Queer, science fiction, that's just- I mean
queer anything honestly
but like, science fiction! Are you ready
for this? 'Cause we got time-travel, we got
queerness, we got murder,
we got feminism, we got punk rock, we got
a group of women and non-binary pals
fighting a time war against a group of
men that are trying to bioengineer a
patriarchy worse than the Republic of
GIlead. [intro]
Hello and welcome, my name is Starlah and
if you are into some a queer, feminist,
time-traveling agents then this is the
book for you. This book- ow I bit my
tongue. This book is in The Future of
Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz.
In this book we are following two
perspectives. We got Beth who is a 17
year-old, suburban, punk rocker who is
living in this cycle of abuse and music
and murder. Murder as Beth finds herself
with her friends and one of her friends
boyfriend dead in the backseat. This
murder sets Beth and her friends on a
path of escalating violence and
vengeance for young women who have been
wronged and abused by men. We are also
following Tess, who is a professional
time traveler, geoscientist, and secret
agent for the daughters of Harriet - as in
Harriet Tubman. Who are secretly working to
make the future a little less awful for
women and trans and non-binary friends.
They enter into this time war with this
other group called the Comstockers named
after Anthony Comstock who made it his
life's work to oppress women and censor
anything he considered to be obscene.
Which included talking about sex and
birth control. He even used his position
in the postal service to go through
people's mail and make arrests. The group in the book, the Comstockers, are also
trying to do a lot of that. As well as
murdering queer women and trans women.
And, you know, trying to put themselves on top, in a position of power. And how these
two perspectives- how these two timelines
intertwine is a mystery all unto itself.
Like with most time-travel stories, this
one gets complicated and messy. In the story,
sure, but a little bit in Newitz
writing. I found there were some times when
Newitz would get a little too caught up
into all of the science-y jargon. While I
absolutely loved learning about this
interpretation of time-travel, there were
definitely times where it would veer a
little too far off of the main story. In
the story, time travel works with these
things called the "Machines". Which are
these strange geological wormhole
generators that have apparently been
around forever. And they do have rules
and conventions; you can't go back and
talk to yourself in the past. You can't
go to one time too often or the Machine
will start to reject you. You can't kill
Hitler- or I mean you could kill Hitler
but
another version of him would just come
up anyways. And like the same with other
very significant historical events. I
thought the world-building in this book
was really good. It was enough to
navigate the world and to feel
comfortable navigating it, but not too
much that it would muddle or confuse
things like time travel stories often
can do. I loved that the story added like
a bureaucracy to the time travelling
agency. Time travel in itself is so
exciting and so to see it kind of dulled
down, kind of rooted in more reality
by forcing the agents to fill out forms
and paperwork. Apply for grants and
whatnot. It really helped to make it feel
more realistic. I personally love time
travel. I love it as a scientific concept,
I love it as a story element in books
and movies and TV. And I think time
travel can be really difficult to, not
only make it make sense to the consumer,
but to also make it make sense and maintain
its own logic that's established within
the story. Too often time-travel stories
will rely on this ex machina miracle to
make it make sense. The Future of Another Timeline does not do that, it creates its
own limitations and rules and it sticks
to them. This book is violent, it is
psychological, it is a feminist piece of
contemporary science fiction that shows
just how dangerous it can be to have
accessible time-travel to just about
anyone. It shows the lengths that people
are willing to go to enforce their
worldview on other people and what
people are willing to do to fight that.
At the same time, it is this intimate,
personal story about facing your own
worst moments. About facing your family
and your friends. About saving yourself
and moving on from the past and starting
anew. And the way that Annalee Newitz wrote
both of these stories - this larger battle,
this war for all women and trans and
non-binary folks. And the smaller
intimate battle for just one girl's life -
was just so genius. It was done so
beautifully. I know this book won't be
for everyone - no book is - but I still wish
and hope that everybody would read it.
It's a book that I feel will not only be
very entertaining but a book that's
going to spark conversation
long after it's been read. I almost feel
like this book was written for me - which
I don't know if that's like super
narcissistic to say - but every beat of
the story resonated with me on a deeper
level. The science, the punk rock scene from teenage days. The queerness, the feminism,
even the abuse. This book does have quite a long list of trigger warnings, so many
so that I started keeping a list on my
phone as I was reading. So trigger
warnings include: rape, slavery, sexual
slavery, extreme misogyny, antisemitism,
racism, aggressive nationalism, child
abuse, pedophilia, serial killers, drug use,
mental illness, suicide, graphic
depictions of abortion, transphobia, queer
antagonism, loss of a loved one, and body
horror. Specifically like some stuff with
eyes. Wow, I didn't even touch on the
characters and I don't even know where
to begin to do so. There are a lot of
characters and so many of them including
our two main characters are so complex
and somewhat morally grey. The
relationships that are developed within
the story between everybody is so well
done, so natural. Like I said the story
does dip into the darker side of
violence and psychological abuse. Of
getting revenge and vengeance. At the
same time it's trying to balance it out
with constructive ways of fixing the
kind of structural disadvantages that
are given to women and queer folks. This
book was so well done from cover to
cover that I immediately went out and
bought Annalee Newitz's other book,
Autonomous. I have no idea what this is
about but you can bet, I'm gonna be
reading it. I don't know if I got all of
my thoughts out, I just- I really loved
this book and I really want a lot of
other people to read and love it. Like I
already want to reread it and I will at
some point because I need to annotate it.
If it wasn't already obvious I gave it 5
stars. It was so good. I need so many
more queer, time-traveling stories. Please
let me know down in the comments if you
have ever read this book, let me know if
you plan to. Thank you so very much for
watching, if you enjoy this video please
give it a thumbs up. Subscribe if you
have not and I will see you very soon in
the next one. Goodbye!
