Reviews and Comments

This book combined some passionate, fascinating research into 1890s Chicago, womens' liberation and feminist movements; a horrible, deeply affecting, deeply real story about growing up a 90s suburban punk in an abusive family; the realities of being a minority scientist in a poorly-respected field in the 2020s; and a surprising amount of truly gruesome murder.

These streams all have very different vibes, and yet they are - sort of successfully - held together in a somewhat uneven sf plot where time machines are anchored into the Earth's rock, have been familiar to us for thousands of years, and are firmly woven into human history.

I was frequently left feeling a bit frustrated because Newitz's enthusiasm for particular historical subjects made the plot jump around wildly, leaving big holes where I felt a sense of realism, of grounding, of human connection was really missing. The sections about Beth, the 90s suburban punk, were by far and away my favourites, I think because there was very little zany time travel adventure in them. I loved her with all my heart. I was rooting for her so fucking hard.

I loved whole bits of this book and was desperate for so much more from other sections. But what really hurt the most - what has made this book ironically, awfully prescient - was that the world for women and queer people that Newitz creates in her final pages, published in 2019, is a world which is already being taken away from women and queer people in 2025. Her message - that we have to fight the forces of misogyny, abuse, control, and violence constantly and at every stage in our timeline - is ever more true because unlike in this book, we don't have time machines to help our past selves rewrite history. We've only got today, and the bad timeline is coming back.

What a weird book. Most of the rules are 'don't be a dick', but some are so simple and incisive that seeing them written down is genuinely helpful. Every anecdote is the same: "I was being a dick. Then I went to Dale's course, tried not being a dick, and what do you know: not only did I get what I wanted (money (it's always money)), but they even gave me more (money)!" At times, it's genuinely charming and the world it describes seems so much simpler than the present. I liked the bits where Carnegie remembers his own maxims and reminds the reader that they have to genuinely be nice to people, not just pretend to do it to get more money. But what stuck most for me was the 30s attitude to child discipline. All the stories about children go "we would beat and punish and scream at our toddler/teenager, and weirdly that wasn't effective and they were sad?? Anyway, then we tried to 'listen' to their 'point of view', and if we managed to suspend our disbelief that they even HAVE a point of view or desires outside our own, they suddenly started behaving much better. Obviously after that it was back to the discipline, but there you go! Children! Who knew!". It explains a lot about older people, because they're the children of those children.