The Future of Another Timeline
by Annalee Newitz
Hardcover September 2019
Tor
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9210-7 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9212-1 (ebook)

Time travel stories are one of my jams. Like many of my science fiction interests, I can trace this one back to my dad, who gave me Murray Leinster’s Twists in Time collection when I was around thirteen.

I was intrigued and excited when I heard about The Future of Another Timeline. I prefer time patrol kind of stories, where changes are made to the timeline intentionally, rather than avoiding all meaningful actions. I was prepared to enjoy this book.

It blind-sided me.

Everything about this book turns the time travel/time patrol genre sideways. Newitz finds a way to seamlessly weave together the narratives of time-traveling Tess in the subjective present with Beth, a high school age girl from the subjective past, as changes to the past propagate through to the present. Some other viewpoints round things out, but the story centers around Tess and Beth.

I bow down in admiration of their world building, even more amazing because it’s so close to our world.

The characters, their place in the world, their interactions with other people, are wonderfully organic. Interactions with people and events are so reasonable it would be easy to overlook the pieces that didn’t really happen–the additions are seamless.

As a writer, I am in awe of Newitz’s ability to torture their characters precisely the right amount, so that every victory, no matter how small, feels earned. The lush level of detail indicates either an encyclopedic knowledge of North American history and social sciences, or talent for research with the ability refrain from including too much–never more than needed to make the point or build up the atmosphere.

As someone living in the United States in 2019, with all that entails politically, I found the political and feminist themes particularly relevant. Yet, the book never got preachy, nor did the thematic elements get in the way of a roaring good story.

I struggled a little trying to figure out just why I enjoyed this book so much. It’s the depth of emotions reading this book generated. All truly great books take you on an emotional journey–this one had a few moments that didn’t just make me feel good, they made me feel like I should go conquer the world. Right now.