popghost | The Future of Another Timeline (Annalee Newitz)

Imagine if you could literally reach into the past and edit it, like marking up a bad essay written by the patriarchy. That’s basically what this book is: time-travel as radical revision, and history as a battleground full of knives, zines, and screaming girls.

The Future of Another Timeline is angry, messy, clever, queer, and completely sincere. It doesn’t hide behind metaphor. It yells.

Here’s the full review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – “Edit History, Save the Future”

So… I didn’t know I needed “queer time-travel road trip starring riot grrls, academic sabotage, and literal fights over who gets to control history,” but Annalee Newitz said you do, and honestly? They were right.

This is one of those books that’s more about ideas and rage than perfect execution but wow does it swing hard. We’ve got Tess, a time-traveling academic fighting to preserve women’s rights through the centuries, and Beth, a teenage girl in 1992 who’s in a band, going to riot grrl shows, and maybe accidentally getting involved in a murder. The book bounces between timelines, punk zines, ancient Rome, early suffrage movements, and a terrifying alt-present where abortion is illegal and patriarchy has gone fully feral.

It’s angry and ambitious and queer and doesn’t pretend neutrality is an option. And it’s so deeply earnest which I love. Newitz is clearly writing from a place of urgency, and it shows. There are clunky bits - some exposition-heavy moments, some uneven pacing - but I kind of didn’t care? I was too busy being moved by the audacity of rewriting history on purpose.

Bonus points for:
– girls with knives and conviction
– time machines shaped like ancient monuments
– queer poly love that isn’t tragic
– the best use of “the personal is political” as time travel ethos I’ve ever seen

📖 One-liner summary: A furious, queer time-travel epic about rewriting history, reclaiming power, and refusing to go quietly.

It made me want to write my own history in red pen. And maybe punch a Victorian.