Spanish-language cover of the first issue of the "Death of Speedy" arc in one of the best comics of all time, Locas, by Jaime Hernandez (part of the Love and Rockets magazine by the Brothers Hernandez). Included here because Newitz's novel kept bringing Maggie and Hopey to mind, and I kept imagining the characters in The Future of Another Timeline as if drawn by Jaime Hernandez.
I've read plenty of nonfiction by Annalee Newitz, lots of stuff that they've edited, and some short fiction, and I've listened to their podcast with Charlie Jane Anders. But I hadn't read any of their novels! Well, I got to listen to and ask questions of Newitz at the 2023 VICFA online conference, and that reminded me how remiss I've been, so while they were talking, I surreptitiously got on Amazon Japan and bought the ebook of The Future of Another Timeline. I finished it a few days ago, and though I still haven't blogged some other books I finished before that (note to self: need to write about Rivers of London audiobook, The Raven Tower in print, the first few stories of The Unreal and the Real Vol 1, and starting my 8th circumnavigation of the Aubrey/Maturin series with Master and Commander in audio), I wanted to get this one down before it loses its freshness.
Time-travel stories are hard. Even harder, because there have been so many, is getting anything fresh into a time-travel story. That certainly one of the reasons Future of Another Timeline has shot up to be in my top-five time-travel stories. (Note: I do not actually make top-five lists. I have a really hard time putting things in order like that. My students often ask me "What's your favorite ___?" and I panic and go "Too much pressure!" and reply "Well, I don't know about my favorite, but right now I really like ___." If somebody on social media tags me with "name your top ten thingamajigs," I just ignore it or I'll end up with a migraine. So when I say "my top-five" I really just mean "I love this!") Fresh things in this story: For one, there are vastly ancient time machines, created when life was just starting on Earth, that humans have figured out how to work by tapping them in certain sequences, and thus for centuries there has been time travel, though an academically inclined society keeps a monopoly on it to prevent things from going totally crazy. The fact that a time traveller can go back to the late-19th century and people go "Oh, so you're a time traveller! So what's that like then?" is a charming change from all the "must keep time travel secret" of 99% of such stories. Also, I love the pre-human machines--were they built by aliens? By humans who somehow travelled back before the machines were built? Are they some result of a bizarre natural process? Nobody knows yet.
Another thing I love about this book is that it is unapologetically feminist, and portrays a time war going on between two factions: the Daughters of Harriet (who claim Harriet Tubman as their patron saint), and the Comstockers (basically Incels, who are trying to get the movement led by 19th-century anti-vice/anti-abortion misogynist activist Anthony Comstock to produce a timeline where women have no rights at all). As is revealed in hints through the early parts of the novel, Comstock's laws have already succeeded in a history where abortion is 100% illegal throughout the USA, and the Daughters of Harriet are trying to edit the timeline to get more freedom and equality for women (including trans and nonbinary people), when they come across the Comstockers' plan to edit the timeline to erase women's rights entirely and turn them into "queens" (breeders) and "drones" (workers).
I like how the language and ideas are very reminiscent of how Wikipedia works, particularly with "edit wars," something Newitz has much experience with and has written about. It really brings to mind how much we know of history, what is brought to our attention, and so on. How much do we know of the two most influential historical figures in this novel, Harriet Tubman and Anthony Comstock. I knew a fair bit about the former before I read, but hardly more than the name of the latter, but they're quite important to the history of the USA. Yet it's so easy for them to be "written out," and right now, erasing uncomfortable history is an obsession of the Far Right--the same people who complain endlessly about "cancel culture," something they have mostly made up from their own imaginations. Control of history is a powerful thing, and time travel serves as a powerful metaphor for that.
If I had read this book before Gamergate and the rise of the Far Right (which would have required a time machine as the book is from 2019), I'd probably have thought it a bit on the nose, and a bit hard to believe that incels could ever become that big of a problem. But today, anybody who finds it hard to believe in the existence of a feminist-vs-incel war needs to open their eyes. We are, to put it simply, already there, in an ideological struggle for equal rights, democracy, and liberty on one side and a gleeful romp toward a fascist dark age on the other. (That the second choice will also lead to an environmental collapse is just icing on the cake.) As a middle-aged white American man, I'm expected to be on the side of the majority of my fellow middle-aged white American men, but I am very much with my queer, intersectional-feminist environmentalist antifascist comrades on this issue. Some people reading this book might feel preached at, but at this point that makes as much sense as reading a book set in WW2 that says "Nazis are bad" and being mad that the author doesn't make it fair and balanced.
Still, those things alone do not a wonderful book make. Well, there's also excellent plotting and structure, but the best thing is the depictions of the main and supporting characters. I felt tears welling up twice at the traumas and the victories of the main characters. I always love a book where I fall in love with some of the characters, and I know that Tess and Beth and even Soph and Hamid will live in my imagination for years and years. And that is yet another success in this novel: That it can be both a big, overarching story of the war for human rights across history, and at the same time a focused, very personal story of a few characters, often teenagers oppressed by their society, who escape through backyard punk-rock parties and smoking...and, tragically, violence.
CWs: This novel has some very graphic violence, and abuse of women, trans people, and minors, including sexual abuse. None of it is there to titillate like some cheap action movie--it's all pertinent to the narrative and the characters. But some may want to avoid it for that.
Anyway, highly recommended. I have two more of Newitz's novels ready to read.
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