The Future of Another Timeline

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Time travel is possible, though it is not an invention but a discovery. Through geology, a series of portals have been discovered throughout the world and have led to a series of regulations governing them, with rules and norms. And there are those that chose to bend the rues and rewrite history.

These rewrites are known as “edits” and unlike other time travel sci-fi where one things happens that changes everything (a la Back to the Future) , it is not as sensitive or cut and dried. Big changes are not possible, but little changes are. Ideological schools supporting either a Great Man theory of history compete with the Collective Action theory of history. And it is within this framework of “edits” that this truly unique and wild novel takes place.

In 1992, 17-year-old Beth gets into a confrontation at a riot grrl concert…in 2022 Tess uses the technology to change the past for the betterment of women. And the rights of women are stripped away by a series of targeted edits by a group known as Comstockers, after the preening moral crusader Anthony Comstock (a real life person) .

What results is a thoroughly engaging tale that hops around several sensitive points in history, sometimes eliminating people and sometimes bringing them back…with the ultimate goal of Comstockers being the complete repression of women and then destruction of a key portal in time to lock in a terrible future for all of humankind. The war across time will occur on many fronts, with results that resemble but not completely resemble the world we live in now. And at the same time, the social commentary is prevalent and a warning to the people of earth about the dark age we may yet soon enter.

The Future of Another Timeline is a terrific read.




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