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A Spy In Time
Enver Eleven is twenty-five years old and ready for adventure.
He’s the Agency’s newest recruit, eager to leap through his first gate into an unfamiliar time. In Enver’s home city of Johannesburg, fair-skinned people are a rarity and have been for centuries. The people of Johannesburg were spared the ravages of the apocalypse because of the thousands of miles of mining tunnels running beneath it.
The Agency’s thinking machines have set his first mission for Marrakesh, circa 1955. His handler is the tough and taciturn Shanumi Six.
Their mission: prevent the apocalypse from happening again.
But when a cabal of temporal chaos-bringers kidnaps Shanumi, Enver must strike out across the timeline’s hotspots―Rio de Janeiro 1967, Johannesburg 2271―on a mission to preserve our very existence. His journeys put him in the middle of a catastrophe which will force him to put his assumptions to the test in an atmosphere of conspiracy and intrigue.
Award-winning novelist Imraan Coovadia (The Wedding, Tales of the Metric System) returns with this crackling Afrofuturistic tale of intrigue in which the course of human history hangs in the balance.
He’s the Agency’s newest recruit, eager to leap through his first gate into an unfamiliar time. In Enver’s home city of Johannesburg, fair-skinned people are a rarity and have been for centuries. The people of Johannesburg were spared the ravages of the apocalypse because of the thousands of miles of mining tunnels running beneath it.
The Agency’s thinking machines have set his first mission for Marrakesh, circa 1955. His handler is the tough and taciturn Shanumi Six.
Their mission: prevent the apocalypse from happening again.
But when a cabal of temporal chaos-bringers kidnaps Shanumi, Enver must strike out across the timeline’s hotspots―Rio de Janeiro 1967, Johannesburg 2271―on a mission to preserve our very existence. His journeys put him in the middle of a catastrophe which will force him to put his assumptions to the test in an atmosphere of conspiracy and intrigue.
Award-winning novelist Imraan Coovadia (The Wedding, Tales of the Metric System) returns with this crackling Afrofuturistic tale of intrigue in which the course of human history hangs in the balance.
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2018
10 people are currently reading
668 people want to read
About the author
Imraan Coovadia
21 books25 followersImraan Coovadia was born in Durban in 1970. He is the author of the novels The Wedding, Green-Eyed Thieves, High Low In-between and The Institute for Taxi Poetry.
He has also published a study of V.S. Naipaul, as well as a collection of essays, Transformations, and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, N+1, The Independent, Threepenny Review, Chimurenga, and The Times of India.
His work has won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the University of Johannesburg Prize, the M-Net Prize, and a South African Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
He is a graduate of Harvard College and directs the writing programme at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
He has also published a study of V.S. Naipaul, as well as a collection of essays, Transformations, and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, N+1, The Independent, Threepenny Review, Chimurenga, and The Times of India.
His work has won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the University of Johannesburg Prize, the M-Net Prize, and a South African Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
He is a graduate of Harvard College and directs the writing programme at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 20, 2022
A Spy in Time is a brilliant, thought provoking, engaging time tale spy saga by Imraan Coovadia that is a wholly original book that draws on afrofuturism and more cerebral spy fiction like Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess, and the best of John Le Carré.
Enver Eleven is a new member of the Agency, a covert organization devoted the preservation of the timeline—with everything good and bad that happened in history. He is heading back in time from post apocalyptic times where a supernova wiped out most of Earth except people living in mines deep below Johannesburg—all of them Black (but some albino). His first mission, to Marrakesh in 1955, goes badly wrong from the very beginning.
Thus begins a time and place spanning novel that moves between Marrakesh, Rio, Johannesburg to Jupiter, the destruction of the Earth and as far forward the year 100,000. All the time it is not clear if Enver is on the right side of history or the wrong side, if the shadowy enemy Board is really the enemy, or who is on what side.
The moral ambiguities and shadows concern race, history, conservativeness (in the sense of conserving even what is bad), and more.
The epic saga—in a book that is actually on the short and compact side even if it conveys an almost infinitely voluminous feeling—culminates in a nicely drawn together resolution.
Enver Eleven is a new member of the Agency, a covert organization devoted the preservation of the timeline—with everything good and bad that happened in history. He is heading back in time from post apocalyptic times where a supernova wiped out most of Earth except people living in mines deep below Johannesburg—all of them Black (but some albino). His first mission, to Marrakesh in 1955, goes badly wrong from the very beginning.
Thus begins a time and place spanning novel that moves between Marrakesh, Rio, Johannesburg to Jupiter, the destruction of the Earth and as far forward the year 100,000. All the time it is not clear if Enver is on the right side of history or the wrong side, if the shadowy enemy Board is really the enemy, or who is on what side.
The moral ambiguities and shadows concern race, history, conservativeness (in the sense of conserving even what is bad), and more.
The epic saga—in a book that is actually on the short and compact side even if it conveys an almost infinitely voluminous feeling—culminates in a nicely drawn together resolution.
August 14, 2018
A Spy In Time is a sci-fi book like I've never read before. There are some huge ideas in this novel that will tickle the fancy of even the MOST literate time travel enthusiasts. I personally loved Imraan Coovadia's super fun technical details about his version of time travel which, in this novel, is a government run program. There are lots of fun facts on the practical elements of how time travel works including how much energy round trips take, the cost of energy, and the effects on the human body. But what I also enjoyed were the moments with our hero inside the travel which sometimes felt like a dream and other times felt like nostalgia... as I imagine real time travel would. This book takes you on a fantastic journey that literally spans time and space, and even includes a short jaunt to Jupiter. Plus there's spies and intrigue and who doesn't love intrigue? Imraan creates a parallel universe so complete and unique in its complexity that you won't be able to put this one down.
May 29, 2019
There is a certain type and amount of detail that will make the reader feel as if they are in the book. There is also a certain type and amount of detail that only adds to the word count. Sadly, much of the writing in this book falls in the latter category.
A future agency is tasked with protecting the past (warts and all). This future is one in which a small part (mostly black African) of the Earth's population survived a supernova. The agency is trying to discover who is trying to change history (though you don't really know how they are changing the future).
Enver Eleven has got to be one of the worst spies. Follows suspected enemy around, introduces himself to her as a time spy, then accepts invitation to enemy hideout with no safety precautions. Also, if these time travelers are supposed to do their best to not affect the timeline, Enver's threat to expunge anyone who harms him from existence seems an empty gesture. This book is ok. I kept going just to figure out what the "enemy" was up to... but you don't really ever find out what the "enemy" is up to (I should have abandoned after 30 pages).
Enver meets a group of "classical restrictionists" when he enters his final time. They follow him around but they are committed to not interfering. Where did they come from? Who are they? What are they doing there?
From an interview with the author about what this book is to him: "First of all, an exercise in pure storytelling. Second, a look at some elemental issues of blackness and whiteness from an altered point of view." The bits regarding race were so tangential as to seem like an afterthought or just something clever to toss in (though the future (mis)representations of the 20th century were humorous and tragic in that even the falsehoods contained seeds of brutal truth). And if the book were an exploration of blackness and whiteness, I would have chosen a phrase other than "albino" to describe the white people of the future. Those (mainly of African descent) who have albinism are at risk of truly brutal treatment (with some being murdered for their body parts). So describing a fictional future as "albinos being mistreated and subjugated by black Africans" is not really the fictional inversion of power relations Coovadia wants to explore.
Here are some quotes from the book that basically sum up my feelings:
"My eyes were watering so badly I couldn't think. I certainly couldn't judge the significance of Muller's confession. I couldn't tell what was happening only that some process was underway that I couldn't control." This is kind of how I felt about the plot.
"I couldn't understand the boy's mumbo jumbo about prophecy. What was prophecy? Who could be a prophet without creating a loop? Indeed, the very concept of prophecy had never made sense to me." Much like this book to me. Also, loops are never explained.
One good passage describing the day the Earth is destroyed by a supernova: "I had been to the past, traveled in cities ruled by the specters of men, and yet the past had never ripened so perfectly until this very day. For it was the world before the fall, the day of the fall, Day of the Dead, and it was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined on the eve of the harvest. Billions of years of development to make such a harvest. In a matter of hours, these fields and bordering woods would be pulverized and scorched, turned into a glowing pyre. The dust from fields would envelop the planet for decades hiding the stars from view, turning the days into a long radioactive autumn."
Here is a more positive review: http://www.complete-review.com/review...
A future agency is tasked with protecting the past (warts and all). This future is one in which a small part (mostly black African) of the Earth's population survived a supernova. The agency is trying to discover who is trying to change history (though you don't really know how they are changing the future).
Enver Eleven has got to be one of the worst spies. Follows suspected enemy around, introduces himself to her as a time spy, then accepts invitation to enemy hideout with no safety precautions. Also, if these time travelers are supposed to do their best to not affect the timeline, Enver's threat to expunge anyone who harms him from existence seems an empty gesture. This book is ok. I kept going just to figure out what the "enemy" was up to... but you don't really ever find out what the "enemy" is up to (I should have abandoned after 30 pages).
Enver meets a group of "classical restrictionists" when he enters his final time. They follow him around but they are committed to not interfering. Where did they come from? Who are they? What are they doing there?
From an interview with the author about what this book is to him: "First of all, an exercise in pure storytelling. Second, a look at some elemental issues of blackness and whiteness from an altered point of view." The bits regarding race were so tangential as to seem like an afterthought or just something clever to toss in (though the future (mis)representations of the 20th century were humorous and tragic in that even the falsehoods contained seeds of brutal truth). And if the book were an exploration of blackness and whiteness, I would have chosen a phrase other than "albino" to describe the white people of the future. Those (mainly of African descent) who have albinism are at risk of truly brutal treatment (with some being murdered for their body parts). So describing a fictional future as "albinos being mistreated and subjugated by black Africans" is not really the fictional inversion of power relations Coovadia wants to explore.
Here are some quotes from the book that basically sum up my feelings:
"My eyes were watering so badly I couldn't think. I certainly couldn't judge the significance of Muller's confession. I couldn't tell what was happening only that some process was underway that I couldn't control." This is kind of how I felt about the plot.
"I couldn't understand the boy's mumbo jumbo about prophecy. What was prophecy? Who could be a prophet without creating a loop? Indeed, the very concept of prophecy had never made sense to me." Much like this book to me. Also, loops are never explained.
One good passage describing the day the Earth is destroyed by a supernova: "I had been to the past, traveled in cities ruled by the specters of men, and yet the past had never ripened so perfectly until this very day. For it was the world before the fall, the day of the fall, Day of the Dead, and it was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined on the eve of the harvest. Billions of years of development to make such a harvest. In a matter of hours, these fields and bordering woods would be pulverized and scorched, turned into a glowing pyre. The dust from fields would envelop the planet for decades hiding the stars from view, turning the days into a long radioactive autumn."
Here is a more positive review: http://www.complete-review.com/review...
September 30, 2021
Sci-Fi is one of the most difficult genres to write and I commend Mr Imraan Coovadia for the brilliant writing and fresh fictionally scientific world-building which fuses spies, space, time travel and contemplative philosophy. Coovadia managed to create a plot that was both thrilling and interdimensional, while simultaneously incorporating existentialism and racial discrimination across the broad perspective of time. This story is brimming with deep philosophical questions that pique your psyche and leave you contemplating the very existence and true power of humanity and machines.
A story for true intellectuals! I was absorbed. However, I had to focus 100%, because if my attention drifted for a just few seconds, I would lose track of the plot. The writing could only be described as a mixture of poetic and academic. It was as if the writing itself was not bound by any specific time, but had its own unique flow (like the plot, which kept shifting through centuries and places). The depth in the explanations of the history and the technology were fascinating and one can conclude that the author either did excellent research or is a fountain of knowledge (or perhaps all the history and technology were purely fictional and it was simply the author's good descriptions and writing skills that made it so realistic).
The timeline was often confusing and the ending was somewhat of a let down, but perhaps if you look at it from a mystical and metaphysical point of view, this all adds to the charm. This book has A LOT, and some may argue that it's too much, but all in all a really good 4 star read 🌟🌟🌟🌟
A story for true intellectuals! I was absorbed. However, I had to focus 100%, because if my attention drifted for a just few seconds, I would lose track of the plot. The writing could only be described as a mixture of poetic and academic. It was as if the writing itself was not bound by any specific time, but had its own unique flow (like the plot, which kept shifting through centuries and places). The depth in the explanations of the history and the technology were fascinating and one can conclude that the author either did excellent research or is a fountain of knowledge (or perhaps all the history and technology were purely fictional and it was simply the author's good descriptions and writing skills that made it so realistic).
The timeline was often confusing and the ending was somewhat of a let down, but perhaps if you look at it from a mystical and metaphysical point of view, this all adds to the charm. This book has A LOT, and some may argue that it's too much, but all in all a really good 4 star read 🌟🌟🌟🌟
August 15, 2018
Coovadia has a way with words, thoughts, time and concepts. This Electric Cool Aid Acid Test of a novel is a roller-coaster ride difficult to describe and more difficult still to put down.
February 6, 2020
A good novel. Well written and conceptually heavy. Perhaps too much so, as it packs secret agencies, time travel, the multiverse, and mankind's barbaric racially inspired history into one book.
The first person narrator holds it all together though, with the protagonist being as perplexed as the reader through much of the novel. The spy games are a great touch allowing a strong emotional connection with the reader, as the narrator is constantly trying to figure out what the reader is, in regards to the actions and words of the surrounding characters.
Not sure how much I enjoyed the ending, but then again, it is a novel about time travel and the multiverse, so what is an ending really?
The first person narrator holds it all together though, with the protagonist being as perplexed as the reader through much of the novel. The spy games are a great touch allowing a strong emotional connection with the reader, as the narrator is constantly trying to figure out what the reader is, in regards to the actions and words of the surrounding characters.
Not sure how much I enjoyed the ending, but then again, it is a novel about time travel and the multiverse, so what is an ending really?
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July 15, 2019~I never set out to be anybody's prophet.~
~Playing against a machine is never the same unless you have given them the freedom to consider all the assumptions.~
~Every person has something which is more important than mere life. He or she may not know what it is until the time comes to make a decision.~
~The past is a foreign country and it is a country of the imagination.~
~In my experience, everybody wants to tell his story. Everybody, in the end, wants his story to be told.~
~The infinite is the only thing that a human being may not survive. That is what lies behind our hatred of the multiverse and repugnant causal loops.~
~I thought it was my strange destiny to go from one century to the next and tell stories.~
~In Abacha Reef Home, you were kept as safe as humanly possible - assuming it is safe to bored out of your wits.~
~We borrowed our ideas, defined them according to the energy required to copy the blueprints form another epoch. We copied fashions and literatures, legal doctrines, the political beliefs of better centuries, and even our top twenty hits. We didn't need - we didn't think we needed - authors, inventors, composers. For my father, it was different. Each one of his creations was like a prank. He was playing jokes on the universe.~
~I wasn't turning out to be the hero I had hoped.~
July 15, 2025
This is the first book I found challenging to finish this year. I could not stop reading it only because I hate not finishing what I have started. There were moments I thought it was promising, only to be let down. even now, there is nothing I can say I have learned from it. I will give it to my child and get her take on it, otherwise I am going to give it away.
February 17, 2022
I found the premise very similar to Asimov's "The end of eternity" which I would recommend to read instead. A spy in time has a similar story, except it plays in a future where white people (albinos) are shunned.
February 27, 2019
C'est un 3,5
July 28, 2019
This is the first Coorvadia novel I've been able to finish and enjoy. Its more SF/fantasy than political drumbeating, which makes a welcome change.
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April 23, 2020I want to read this book.
November 26, 2024
I really just don't know. This was rough.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews