Time Travel Improves Thinking
Summer is here, and our readers are asking for book recommendations. Not surprisingly, Instigators have a particular interest in CliFi, i.e., novels that help us envision the reality of a climate-stressed world, or—even better—inspire action to address the challenge. I just finished a great novel that fits the bill: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. It’s a fun book written in a hip style and raises very provocative questions.
Time Travel, Romance, and a World in Crisis
The novel spins a clever, genre-bending tale. Set in near-future London, a top-secret government agency recruits our narrator, protagonist, and hero—an unnamed civil servant—for a special mission. Her job is to integrate a time-traveling Victorian-era explorer into modern society. And he’s not the only time traveler. The Ministry is collecting “expats” from across history, plucking them out of their distinct eras and plopping them into today’s world as citizens grapple with climate change, political unease, intense surveillance, and more.