Thanks for this review! You had me at *reminiscent of Vonnegut*. 😁 You’ve yet to steer me wrong on a book recommendation, so, I just picked up the audiobook on Audible. Looking forward to something to offset John Ganz’s “When The Clock Broke” and Anne Applebaum’s latest, “Autocracy, Inc”. As both are just a tad heavy.
I loved Ministry of Time, though not as much as Cloud Atlas. Unlike you I was skeptical when I started it, but the tone, and the author's turns of phrase captured me immediately, particularly for nature--"the pigeons took off, their wings making the sound of swallowed laughter." I think about time a lot, and read a lot of time-travel fiction. Her way of dealing with the ending, ultimate paradox is a fairly standard time-travel trope, but what I liked in general was the sense that there are so many ways of contemplating time and we need to be open to all of them.
Well, I mean, Cloud Atlas is Cloud Atlas. That's the very top of the mountain. I liked his first one, too, Ghostwritten.
I like how she rolls all the pop cultural stuff in. And how it doesn't distract from anything but adds to it. There were plenty of times I laughed out loud. The little surprise surprised me and I thought was very clever.
Thank you, Greg. I have put Minestry on my list now. And my wife and I are watching Station Eleven on streaming. Pretty good, nice production, nice writing.
Thanks again, Greg, for the book review, and your musings on time travel. I especially agree about Lincoln. He was a man out of his time for sure.
I also agree about Trump. His election was inexplicable to me also; however, that vote in 2016 by “normal“ people is nothing like watching otherwise “sane”(????) people support him in 2020 and even more so in 2024. Such support and the cult that has arisen around this pervert has shaken me to my foundations. Our country has gone, and is going, stark raving mad. I am about finished with your two Trump books. He is so OBJECTIVELY and CLEARLY insane, vile, vulgar, corrupt, immoral and unfit to manage a convenience store, much less the country, I will never understand what has happened as long as I live. I am in shock and despair. The blatant and unashamed lies—the “Big Lie” and more— are so infuriating.
I have been waiting for almost ten years for Trump to implode and for most people to see him for who he of course is—-an insane sociopath. What is wrong with people???? There are many to blame for this. Republican senators, my fellow evangelical Christians, and yes, Fox News. Ignorant people like my own father—95 years old!- have been brainwashed by a network that paid $750 MILLION dollars for bald faced lies. Yet they go on with no repercussions of any kind.
“It’s about time” is right. I fear we are too late.
Right after I wrote this I went for a walk and stopped off at the deli for egg sandwiches. There were five other people in there, including our one local weirdo who wears the Trump hat everywhere. Turns out, all of them were MAGA. Which in this bluest of blue towns is rare. I asked why they liked a rapist, and didn't they have a problem with rape. All they can say is border, economy (that part isn't even true), and gas prices. I said, "Sure, fine, but what does that have to do with rape?" Not to sound elitist, but these were not smart people. Is this also a case of dumb people putting one over on us normies and smarties? It's very strange.
Maybe it’s a case of rapists and wife beater types identifying with a guy who has used force to assault women, with impunity, for most of his life. They will say or do anything, no matter how stupid or ridiculous, to deflect from and protect the ability to continue these behaviors. It’s easier than putting the effort into being decent, kind and respectful. There are also many women who are fine with other women being hurt if they can imagine any benefit to themselves. I know it seems unbelievable until you look at the statistics on violence men commit against women.
We have lived in interesting times. I eagerly anticipate looking back on my 92nd birthday some five years from now to see how we’ll prosper under the Harris presidency.
I just looked up my life expectancy chart and learned my expected expiration date.
Another brilliant piece . Thank you for sharing. Billserle.com
"A week ago, when the President dropped out and endorsed the Vice President, there was a shift in the collective energy as palpable and real as a shift in the earth’s tectonic plates. We all felt the tumultuous recalibration, even the MAGA. Why then? Why that? I don’t really know, and neither does anyone else. It is, and will always be, one of life’s mysteries."
And your ultimate statement:
"It's about time"
YES -- it IS about time, and if you read a savvy astrologer's analysis of the patterns at play on this month's Full Moon, you will see the anticipation of genetic mutation that advanced a new way of looking at things, backed by a ginormous flow of energy involving power and resources -- a wave, if you will. https://elisabethgrace.substack.com/p/monday-7222024-sneak-peek-at-the
In other news, thank you for yet another brilliantly-written, provocative post. You rock!
I did indeed read said savvy astrologer's analysis when it arrived in my inbox, with great anticipation, to see what she would say. She was right on point, as usual!
That’s a great question – – thanks for asking. The answer is: absolutely nothing! Astrology is a language that expresses human experience through time. In the language of astrology, Pluto symbolizes power and resources, breakdown and transformation, purging, corruption, exposed, news from underground, and forces in the extreme. Whether astronomers see it as a planet or a dwarf planet or a giant mushroom, this has had no effect on how astrologers interpret its potential.
I’ve been fascinated with time travel since first reading HG Wells THE TIME MACHINE as a sixth grader and am a huge fan of Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER series of massive books on the subject. The thing is, one doesn’t have to know how it works to be able to suspend belief in order to enjoy a good story; time travel just being one element in several that drives the story forward.
THE MINISTRY OF TIME sounds exactly like the kind of reading I could get into and thoroughly enjoy so will most likely be downloading it to my Kindle library.
As a side note, Ms Gabaldon hinted about a similar British “Ministry” in one of her last books, the ninth one I believe. It was written in 2014.
I’ll look forward to reading this book but after this crazy political season is over. Besides, I’m rereading all the OUTLANDER books now anyway.
I cannot resist time travel novels and/or movies -- absolutely CANNOT. I am a huge fan of the Terminator series, BOTH Time Machine movies, "12 Monkeys," and one of my favorites, "Millennium" by John Varley. I liked the book better than the movie, but the movie got me to the book, so I can't trash it too hard -- Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd are not bad per se, but enough said.
I'm currently rereading Stephen King's "Everything's Eventual" that I got to in a very weird, roundabout way, which I'll spare you the details. Stephen King's "11/22/63" is also a time-travel novel that I remember devouring and was then rewarded with a very good mini-series. I would have thought "The Ministry of Time" would have been on my radar before today, but somehow, I missed it -- not anymore! I'm probably just an idiot who hasn't found it, but somewhere on the vast and informative internet we need a Book Preview site that tells of upcoming books like we have the marketing for new movies. Where is that place? Goodreads? I hate when I miss books like this one.
Do I believe in time travel? Oh, yes, I think I do. The fact is, we don't know if we've ever figured it out. I would assume a time traveler from the future would keep themselves well-hidden as to their origins, and we wouldn't know about them as time travelers, just as we normally don't know about spies. There are too many things, too many dei ex machina in our history, for them to be explained away as, "well, that's JUST what happened!" (Yes, the plural of "deus ex machina" is "DEI ex machina," (I looked it up!) and if you don't see the D.E.I. in that, I don't know what to tell you.)
But, back to my point: we have been "saved" over and over by things, people, and events throughout our history that don't have simple explanations. Do I think it's because of time travel? Maybe. Kamala Harris' rise at this time in this election, in this year is, I think, more akin to the magnetic poles shifting than only tectonic plates moving around. I looked at my almost 92-year-old mom a few nights ago and said, "You're going to live long enough to see the first woman president elected!" And she said, (unbelievably, because she has seen more change in the U.S. than almost any of us, and REALLY hates what's going on) "I think you're right." When you get mom, you've won! Mom was prepared to simply NOT VOTE when Joe was forced out by Democrats, and I let that simmer for a day or two because I knew she'd come around. Now, she's going to help elect the first female president! I have become SO excited about this election, my countdown clock in the corner of my MANCAVE (LOL) that says it's 99 days and some change away, is moving WAY, WAY too slow. I. Cannot. Wait.
Brilliant, thanks. Another Greg special added to my reading list.
What if, a question unto itself. What if Hitler was offed as a baby? What if Hillary canvassed Wisconsin and Pennsylvania? What if Biden took Anita's side at Thomas's confirmation hearings? What if my inspiring senior year English teacher wasn't? All things of the past, all relevant to everything that exists today, good and bad. For me the big question is are the events of the past and in our future simply part of the inevitable? Does no Hitler mean no holocaust or rather it occurs because of inevitability? Is dipshit 45 to inevitably to become 46?
Are historical and future events inevitable? Oh such despair if this is true! This infers mere mortals, be they as brilliant as Einstein or as mundane and useless as this Old Man are not relevant to events even though we try. If I get 10 folks to vote Kamala, will another get 11 to vote dipshit 45, allowing the inevitable to occur? Was the greatest idea ever, Democracy going to occur with or without the landing at Plymouth Rock? Is it's demise inevitable? Blame it on the spacetime continuum.
Are events inevitable therefore actions taken in the present accept it as so and are preordained to act accordingly. Does media coverage of November 5 accept that dipshit 45 is to become dipshit 46 by simply being a part of the inevitability of it. Put another way is the asshole's ascendancy inevitable, therefore media treats it as so? Was it inevitable that Joe had to go as part of the inevitability of dipshit 45 becoming bigger dipshit 46? I can ruminate about what would happen if he stayed, however if 46 is inevitable, then Joe or Kamala are simply part of this.
Sorry if this incomprehensible blabber hurts your head and is depressing. This does offer an explanation of how things occur. How? They are predestined so. This makes every MAGA who votes for dipshit 45 and Fox News a rational part of an inevitable event. And it explains the fear within me as a rational reaction to an inevitable event.
Let's hope I am so wrong. And let's go back to what matters, voting blue and perhaps the most incomprehensible of all things, praying.
I forgot to weave the Bierce story into this, which I meant to do...and now I'm not even sure it's Bierce who wrote it. The story about the man who comes to a three-pronged fork in the road, and then flashes back as he goes down each path. He winds up dead in all three, at the same time, in the same place. Fate is fate, and time travel cannot stop it. As Oedipus well knew.
To your list, I will add Princip shooting the Archduke and starting the war. The assassination attempt had already failed. It was pure chance that he found the car in front of him, the gun still in his hand...and he managed to kill both of them. Then, WWI, and all that followed. Would it have happened anyway? Almost certainly, but if you were to go back in time to stop something from happening, taking out Princip would be the thing. No WWI, no WWII. No reparations, no Hitler. And etc until our heads explode...
Thank you for this review! Will move to top of my list. In my experience, tachyons exist & guide us if we are in a receptive place.
I had to Google "tachyons."
The way that we scoff at how little people knew about science even 200 years ago is how people in the future will scoff at us now...
You had me at " a doomed naval expedition"!
She was clearly obsessed with it.
Thanks for this review! You had me at *reminiscent of Vonnegut*. 😁 You’ve yet to steer me wrong on a book recommendation, so, I just picked up the audiobook on Audible. Looking forward to something to offset John Ganz’s “When The Clock Broke” and Anne Applebaum’s latest, “Autocracy, Inc”. As both are just a tad heavy.
This book is a lot of fun. Certainly more fun than autocracy...
Jessica Anya Blau’s “Mary Jane” is probably my favorite that you’ve previously recommended. That one makes me smile every time I’ve read it!
💙🌞
I loved Ministry of Time, though not as much as Cloud Atlas. Unlike you I was skeptical when I started it, but the tone, and the author's turns of phrase captured me immediately, particularly for nature--"the pigeons took off, their wings making the sound of swallowed laughter." I think about time a lot, and read a lot of time-travel fiction. Her way of dealing with the ending, ultimate paradox is a fairly standard time-travel trope, but what I liked in general was the sense that there are so many ways of contemplating time and we need to be open to all of them.
Well, I mean, Cloud Atlas is Cloud Atlas. That's the very top of the mountain. I liked his first one, too, Ghostwritten.
I like how she rolls all the pop cultural stuff in. And how it doesn't distract from anything but adds to it. There were plenty of times I laughed out loud. The little surprise surprised me and I thought was very clever.
We have a few local characters who have to be time travelers.
Thank you, Greg. I have put Minestry on my list now. And my wife and I are watching Station Eleven on streaming. Pretty good, nice production, nice writing.
I've heard the show is very good but I won't watch it, because I love the book too much.
Good call. Very rare for tv to better the books
Found the series on dvd at my library, looked kind of interesting. Enjoyed it very much, will definitely read the book.
Thanks again, Greg, for the book review, and your musings on time travel. I especially agree about Lincoln. He was a man out of his time for sure.
I also agree about Trump. His election was inexplicable to me also; however, that vote in 2016 by “normal“ people is nothing like watching otherwise “sane”(????) people support him in 2020 and even more so in 2024. Such support and the cult that has arisen around this pervert has shaken me to my foundations. Our country has gone, and is going, stark raving mad. I am about finished with your two Trump books. He is so OBJECTIVELY and CLEARLY insane, vile, vulgar, corrupt, immoral and unfit to manage a convenience store, much less the country, I will never understand what has happened as long as I live. I am in shock and despair. The blatant and unashamed lies—the “Big Lie” and more— are so infuriating.
I have been waiting for almost ten years for Trump to implode and for most people to see him for who he of course is—-an insane sociopath. What is wrong with people???? There are many to blame for this. Republican senators, my fellow evangelical Christians, and yes, Fox News. Ignorant people like my own father—95 years old!- have been brainwashed by a network that paid $750 MILLION dollars for bald faced lies. Yet they go on with no repercussions of any kind.
“It’s about time” is right. I fear we are too late.
Right after I wrote this I went for a walk and stopped off at the deli for egg sandwiches. There were five other people in there, including our one local weirdo who wears the Trump hat everywhere. Turns out, all of them were MAGA. Which in this bluest of blue towns is rare. I asked why they liked a rapist, and didn't they have a problem with rape. All they can say is border, economy (that part isn't even true), and gas prices. I said, "Sure, fine, but what does that have to do with rape?" Not to sound elitist, but these were not smart people. Is this also a case of dumb people putting one over on us normies and smarties? It's very strange.
Maybe it’s a case of rapists and wife beater types identifying with a guy who has used force to assault women, with impunity, for most of his life. They will say or do anything, no matter how stupid or ridiculous, to deflect from and protect the ability to continue these behaviors. It’s easier than putting the effort into being decent, kind and respectful. There are also many women who are fine with other women being hurt if they can imagine any benefit to themselves. I know it seems unbelievable until you look at the statistics on violence men commit against women.
We have lived in interesting times. I eagerly anticipate looking back on my 92nd birthday some five years from now to see how we’ll prosper under the Harris presidency.
I just looked up my life expectancy chart and learned my expected expiration date.
Another brilliant piece . Thank you for sharing. Billserle.com
Thank you, Bill. Here's to four years from now!
Aww...Greg...geez...to your closing musings:
"A week ago, when the President dropped out and endorsed the Vice President, there was a shift in the collective energy as palpable and real as a shift in the earth’s tectonic plates. We all felt the tumultuous recalibration, even the MAGA. Why then? Why that? I don’t really know, and neither does anyone else. It is, and will always be, one of life’s mysteries."
And your ultimate statement:
"It's about time"
YES -- it IS about time, and if you read a savvy astrologer's analysis of the patterns at play on this month's Full Moon, you will see the anticipation of genetic mutation that advanced a new way of looking at things, backed by a ginormous flow of energy involving power and resources -- a wave, if you will. https://elisabethgrace.substack.com/p/monday-7222024-sneak-peek-at-the
In other news, thank you for yet another brilliantly-written, provocative post. You rock!
P.S. -- Can't wait to hear what you think of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead :)
I did indeed read said savvy astrologer's analysis when it arrived in my inbox, with great anticipation, to see what she would say. She was right on point, as usual!
Thank you!
What has changed in astrology now that Pluto is not considered a planet?
That’s a great question – – thanks for asking. The answer is: absolutely nothing! Astrology is a language that expresses human experience through time. In the language of astrology, Pluto symbolizes power and resources, breakdown and transformation, purging, corruption, exposed, news from underground, and forces in the extreme. Whether astronomers see it as a planet or a dwarf planet or a giant mushroom, this has had no effect on how astrologers interpret its potential.
Has it not changed dates of sun signs, moons & ascendants?
Nope. Though I'm curious to know why you think it could have...
"petty, lying, mobbed-up rapist" -- best descriptor ever!
Thanks. He is what he is!
I’ve been fascinated with time travel since first reading HG Wells THE TIME MACHINE as a sixth grader and am a huge fan of Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER series of massive books on the subject. The thing is, one doesn’t have to know how it works to be able to suspend belief in order to enjoy a good story; time travel just being one element in several that drives the story forward.
THE MINISTRY OF TIME sounds exactly like the kind of reading I could get into and thoroughly enjoy so will most likely be downloading it to my Kindle library.
As a side note, Ms Gabaldon hinted about a similar British “Ministry” in one of her last books, the ninth one I believe. It was written in 2014.
I’ll look forward to reading this book but after this crazy political season is over. Besides, I’m rereading all the OUTLANDER books now anyway.
Then you'll like this one for sure. I enjoyed it, obviously!
I cannot resist time travel novels and/or movies -- absolutely CANNOT. I am a huge fan of the Terminator series, BOTH Time Machine movies, "12 Monkeys," and one of my favorites, "Millennium" by John Varley. I liked the book better than the movie, but the movie got me to the book, so I can't trash it too hard -- Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd are not bad per se, but enough said.
I'm currently rereading Stephen King's "Everything's Eventual" that I got to in a very weird, roundabout way, which I'll spare you the details. Stephen King's "11/22/63" is also a time-travel novel that I remember devouring and was then rewarded with a very good mini-series. I would have thought "The Ministry of Time" would have been on my radar before today, but somehow, I missed it -- not anymore! I'm probably just an idiot who hasn't found it, but somewhere on the vast and informative internet we need a Book Preview site that tells of upcoming books like we have the marketing for new movies. Where is that place? Goodreads? I hate when I miss books like this one.
Do I believe in time travel? Oh, yes, I think I do. The fact is, we don't know if we've ever figured it out. I would assume a time traveler from the future would keep themselves well-hidden as to their origins, and we wouldn't know about them as time travelers, just as we normally don't know about spies. There are too many things, too many dei ex machina in our history, for them to be explained away as, "well, that's JUST what happened!" (Yes, the plural of "deus ex machina" is "DEI ex machina," (I looked it up!) and if you don't see the D.E.I. in that, I don't know what to tell you.)
But, back to my point: we have been "saved" over and over by things, people, and events throughout our history that don't have simple explanations. Do I think it's because of time travel? Maybe. Kamala Harris' rise at this time in this election, in this year is, I think, more akin to the magnetic poles shifting than only tectonic plates moving around. I looked at my almost 92-year-old mom a few nights ago and said, "You're going to live long enough to see the first woman president elected!" And she said, (unbelievably, because she has seen more change in the U.S. than almost any of us, and REALLY hates what's going on) "I think you're right." When you get mom, you've won! Mom was prepared to simply NOT VOTE when Joe was forced out by Democrats, and I let that simmer for a day or two because I knew she'd come around. Now, she's going to help elect the first female president! I have become SO excited about this election, my countdown clock in the corner of my MANCAVE (LOL) that says it's 99 days and some change away, is moving WAY, WAY too slow. I. Cannot. Wait.
This:
(Yes, the plural of "deus ex machina" is "DEI ex machina," (I looked it up!) and if you don't see the D.E.I. in that, I don't know what to tell you.)
made me chortle, Steve. Thanks for that. ha!
Change is coming. Trump's rally speeches and Vance's barbs at cat ladies are the death rattle of MAGA.
Brilliant, thanks. Another Greg special added to my reading list.
What if, a question unto itself. What if Hitler was offed as a baby? What if Hillary canvassed Wisconsin and Pennsylvania? What if Biden took Anita's side at Thomas's confirmation hearings? What if my inspiring senior year English teacher wasn't? All things of the past, all relevant to everything that exists today, good and bad. For me the big question is are the events of the past and in our future simply part of the inevitable? Does no Hitler mean no holocaust or rather it occurs because of inevitability? Is dipshit 45 to inevitably to become 46?
Are historical and future events inevitable? Oh such despair if this is true! This infers mere mortals, be they as brilliant as Einstein or as mundane and useless as this Old Man are not relevant to events even though we try. If I get 10 folks to vote Kamala, will another get 11 to vote dipshit 45, allowing the inevitable to occur? Was the greatest idea ever, Democracy going to occur with or without the landing at Plymouth Rock? Is it's demise inevitable? Blame it on the spacetime continuum.
Are events inevitable therefore actions taken in the present accept it as so and are preordained to act accordingly. Does media coverage of November 5 accept that dipshit 45 is to become dipshit 46 by simply being a part of the inevitability of it. Put another way is the asshole's ascendancy inevitable, therefore media treats it as so? Was it inevitable that Joe had to go as part of the inevitability of dipshit 45 becoming bigger dipshit 46? I can ruminate about what would happen if he stayed, however if 46 is inevitable, then Joe or Kamala are simply part of this.
Sorry if this incomprehensible blabber hurts your head and is depressing. This does offer an explanation of how things occur. How? They are predestined so. This makes every MAGA who votes for dipshit 45 and Fox News a rational part of an inevitable event. And it explains the fear within me as a rational reaction to an inevitable event.
Let's hope I am so wrong. And let's go back to what matters, voting blue and perhaps the most incomprehensible of all things, praying.
Thanks for this, Old Man.
I forgot to weave the Bierce story into this, which I meant to do...and now I'm not even sure it's Bierce who wrote it. The story about the man who comes to a three-pronged fork in the road, and then flashes back as he goes down each path. He winds up dead in all three, at the same time, in the same place. Fate is fate, and time travel cannot stop it. As Oedipus well knew.
To your list, I will add Princip shooting the Archduke and starting the war. The assassination attempt had already failed. It was pure chance that he found the car in front of him, the gun still in his hand...and he managed to kill both of them. Then, WWI, and all that followed. Would it have happened anyway? Almost certainly, but if you were to go back in time to stop something from happening, taking out Princip would be the thing. No WWI, no WWII. No reparations, no Hitler. And etc until our heads explode...
Thank you. May November 5th produce a fork in the road that yields a truly outstanding event. Fingers crossed and may heads not explode
Hear, hear!
I prefer interstellar travel.
WAY STATION
by Clifford Simak.
Going back or forward in Time reminds me of Houdini. I haven't heard from him, Yet!
My science fiction, not Science Fanasty best readings were from 1950 to 1968.
Not a big fan of stuff later. My all time favorite is the
NINE tales in CITY
by Clifford Simak.
His "Way Station"
was a
Hugo award winner.