Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Future of Another Timeline

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

25 reviews

azzageddi's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

(This is from my blog.)
I've read plenty of nonfiction by Annalee Newitz, lots of stuff that they've edited, and some short fiction, and I've listened to their podcast with Charlie Jane Anders. But I hadn't read any of their novels! Well, I got to listen to and ask questions of Newitz at the 2023 VICFA online conference, and that reminded me how remiss I've been, so while they were talking, I surreptitiously got on Amazon Japan and bought the ebook of The Future of Another Timeline. I finished it a few days ago, and though I still haven't blogged some other books I finished before that, I wanted to get this one down before it loses its freshness.

Time-travel stories are hard. Even harder, because there have been so many, is getting anything fresh into a time-travel story. That certainly one of the reasons Future of Another Timeline has shot up to be in my top-five time-travel stories. (Note: I do not actually make top-five lists. I have a really hard time putting things in order like that. My students often ask me "What's your favorite ___?" and I panic and go "Too much pressure!" and reply "Well, I don't know about my favorite, but right now I really like ___." If somebody on social media tags me with "name your top ten thingamajigs," I just ignore it or I'll end up with a migraine. So when I say "my top-five" I really just mean "I love this!") Fresh things in this story: For one, there are vastly ancient time machines, created when life was just starting on Earth, that humans have figured out how to work by tapping them in certain sequences, and thus for centuries there has been time travel, though an academically inclined society keeps a monopoly on it to prevent things from going totally crazy. The fact that a time traveller can go back to the late-19th century and people go "Oh, so you're a time traveller! So what's that like then?" is a charming change from all the "must keep time travel secret" of 99% of such stories. Also, I love the pre-human machines--were they built by aliens? By humans who somehow travelled back before the machines were built? Are they some result of a bizarre natural process? Nobody knows yet.

Another thing I love about this book is that it is unapologetically feminist, and portrays a time war going on between two factions: the Daughters of Harriet (who claim Harriet Tubman as their patron saint), and the Comstockers (basically Incels, who are trying to get the movement led by 19th-century anti-vice/anti-abortion misogynist activist Anthony Comstock to produce a timeline where women have no rights at all). As is revealed in hints through the early parts of the novel, Comstock's laws have already succeeded in a history where abortion is 100% illegal throughout the USA, and the Daughters of Harriet are trying to edit the timeline to get more freedom and equality for women (including trans and nonbinary people), when they come across the Comstockers' plan to edit the timeline to erase women's rights entirely and turn them into "queens" (handless breeders) and "drones" (infertile workers).

I like how the language and ideas are very reminiscent of how Wikipedia works, particularly with "edit wars," something Newitz has much experience with and has written about. It really brings to mind how much we know of history, what is brought to our attention, and so on. How much do we know of the two most influential historical figures in this novel, Harriet Tubman and Anthony Comstock. I knew a fair bit about the former before I read, but hardly more than the name of the latter, but they're quite important to the history of the USA. Yet it's so easy for them to be "written out," and right now, erasing uncomfortable history is an obsession of the Far Right--the same people who complain endlessly about "cancel culture," something they have mostly made up from their own imaginations. Control of history is a powerful thing, and time travel serves as a powerful metaphor for that.

If I had read this book before Gamergate and the rise of the Far Right (which would have required a time machine as it's from 2019), I'd probably have thought it a bit on the nose, and a bit hard to believe that incels could ever become that big of a problem. But today, anybody who finds it hard to believe such a feminist-vs-incel war needs to open their eyes. We are, to put it simply, in an ideological struggle for equal rights, democracy, and liberty on one side and a gleeful romp toward a fascist dark age on the other. (That the second choice will also lead to an environmental collapse is just icing on the cake.) As a middle-aged white American man, I'm expected to be on the side of the majority of my fellow middle-aged white American men, but I am very much with my queer, intersectional-feminist environmentalist antifascist comrades on this issue. Some people reading this book might feel preached at, but at this point that makes as much sense as reading a book set in WW2 that says "Nazis are bad" and being mad that the author doesn't make it fair and balanced.

Still, those things alone do not a wonderful book make. Well, there's also excellent plotting and structure, but the best thing is the depictions of the main and supporting characters. I felt tears welling up twice at the traumas and the victories of the main characters. I always love a book where I fall in love with some of the characters, and I know that Tess and Beth and even Soph and Hamid will live in my imagination for years and years. And that is yet another success in this novel: That it can be both a big, overarching story of the war for human rights across history, and at the same time a focused, very personal story of a few characters, often teenagers oppressed by their society, who escape through backyard punk-rock parties and smoking...and, tragically, violence.

CWs: This novel has some very graphic violence, and abuse of women, trans people, and minors, including sexual abuse. None of it is there to tittilate like some cheap action movie--it's all pertinent to the narrative and the characters. But some may want to avoid it for that.

Anyway, highly recommended. I have two more of Newitz's novels ready to read.

Content Warnings

krhysling's review against another edition

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Very disturbing graphic violence depictions

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franmor6907's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

hamstringy's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

This is really another book for the pile of books that should have been something I enjoyed. I was left soooo disappointed and really annoyed at the end of the book. Parts of the book are incredibly cool to me, like the science of time travel, the concept of political struggle over a timeline instead of just over linear moments.

I also did really enjoy one scene where the MC gouges a man's eyeballs out and calls his eye sockets "another hole to penetrate";

I think that was both really baller and genuinely an example of an idea I wish Newitz had committed to more.

Let's sort my criticisms into petty and conceptual:

Petty Nitpicks:

Women in the 1890s wearing "lacy bras"
A character predicting she'd graduate from UCLA in the 90s with $50k in debt (which there is no way to do in 4-5 years)
People using modern slang while time traveling while having people of the times understand them (okay sure, we're ignoring historical linguistics, that is a valid choice), but they catch enemy time travelers because they use modern slang??

Actual Beef:

I find this book to be quite bioessentialist--a lot of it is focused on an expanded Comstock act and the legality of abortion, which does most obviously affect people with uteruses (often women). This is fine, but the narrative keeps harping on the fact that the Sisters of Harriet are for women and nonbinary people. What about trans men? Are they not central to the underlying themes of autonomy, particularly with people obsessed with "female" fertility? What does the Comstock act do to affect nonbinary people and trans women? Why are all but one of the main characters women if there is gender diversity? It takes a lot of wind out of this book's sails, and, honestly, part of me wished the author just chose to make the Sisters of Harriet focused on abortion for women, because that's all they seemed equipped to handle.
I find the constant pacifism of the Sisters to be incredibly annoying. I think this is in large part because I'm not a staunch interpersonal pacifist myself, but it also doesn't really make sense in-book: what is one man versus the global health of all women? No one ever seems to express a very "sanctity of all life" sentiment, so it feels really disappointing a choice to shy away from the conflict between violence and autonomy.
I wish the Comstockers weren't made out to be these cartoonish villains. People who are anti-abortion can seem that way, but I think it's a generally more interesting and more compelling struggle if the Comstockers have complexity and nuance--this is hinted at in the very first scene, where a Comstocker is anti-college because of its establishment roots, but their politics quickly devolve into calling all women sluts and wanting them dead.
A riot grrl band never exists because the main character and her friend succeed and legalize abortion in the 21st century, but the riot grrl movement (and in particular this Latina-fronted band) was never just focused on abortion. Did men suddenly stop raping, harrassing, and objectifying musicians?

Content Warnings

alsoapples's review

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adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

fenny_42's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was insanely good. Collective action makes me want to cry, in the best way. How wonderfully Newitz captures the beauty and pain of life as a woman or nonbinary person. I finished this in two days and simply had to keep reading until I got to the end. I’ll be buying Newitz’s other book, Autonomous, immediately. I can’t recall the last time an author so enraptured me with such complex and deep topics.

Read this if you’re interested in intersectional history—anarchism, suffrage, reproductive rights, slavery, music and dance. There is SO MUCH going on in this book, and it is all painfully excellent.

LOTS of trigger warnings. I tagged as many as I could think of.

Content Warnings

katyyyowens's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

jhbandcats's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Creating a believable time travel story is bound to be difficult because it never makes sense once you start to analyze it. This story is so good that it was believable throughout - I wasn’t even tempted to try to analyze it because the plot fit together so perfectly.

This book is topical, having been published in 2019, three years before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. It describes a 1993 and a 2022 where abortion has never been legalized, and time travelers work to edit the timeline in favor of women’s rights. Of course, the people who deny rights to women are just as busy trying to edit the timeline to crush women and turn them into breeders. (It feels all too real in that sense.)

Engaging story, valiant characters, salient topic - an excellent book.

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rafaelsampaio's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

thesawyerbean's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This was a very enjoyable read. The research done for this novel was insane: the character, setting and plot writing were incredible. I loved the alternating points of view and the interweaving timelines, and the stakes were real, tangible and exhilarating. The effortless inclusion of diverse ethnicities and queer identities was fantastic to read too.

However, where this book falls short is I’m not sure the vision of the fundamental aspect, the time travel and its mechanics, were as defined and clear as they should have been. I did have to suspend belief and go along with it at certain points because it did seem like they flouted their own predefined rules in order for the plot to continue. By the end, although it was satisfying and a satisfactory end, there were still so many questions left unanswered - the characters and I were both left asking ‘who knows?’. In certain ways it made it more convoluted than it already was trying to justify some of the plot points.

Overall this book was good and definitely worth a read. A powerful feminist sci-fi novel, full of historical context and loveable characters, with an overarching plot-line we can all feel impassioned about.

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