The Ministry of Time

[psocoptera]

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley, 2024 novel. My first problem with this book was that I couldn't buy into the premise; the set-up as given did not feel like a way anyone would go about doing what they were ostensibly doing, nor did that thing even make sense to me, so it seemed like something else must be going on, and I was not very interested in plodding along waiting for a reveal. My second problem was a turn towards romance where I was put off by the ship. In the end the whole thing felt muddled and contrived - Bradley's interest was clearly in this one historical blorbo, to use the fannish term (possibly literally a fannish blorbo if the genesis of this book was in Terror fandom) and she knew what beats she wanted in the story about them and had tried to assemble a plot that would give them to her. But to me some of them felt arbitrary and under-motivated and the whole thing didn't quite hang together.

I do get to rank Hugo novels now, though.

The nominees:

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

I nominated Sorceress and still like it best of these, although I would have liked City in Glass more, grumble grumble. Tainted Cup was fun and I guess that leaves me with Someone You Can Build a Nest In third, since I think it was better than this one. I'm not reading either Tchaikovsky book so I guess I'll rank Bradley above them for at least being a book I was willing to read? Thus,

1 - A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
2 - The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
3 - Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
4 - The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Or maybe I'll leave off Bradley and figure if she's fighting it out with Tchaikovsky I'm already going to be so grumpy about this year's results that I just don't care. Hm.

Comments

[ursula]

Huh, I think we might be Hugo opposites! I liked the Bradley a lot despite the fact that I was shipping it as m/m and f/f pairings rather than the romance that actually happened--I think it was one of my nominees--and I was pleasantly surprised by Alien Clay.

[psocoptera]

Heh, I think I have a lot of Hugo opposites! I seem to know several people into Tchaikovsky, at least. Possibly I am a Hugo outlier. :)

[ursula]

Maybe the Tchaikovsky block and the Vernon block are distinct camps???

I really specifically wanted the Bennett to be a Tchaikovsky, in that I wanted it to be the beginning of an arc plot where they recognize the ecological damage of murdering leviathans who only want to reproduce and work toward a kinder society where humans and aliens can coexist.

[psocoptera]

Heh, I haven't read the second one yet, so for all I know it is! Definitely seemed like there was More Going On with those leviathans than we understood as of book one. (Please do not confirm or deny anything you know about this as of book two if you've read that.)

Also that... did not seem to be a theme of the Tchaikovsky I've read? At least I don't remember anything like that in Elder Race, and maybe I didn't get that far in Ogres, which is what convinced me I could just give up on Tchaikovsky. (I guess I did like Spiderlight but I honestly have no recollection of the plot of that this many years later...)

[ursula]

Oh, yeah, I would sum up the core Tchaikovsky plot as "War is hell, but if we work together and try to communicate, we can find a better way." This is often combined with "spiders are neat."

Ogres leans on the war is hell part of the core plot until a very last minute twist. I guess Elder Race is all in on "communication is hard" and doesn't do the other bits of the standard plot.

I would try for a rec, but honestly my favorite Tchaikovsky books have a lot of the miseries of war and that might not be a message you need more of these days.

[elysdir]

Heh, and I seem to have a mix of y’all’s tastes—I think my reactions to the Bradley were similar to yours, Ursula, but Tchaikovsky has yet to work for me.

(For details about my reactions to the Bradley, see my SFDT post about the novel finalists.)