (in one version of the timeline, Berenice is killed by bigots in 1992). The characters who are Black or Indigenous or otherwise not white are needed in the story because the fight against racism and white supremacy is inextricably intertwined with the fight against misogyny.
The places and events in the story felt oddly authentic. The author explained that “most of the locations... in Irvine and Los Angeles are based on places I knew as a teen in the late twentieth century” and “Some of Beth’s family backstory is based loosely on things I experienced.”
As a sci-fi novel, it works. The author came up with a method and history of time travel that might be unique — at least I hadn’t heard of it before — definitely not the same-old gadgets or machines used in most other time travel adventures. One reviewer (in the Chicago Tribune) complained that “Newitz’s complex conditions for time travel... arbitrary game rules” “unnecessarily complicates (sic) the first half of the novel”, but this only makes me think that reviewer isn’t familiar with the time travel genre — which is chock-full of “complex conditions” and “arbitrary game rules”, like Michael J. Fox’s hand partially disappearing while he plays the guitar, for example. In this book, the Machines that allow time travel just exist in five spots around the Earth and have apparently been there for millennia. No one alive knows how they got there or exactly how they work. The rules are inherent in the Machines and anyone who uses them simply has to know them. (And they aren’t really that complex, for anyone accustomed to sci-fi stories in general, which often have complex rules around interstellar drives and other futuristic technologies.)
And the ending? Well, I agree with the anonymous Kirkus reviewer who said: “Newitz suddenly ties it all together with breathtaking finesse. The humdinger of an ending is a perfect cherry on top.”
Points Off For...
I can’t think of anything specific that warrants removing points.
It bugged me a little that the author seemed to carefully avoid mentioning religion’s role in the anti-women’s crusade. There was a hint in the first chapter, when some protestors had “Bible verses” on their posters, but in the rest of the book, the motivation of the Comstockers felt inscrutable, perhaps simply a thirst for power or control. (In real life, it’s well known that Comstock’s supporters were almost entirely church-based groups, and Comstock’s own motivations were strictly religious in nature.) Perhaps Newitz figured the book was going to piss off a wide variety of groups and decided to draw the line at including the most powerful of those groups.
Conclusion
This was exactly what I’m looking for in science fiction: a good story, believable (and mostly likeable) characters, and a unique take on an age-old trope. What better reason to travel through time than to fight for civil rights?
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