pandact 's review for:

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

4.0

adventurous hopeful informative medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexism, Abortion, Murder

Moderate: Drug use, Pedophilia, Suicide, Torture, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship

Minor: Sexual content, Antisemitism, Cultural appropriation

Some nitpicks... Reverting the erased character so early kind of "nuked the fridge" for me and it wasn't suspenseful unless there was a threat to prevent time travel, but the edit war never really had any big moments where someone was "burned out" or had a permanent loss. There wasn't a lot of tension in the middle, and I kept getting distracted by inconsistent, handwavy causality. It's not as much science of time travel as historical drama... The narrator had a perfect speed (at 1.5) and good acting, but did not match the songs. I really wanted Lucy Parsons or some feminist to come back and undermine the Great Man diverting the timeline thing, but I get that even Sanger and Helen Keller also liked gilded age eugenics... All that said, I'm so glad I finished it because the ending stuck the landing in a fun way!