I liked this but it didn’t live up to my previous experience with the author. I think this will be a big book and popular with many readers though.

There is nothing more terrifying than thinking about our future. Every day our lives are filled with news stories that portend doom. Lately, dystopian novels have felt a bit tough for me to read – mostly because they actually feel like they could happen in real life now. A tyrannical despot that brings about the fall of democracy? Climate change making our planet uninhabitable? Seems like we’re on our way to that type of future.

So, I was a bit trepidatious going into Naomi Alderman’s “The Future.” I absolutely loved her last novel, “The Power,” so the bar was high. But I also wasn’t sure if I could handle reading about tech giants and their connection to the end of the world. Luckily, I ended up in good hands. Alderman has this ability to create characters that feel so real and unique. Even when I was feeling like the events in the book were hitting a little too close to home, I was also completely intrigued to find out what was going to happen next to these characters.

“The Future” is told from the perspective of several different titans of the tech world (the typical obnoxious billionaire type). But the story becomes especially interesting from Martha and Zhen’s point-of-view. Martha escaped from a doomsday cult as a teenager and has become one tech guy’s right-hand-man. Zhen, her love interest, also fled as a teen, but from a refugee camp. She becomes a well-known social media star who shares her survivalist strategies to the masses. I loved that I thought I knew where this story was going, and then there were several twists I didn’t anticipate.

“The Future” does have a few faults that prevented this from being a five-star read for me. First off, I felt like the timelines were a bit confusing. Even towards the end of the book, I found myself unsure which events took place at which time. Secondly, there were side sections in the book that detailed Martha’s opinions about specific Bible passages (stemming from her very religious upbringing). These sections felt extraneous to me – I wasn’t 100 percent sure why Alderman included them. Perhaps I didn’t get it because I’m not super informed about the Bible or maybe the connections just went over my head. Either way, it took me out of the story instead of furthering the action in a meaningful way.

Despite these issues, I was drawn into the story the entire time, and I was impressed with how Alderman was able to tie all the loose strings together at the end. This book didn’t make me any less scared for the future, but if there are more books like this in store for me, maybe it won’t be so bad.

What does your perfect future look like? Naomi Alderman has one in her new book, The Future.

"A handful of the biggest tech billionaires think they have a way to flee before society ends. Some new software will alert them when it's time to run to their luxurious bolt-holes.
A group of friends think they can make the world better so they hatch a plan to do just that."

Alderman has an interesting view of the near future. The tech billionaires are from fictional companies, but you'll recognize them. Observations about algorithms and business practices will make you go "hmm" - so much is already true. Alderman's group of quiet renegades just want a better world and they think they have a way to do it. It would be interesting to see it work. You'll probably guess the little twist (one of them anyway - you won't get the second one) But it's still enjoyable to see the direction that Alderman takes.
For fans of cult-fiction, there's a cult backstory for Martha - one of the main characters. The idea of Fox and Rabbits comes from there.
This is a dystopian story but one that is easily recognizable. Great new book from Alderman.

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of The Future by Naomi Alderman

Favorite Quote: There were no clicks or eyeballs in the sensible, reasoned middle ground, and all the money in the world in encouraging users to rush to treat the extremes as if they were the center.

Story Synopsis: Martha Einkorn is the right-hand woman to one of the most powerful tech CEOs in the world. After a global pandemic, political unrest, and the continuing polarizing of viewpoints, Martha and a few unexpected allies take saving the world into their own hands.

How do a handful of people save the world? By controlling the future.

Why does this book beguile? I’d heard a bit about this book before I received it from Simon & Schuster, but I didn’t have any expectations. After all, ARCs can be amazing and become long-term favorites… or, they can fall flat.

The Future is one of the former. I immediately got sucked into the dystopian setting, which is very believable. In the future, our world looks as it does now: political unrest, nearly unbelievable tech, and a few tech oligarchs controlling everything. With parallels drawn to Elon Musk, Apple, and Amazon, Naomi Alderman writes a compelling story about what could happen if we don’t focus on what made the human race successful in the millennia leading up to the twentieth century.

There are multiple POVs and timelines, which make for a twisty, exciting adventure because you continue to wonder what’s next. The cast is diverse, and the message Alderman wants readers to absorb is simultaneously overt and understated.

I heard about this book on Jordy's Book Club and was immediately intrigued by the premise, being a huge fan of science fiction novels. While I did enjoy the book, I was honestly very confused by the timeline all throughout. The chapters jump around - keeping the pace tight and fast moving - but I felt disoriented and disjointed many times while reading, with questions of "what year is this, now?" and simply trying to follow which character the new chapter was focused on. I will definitely read the author's next work - as she is a very strong writer with amazing ideas - but unfortunately, this novel just wasn't for me.

Wow, The Future was an exercise. I'm spent, but I'm happy. The Power blew me out of the water, so expectations were high. This lived up. I had to think, I had to concentrate, and I'm so glad I did. It's dark, it's genre bending, and I highly recommend.

A playful variation of a heist plot, well-done working in modern threats of AI and too-powerful companies.

Thanks again to NetGalley for an ARC of this one! When I first saw this cover and the blurb, I was excited, it's the type of story I normally love. I did not love this one. I love the concept of this, but it really just did not hit the mark for me. Maybe I went in with too high of expectations, because I was left disappointed.

I don't know if this had the same propulsive "I cannot put this book down" energy that The Power had, but Naomi Alderman sure can write characters wrestling with complicated problems. It takes a while to get into the narrative through meeting each of the characters, and the sense of imbalance and misdirection has to be intentional so that the twists toward the end are revealed on a need-to-know basis that is still satisfying. Overall, I liked this one, though I know it won't be for everyone.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an electronic ARC of this book.

I don't know where to begin... so much going on here, what with Alderman's big thinking and sprawling story. I need a book club meeting, stat. The tech bro billionaires are running everything, deciding what we care about and building wealth at the expense of all else, including the planet. Sound familiar? Alderman throws it all in -- climate change, social media, data mining, algorithms, tech tracking, survivalists, religious zealots, some biblical hermeneutics, bunkers (for the billionaires), and a pandemic.

It seems plausible enough (with a soupçon of slightly ridiculous), and it's a fascinating ride. Alderman weaves a story around the way we are running headlong into climate catastrophe and whatever the hell AI is going to do to us, kept calm by what social media algorithms know we like, with our chosen news sources feeding us the narratives we want. Relying on a few unlikely heroes to save us. Read it, then call me to discuss.

Alderman’s latest follows the CEOs of three tech giants and the people closest to them as the end of the world approaches, as well as a survivalist vlogger. The story goes back and forth in time and among povs. It did drag at times and, as is typical of Alderman’s work, the solution to society’s ills seemed a bit too simplistic, but (also typical of Alderman) the novel was thought provoking.

Another great entry in the Naomi Alderman canon, The Future is hits on all levels. Highly recommend to her previous readers and those who are not familiar with her work.

I love a good dystopian novel. Unfortunately, this was not it. The story takes a long time to get going and seems to meander and be somewhat disconnected. Everything does come together in the end, but it was a rather bumpy ride for me. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

I love Naomi Alderman. In fact the only thing I miss about Twitter (which I deleted in April 2023) is Naomi Alderman's Twitter. I think she's so smart and empathetic, and she's interested in the same things I'm interested in. I also think she's one of the only writers alive who can write that impossible thing, which is a didactic, message-driven novel that is also a good book.

That's THE FUTURE. It's imaginative, satisfyingly complex, perceptive, and resonant. It's full of weird characters whose feelings and humanity are front and center. I really liked all the different angles of survivalism: religious, technological, wealth-based, individualist, collective. The world-building is top-notch. Martha Einkorn, a high-level tech worker who grew up in an Evangelical cult, is a truly fabulous character.

But the book overall was just a little too sprawling and jumpy to really hold my interest the whole time, and the last quarter or so kind of lost me. The ending moves too quickly into a future that I still, ultimately, found too implausible, and it involves a character making a tremendous sacrifice and then accepting it in a way that I just wasn't able to buy.

But I still think it's a very excellent book and I would still recommend it!!!!

⭐️: 5/5

When Lai Zhen, an internet-famous survivalist, and Martha Einkorn, a survivor of an infamous cult and current right hand to one of the most powerful tech moguls meet, an explosive chain of events is set in motion. The two find themselves forced to find out what they’d risk and the lines they’d cross at a chance to save the world from a cataclysmic end to civilization.

Books like these inevitably keep me up at night with feelings of existential anxiety. I really try not to watch apocalypse movies, because the thought of what I’d do if I were one of the survivors of a world-ending event makes me feel just so overwhelmed, I just don’t know what to do with myself. The Future, although similar in theme to movies that WILL give me nightmares, was just so masterfully done, that I couldn’t complain about any of the anxious feelings I felt as a result of reading. I absolutely loved the non-linear structure, since it kept me guessing all the way up to the end, and the near-future setting was so immersive and felt like an actual possibility. Not to mention, I loved the blunt and slightly caustic writing style. It’s exactly the type of prose I love to read, and I’ll definitely be picking up The Power really soon. This book was so dark, but also kind of hopeful, and I loved everything about it.

Thank you to @netgalley and @ for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

This is a 3.5 for me. This was a great story bogged down by presentation! It felt like the author wrote out every idea they had about what they wanted to do but never went back and refined it. The chapters that were on the message board could have been completely removed, in my opinion, and made this a more powerful book. Were they attempts to break up the drama? If so, they were more distracting than mental intermissions. I can only think of one thing provided by them that was valuable and it could have been done in another way that didn't take up so much space and unnecessary mental energy from the reader. In the rough of this book is a diamond of a story. I wish a better attempt to find it had happened.

As someone who loved The Power I had high expectations for The Future and I was not disappointed.

The dystopian near future presented didn't feel outlandish or unimaginable to me at all. It exists at the whims of the obscenely wealthy, tech billionaires who have made their marks on the world and have every intention to continue living the good life, regardless of what may be happening around them.

We follow communities related to the tech world, and people following survivalist forums. This novel is a beautiful intersection of those groups and how they plan to deal with the end of days, which appears to be rapidly approaching for the society as they know it. The story jumps around, but I did not find it difficult to follow. I've seen reference to this book being long, which I did not notice at all. It was a page turner that I never wanted to put down.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!

Is it the technology, or the billionaires behind the technology that's driving us towards the future. This was interesting and annoying at the same time. The characters were a diverse bunch, believable and intriguing. The plot was convoluted and debatable, but interesting and odd enough to hold your attention to the end. You just have to know how and why.... Unfortunately I don't think it delivered a remotely believable ending. Get rid of just the right people and change the motivations in major social media and it's all pie in the sky, even curing climate change will suddenly fall magically into place. A nice idea that falls apart in the end.

Thank you to @Simonandschuster and #NetGalley for a digital ARC or #TheFuture. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

This was an un-put-downable read for me and I think that was because the premise doesn't seem that far fetched - a little conspiracy theory, but still pretty plausible. No spoilers here.

The plot centers on 3 tech titans (fictionalized mash-ups of Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Jobs) and the competitive drive to deliver the next "big thing", dominate the market and make tons of money doing it. But the people closest to them - wife, daughter, personal assistant - have different ideas about what that money can be used for and that creates the conflict at the center of this story.

This was the perfect mix of social commentary, technology and climate crisis with interesting characters and a propulsive plot. Overall, a great read!

Not just a “what if” but a “when” situation occurs on earth as pollution worsens, species die off, and the population is even more divided economically and politically. Underlying the biggest problems are three of the richest innovators in the world today, the founders of Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, tho they are loosely disguised with other company names in the novel. It is thought-provoking look at technology and power and morality. This is a fast-paced suspenseful book with Interesting characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster, Inc. for the ARC to read and review.