I really really liked it! I remember what’s it like to hear stories from my grandparents about the good old days. Reading this book brought those memories back but same time trying to patch together our present that was turning into history within this book. I always love time travel and futuristic books!

I was really excited to read this book because the premise sounded exciting but that’s really where it ends. The idea and the promise of it being epistolary was great but this book was a major let down. I honestly didn’t want to finish it and only did because it was an ARC and I wanted to give an honest review.

There are so many ideas and “history” points in this book that could have been really thrilling to go over and learn more about but everything is rushed. Information is thrown at you, you’re expected to accept it in three sentences because you are rushed to the next point. I don’t feel there is any real plot what exists is flimsy.

This reads more like a bullet point dream journal of ideas that aren’t fleshed out. Or that the author is going through some 2020 anxiety, wanted to get their feelings out on paper so that they can feel like they did something. Or maybe to have other people talk about their ideas. The author went down the YouTube Reddit rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and alternate futures and we got this poorly written mess.

I was willing to forgive the weird writing and voice for a 14 year old as translation errors but I just couldn’t look past the other disasters here. Also why promise a story told through letters and documents but give us dinky postcards and notebooks used to justify weak POV instead?

Future History

[Blurb goes here]

Future History is a nice little book. The main character is a fourteen year old interviewing his grandmother. She recount tales of old. But wait. She's recounting them from the year 2050, the book was found by a researcher in 2020. I would call this one 'food for thought'.

It is masterfully written and fast paced. I would encourage every one, no matter your genre predilections, to give it a try.

Thank you for the free copy!

The concept of this book was very interesting, although at times I had a hard time staying focused because as you go through some of the notebooks within the book, it kind of came off as rambling a little bit. It was a great storyline and very cool to see how things could possibly turnout since some of the things mentioned in the book is currently reality.

Written within a framing device of the author stumbling across notebooks from the future, this work of near future fiction describes the major events that occur from 2020 until 2050, from the perspective of a young boy and his grandmother. Living under the rule of a global technocracy, Billy and Nancy eventually discover that there are some world events that are better left out of their conversations.

The premise of this book drew me to it. And in the hands of a science fiction master, the discovery of a time travelling account of the next three decades could have been a thrilling story. However, I wasn't a quarter of the way into this book until I had to research its author, only to find that he's described as a non-fiction writer.

It shows. The major issue I have with the story is that it relies on its framing structure in place of plot. When the plot appears, over halfway into the text, it is too thin to be compelling. In addition, near future fiction is a fraught genre, even when dates are not mentioned. Moreso when they are. No sooner are words committed to the page then life has caught up, proving your ideas wrong with all its complexity and unpredictability.

Finally, I wish I could say that taking the premise seriously, that thinking of this as a work of non-fiction from the future would make the read more enjoyable. But it is dry and reads as though the author happened upon on a future prediction timeline online and just..ran with it. Each idea ignores important, complicating variables such as human nature. The characters who deliver the authors' ideas are little more than tabula rasa who "worry about" each monumental social change, only to accept it as inevitable in the same sentence.

Perhaps the author's non-fiction works are highly quality than this. But if you're looking for interesting near future fiction or a stunning vision of what comes next for humanity, I'd give this one a pass.

3.5 rounded up
This is a pretty fast easy read. Meant for young adults.
A boy in 2050 interviews his gran about history. It covers all the topics, primarily climate change, and then automation and AI, pandemic, world catastrophe, some stuff about gender, just a little of everything. It’s kind of a book warning about where earth is headed.

Though the topics aren’t my cup of tea (as I read to escape this glum reality), it is definitely worth the 1.5-2 hour read.