This was an interesting book, a vision of the future that we are creating with technology, waste, ruining the environment and four people who attempt to save the world. The author is very smart and has created a very in depth look. It made it a bit of a slow read for me and would have liked it to be tighter, but I do admire her ability to do what she did.

I thoroughly enjoyed the author's previous book, The Power, although I am generally not a fan of the dystopian novel. This book, however, was not to my liking. I am not a fan of technology nor of dystopia so it didn't work for me. Only got through the first through chapters in which I felt like I needed to keep a cheat sheet of all the different characters and their roles. Not interested in the story line which was about how rich and powerful people were going to escape the apocalypse. Only recommend to readers who love technology and dystopia.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Naomi Alderman wrote

While I personally did not care for the structure of this book, I thoroughly enjoyed the premise even if I was lost a bit here and there. The super wealthy are destroying the Earth while simultaneously ensuring their survival in the Future with elaborate bunkers. The wealthy know civilization is collapsing before everyone else does and they squirrel away. But each of these wealthy people has someone in their network that wants to end those plans and use the technology for something better. The reader is introduced to a variety of characters and ways of life, city versus rural dwelling or different types of jobs. The author sheds light on how we are not so connected in the most connected age, survival, and community, as well as other topics, such as climate change.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Tech giants doing what they do with a reckless disregard for what it’s doing to the world? Sounds about right. Ordinary people planning a heist to take them down before they destroy the world as we know it? Now we have a fun book! The characters were well fleshed out and the plot only drug in a couple of places. Overall, I really enjoyed this book.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. I found it really fascinating and full of action. The main focus is on 3 billionaires working on a plan to save themselves at the end of civilization. Meanwhile a young survivalist finds herself pulled into their orbit. Well-written and kept my attention to find out what happens to everyone. A timely story about what really matters.

First off, this book is complex, required a lot of thinking to put the pieces together, and I loved it. As in, I kind of want to read it again so I can focus more on the intellectual pieces and not just focusing on racing through the plot.

A bit of the story without giving to much away: three massive tech leaders (a al Musk or Zuckerberg), with their complete disregard for the havoc they are imposing on the world, have build bunkers to survive the end times and hidden them in wildlife preserves. When the call comes that it is time to split town, then end up in their own survival nightmare. If I tell you more than that, it might give things away.

This novel includes ruminations on the role of technology in life, the power of tech companies and the uber wealthy, our desires to create safe futures for ourselves, and contains a positive message about the possibilities of change. I am wowed by the author's ability to address these subjects so deeply in an exciting narrative that I could hardly put down.

So basically this book is about taking down tech giants. A group of friends plot an incredible and impossible heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed is threatening the life of everyone. I thought this book was amazing. The world building is top tier. The character development is outstanding and the plot is nothing like I have read. please please pick this up and read it when it comes out.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance e-reader copy of The Future by Naomi Alderman.

Part of the science fiction sub-genre of environmental dystopia, The Future is set a decade or two from now in a world that has become even more polarized between the haves and the have-nots. The environment continues to erode, technology is all-consuming and all-knowing thanks to data mining and religious fanatics proliferate.
Lai Zhen, a survivalist influencer with several million followers, meets Martha Einkorn, the right hand woman to billionaire Lenk Sketlish. Lenk owns and operates the social media giant Fantail which, along with Anvil and Medlar (feel free to fill in the real names of these online behemoths), control much of the world’s commerce and behavior. But the world might be ending soon, later, or right now.

Creative, creepy, subversive and a bit long and disjointed, The Future is a prescient look at what might be around the corner for us, if we don’t act soon.

Four stars. And change your permissions and passwords.

I think my older students will like this, it has a lot to think about and discuss in this science fiction futuristic novel. It's tone is dense at times and pessimistic but I think they will enjoy the read

I really had high hopes for this book – I think I let my love of this authors previous book set my expectations for new books too high. I love a good dystopian novel, but this one was a miss for me. I really couldn’t connect with the main character at all. I found her whiny and horrible, but the way it was written I was supposed to like her. I also felt that the pacing was off with this book. It was like stop and go. Too slow then too fast on repeat. I also got lost with some of the mixed media format. Some of it felt really out of place for me and I just didn’t get it.

I do think that this book tackles some big themes in our world, I just had high hopes, and expected more.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for providing Naomi Alderman’s upcoming book. It didn’t make as much of an impression on me as The Power. It was very dark and pessimistic and I found the resolution to be surprising, but perhaps not credible to me. I didn’t enjoy the interspersed internet history sections and would have preferred a different approach to revealing that information.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for this ARC. On the surface, this book is a thought provoking exploit into our current sociopolitical landscape: just the thing a dystopian novel ought to provide. The focus on monopolistic billionaires and the havoc they wreak, including a pursuit to abandon the world during an apocalypse for their own self-preservation, seems all too apt.

But for me, this is where the allure ends. I'm all for novels with various timelines and perspectives, yet Alderman's structure of the plot made following these a bit too difficult. At times, it seemed like she bit off more than she could chew. Meditations on the story of Lot and exploring a doomsday cult were interesting, but sometimes felt like they were thrown in haphazardly. Plot holes regarding the technology and human relations made it difficult to take much seriously as well.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read, but not as strong as her debut, The Power. Solid 3/5 stars.

The Future by Naomi Alderman seems like an all too real version of what could be in our future. It is not quite science fiction because all of the technology employed in the telling is most probably available to us now (at whatever cost).

The narrative centers around a survivalist who writes blogs and gives speeches on how to navigate a future full of possible pitfalls and emergencies. Her name is Lai Zhen and she is followed by lots of people on social media, including members of an apocalyptic cult called the Enochites. She is a lesbian and finds herself at a social event with a woman who happens to be the daughter of Enoch, which In a way, makes her as much of a survivalist as Lai Zhen. Her name is Martha and she is the right hand of a Tech magnate who is also into surviving. He has plans for when the world ends which Martha helps him set up. Lai Zhen becomes enthralled with Martha, and is seems to go both ways. As an aside, I do not think this story would have worked with a heterosexual couple.

Later, Lai Zhen finds herself in a mall where there is an active shooter. She wonders whether the shooter is after her but the doubt is erased at one point. The story becomes thicker and enticingly more complicated from there.

This can be a future in store for us, it isn’t really a cautionary tale but it could be. It is well written and with a cast of characters I had no problem remembering. Well worth reading and thought provoking.

This is an Armageddon story with the 3 most powerful tech CEOs at the center. It is interwoven with the story of Sodom and Lot as an apropos parallel. The CEOs learned nothing from the Old Testament. They predict the end of the world and make arrangements to save themselves in bunkers that are outfitted in the style to which they have grown accustomed. These villains aren't the only main characters. There is also Martha, an assistant to one of the tech giants who is not overrun by greed and a survivalist blogger named Lai Zhen. The characters are good or evil. I miss the nuanced characters of Disobedience. The plot has lots of twists and turns but I do feel the book's pacing was off. At times it is propulsive and at times I wanted to give up. Martha and Lai have interesting back stories that were very enjoyable. This is a futuristic, dystopian version of Who Shot JR (no longer a mainstream reference, I know but spot on.). All in 3.5 stars.

I am a huge Naomi Alderman fan and had very high hopes for this one. I will still read whatever Naomi wants to write. Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the advanced readers copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for sending me an ARC of The Future in exchange for an honest review.

The description for The Future is somehow both weirdly vague and yet, if you’ve read the book, actually reveals a huge amount of the plot. Imagine if the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, and Facebook were all so insanely rich (they are) that they had secret bunkers around the world (they might) where they could isolate from the rest of the world if the shit ever hits the fan again. Now imagine if people close to those CEOs wondered if being so immune from the problems facing the rest of the world actually made it more likely that those CEOs would allow the very conditions that would cause the shit to hit the fan. Finally, imagine what will happen when the shit hits the fan, and those CEOs flee to their bunkers.

Personally, I absolutely believe the premise that Amazon and especially Facebook—and rampant wealth inequality—have created situations over the years that have made life in many countries (especially America) objectively worse (note: I believe this less about Apple, but I’m writing this review on an iPad so maybe I’m biased 😄). But that’s non-fiction. The grafting of a fictional plot line to explore that worldview must have been challenging and the final result made The Future an odd reading experience.

The first half of the book is largely character introduction and backstory, and some interesting philosophical discussions and stories of biblical and historical survival (which explain why the cover art is a combination of a fox and a rabbit). There are explorations of cities v. rural, farming v. hunter-gatherers, and which way of living enhances society’s survival. Still, it’s more than midway through the book before we reach the point teased in the opening where things are happening. From that point, the pace of the story dramatically accelerates and things get much more interesting. There are some plot twists late (not entirely unpredictable but solid) that nicely complete the story being told, especially because they fill in the earlier gaps where I had questioned the believability of what was happening.

I imagine few people will come to this book without having read The Power, a book about gender dynamics that I considered one of the best books of the last decade, this generation’s The Handmaid’s Tale. This book is swinging for the fences just like that book, taking on the nexus between corporate greed, income inequality, and the fate of our planet. No, it doesn’t work quite as well, there’s really only two characters who are fully developed, and I wish it could have been more evenly paced, but it’s certainly an interesting story. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4, but still recommended.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and #NetGalley for the ARC! An excellent follow up to The Power in which Alderman grapples with control dynamics and technology in a (just nearly) pre-apocalyptic world. It tackles themes of financial hierarchies in the tech world, what humans can and cannot control, religious ideologies, and separating our past from the inevitable. Martha and Zhen are interesting characters but Alderman’s unique plot structure is what will sell this one.

The deal: It’s the end(ish) of the world, and three tech CEOs, a survivalist content creator, and a few key folks in the tech CEOs’ inner circle come together and stay apart in various plots. Vague description? Intentionally! Basically, it’s a revolving POV (surprisingly twisty) tale of power, greed, tech, existentialism, etc.
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Is it worth it?: Kind of? I think a solid 100 pages of this could have been cut without anyone missing anything. I particularly struggled through the extended Book of Genesis analysis happening in the form of a Reddit-style forum thread every few chapters, even if I did begrudgingly learn a lot about Abraham and Lot. Can’t wait to see who options this for a limited series, though. The world-building is solid.
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Pairs well with: Made For Love by Alissa Nutting, Exhalation by Ted Chiang, Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter, ALONE on Netflix/The History Channel
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C+

Interesting book. Especially if you already think about big businesses taking over the future and what that will look like. Page turner, with some unexpected scenarios. Likable main character. Easy to imagine this on the big screen as one your new fave sci-fi type movies.

I was really eager to read this after previously reading Alderman's other book, The Power, and I'm happy to say I was not disappointed. In fact, I think I liked this book even more. The characters were great, the story was delightfully twisty in a way that you can almost but not quite predict, and the themes felt especially relevant now with the rise of AI tech. This is one of my favorite books read so far this year.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!