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

the premise of this book ticked a ton of boxes for me, but i could NOT get into it at all. no investment in the plot, no affection for the characters, some interest in the central ideas (time/history, collective action) but underwhelmed with how they were handled. bummer!

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amalyndb's review against another edition

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5.0

Wow. This is powerful.

Basic premise is an alternate history, where reproductive rights are threatened from the far future via time travel. There's a whole lot more than that.

There is some potentially triggering subject matter. That may be an understatement.

Heed the warnings: I had a visceral reaction to some of this. I've read other stuff written in more explicit ways that didn't impact me as much. An observation, rather than a complaint. Will reread again in future when I feel able to.

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elle_g's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

The plot of this book was interesting, but executed poorly. There were too many ideas that weren't properly fleshed out so they fell flat. A lot of the characters lacked any nuance (I.e. the Scooby-Doo like villains) and some felt like they were only there to be token diversity characters since they didnt end up contributing to the plot at all.

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pandact's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful informative medium-paced

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

4.0

From the start, I imagined each chapter as a music video, specifically K. Flay's videos around "Sister" where they escape from men and travel back in time. It makes a lot more sense after all the punk bands in the acknowledgements, and the Grape Ape music video they mentioned in the post-audiobook interview! Honestly, the acknowledgements and historical notes were pretty good about avoiding spoilers, and it would've been cool to know that they were composing the Arabian riff!

It's like a music video with cameos for historical nerds, and plenty of suggestive dancing and smoking that would piss off Comstock... Newitz juggles a lot of twisty timelines at the expense of character development, imo. Nonetheless, it's a powerful work that evokes feminist punk and might teach you something just like Robot and Crow.

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patlo's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

Fun and progressive, if heavy handed, alternate history based on time travel edits. The audiobook is voiced by a wonderful young actor with a good punk energy.

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kelseymn18's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced

4.0

A Handmaid's Tale meets time travel. A group of feminist time travelers study and visit social movements from throughout history, until they end up in an "edit war" against men who are going back in time and editing history in order to prevent women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights from progressing. I loved the fresh concept, and the time travel aspect was done well. The two main POVs and their timelines were also integrated really well. The story definitely hits differently now in a post-Roe world.

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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?

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