Wow - what a spiral into a dystopian world!

The ending seemed a bit far fetched to me -- I would not forgive someone who basically sent me to live on a deserted island for 3 years, so easily. But, maybe if I was a survivalist it would be better? That is the only thing I didn't love with this book.

The end of the world scenario, the ridiculous technology, the ridiculously wealthy people, and the damage to the environment were all spot on -- and maybe a little too close to what is actually happening in our current world.

I didn't think I would like this book when I first picked it up, but as I started reading this, I could not put it down!

Naomi Alderman has created a speculative (?) fiction rich with detail and realistic characters. It explores the concept that when billionaires are so rich that they can plan for a future after earth’s collapse, do they stop caring about preserving earth’s present. The three companies in this instance closely resemble Apple, Facebook and Amazon which makes this whole novel not quite speculative and overwhelmingly terrifying. This is well written and fast paced and made very compelling arguments. I received a digital ARC of this book through NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this one! I flew through it. It’s not a genre I would normally pick for myself, but I’m glad I did! I can’t wait to see what she writes next. No surprise it was a BOTM add on

I really struggled with this one. While I appreciate the author's work and the plot was an interesting concept. I couldn't get into the book and it took weeks for me to read the entire book. Normally I read a book in a few days. Very tech heavy . And multiple storylines that didn't come together fo me. Or I may have just missed the relevance. Anyway. I think there will be fans of The Future. In particular those that like a good sci-fi, technology themed novel. I'm just an outlier with this one.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for a complementary digital copy provided to me. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

The Future was so good and so terrifying. I love apocalyptic horror and science fiction. I’m already scared my Alexa is spying on me so the idea of these constantly shifting algorithms and a small group of billionaires controlling then is mind blowing.

Told from multiple perspectives this is a story about what could happen (and what might me happening right now) when the Earth is controlled by technology and the rich people who made it. It’s also a story about hope.

There were so many good quotes and so many passages that made me stop and look around.

Zhen was my favorite main character. A survivalist with a social media following. She was the wisest and most relatable character.

I also loved all the tech! Don’t want to give too much away but survival suits that mold to your body and dispense live saving medication.

Read if you’re into apocalyptic tales, science and technology and humanity on the brink.

I tried to believe in this story, and to believe in its prose, but every other sentence or so made me feel like I was being poked with a stick. A blunt stick, not a pointy one. It didn't hurt. It just made me irritable. I missed the human grace of The Power. I missed the strange and intimate human interactions of that novel. Here the human interactions felt superficial and preprogrammed. It was like reading genre fiction, only without the forward momentum of genre fiction. The chapters ended with little hooks in a genre-esque way. But they weren't interesting hooks. Now and then individual scenes grabbed me and I became hopeful.. And then the story would drift in a direction where I lost interest. I missed that pfzzz, that feeling I love of reading something new, from an author eager to tell me something I don't know already--which is what The Power did for me, frankly, as I read along.

A near future story about survival at all costs and a novel plan for averting the end of the world. It’s hard to describe this novel without giving too much away! I was pretty confused about what was happening towards the end but it all resolved neatly and brilliantly. I'm trying to comment on my feelings without too many spoilers but - I’m not a hundred percent convinced that the big plan would have worked. Not because the plan was flawed, but it didn’t seem like people were nearly as resistant to change for the good of the planet in this world as they are in ours. But it was so cleverly written that I’m not too bothered by it - plus I do agree that tech billionaires and their relentless pursuit of profit at the cost of both human lives and the well being of the world are generally an evil influence that the world would be better off without. I know that’s all extremely vague so I’ll just end by saying the book is really good, really well written, and I enjoyed it.

Representation: POC characters including main POV character, LGBTQIA+ characters including main POV characters, nonbinary major character, fat main POV character (and her story is not about being fat! Miraculous!)

CW: Suicide attempt

The Future takes on tech billionaires building bunkers for the end of the world- an inevitable end that they have directly contributed to through the actions of their companies. Surrounding the billionaires are people who see the future the world is rapidly heading towards and think it can be changed.

This novel has a lot of things- commentary on capitalism and the environment, a bit of science fiction and technology, some spy-thrilleresque intrigue, and an absolutely bonkers third act. My jaw was literally on the floor.

One of the things I really liked about The Power was how bleak of an outlook it had, and while these are very different books,, this one had a much more optimistic ending. While I understand why Naomi did that (not everyone likes to be full of depressed rage like me, apparently!), I felt that it was the most unrealistic thing about this entire book. I do think that while I didn’t like that one factor, this same reasoning is exactly why others will enjoy this book. Highly recommend!

Thank you to Simon Books for my finished copy & Simon Audio for the audiobook all thoughts are my own.

I loved Naomi Alderman’s last book, The Power, so as soon as I saw this one I knew it was going straight to the top of my TBR.

But I’m going to be honest, the book synopsis sounded a little insufferable to me. For some reason it gave me the vibe that this was going to be a thoughtful, slow, maybe convoluted story. And while it definitely was thoughtful and intricate, it was also fast paced with characters I was rooting for (and against).

🎧 I was able to read on both the finished copy & the audio. The full cast was incredible, and I was worried that the blog posts - which start each part of the book - would be confusing on audio, but I actually found them a little easier to follow. Some audio listeners had trouble with the multi-pov cast, so plan accordingly when choosing your format!

ARC readers - I did have the Netgalley ARC, and I think there are some parts that have been moved around since that was given to us, or added all together. Part 6 I was unable to navigate exactly how it lined up with the finished copy.

This is a good idea of a book, but one that seems to suffer from some hubris, and perhaps expected comparisons with its author’s famous previous work, The Power.

The Future is less of a post-apocalyptic tale, more accurately a technological allegory of best intentions laced with perennial greed and personal agendas. The story of misguided tech billionaires out to save the world, ironically from whatever it is they themselves have wreaked on it in the first place, while well intentioned, doesn’t give enough attention to either the billionaires as three-dimensional persons while giving too much attention to the technology that will take the world down, and maybe help resurrect it too.

Doomsday and post apocalyptic literature has seen the bar raised by some exceptionally powerful and poignantly resonant works in recent years - Station Eleven, among many, many others. Of course, Ms Alderman is no stranger to the genre, The Power being one such superlative work of speculative science fiction, that took a huge leap forward in terms of turning the social narrative of The Handmaid’s Tale on its head. This book was rumored to push the envelope further, broaden the canvas and create a Bildungsroman of sorts along the way - for a nascent post apocalyptic Earth to emerge.

While the story does have a surprising kick, it comes quite late - almost four-fifths into the story, and the narrative up until that moment seems unnecessarily circuitous and loops back onto itself - more than once. The caricature depictions of the tech billionaires are laughably predictable, and their ultimate intentions ridiculously clear. Ms Alderman does create some memorable characters, but addles them with such heavy tech so intrinsic to the story that it needs frequent explaining. One would have hoped for the tech itself to be more subtle and its effects more intuitive, and that would have made for a more believable technophobic message.

A particularly intriguing, if somewhat questionable, parallel plotting involves an online message board, TheNextDay (NTD), involving a rigorous retelling of the story of Lot, and of Sodom from the Bible. It takes a while for the threads to connect and eventually crossover, but the effect of invoking such an ancient story felt underwhelming by the end.

The whole is less than the parts.

"The species is going to die. Just let it." Solid start when discussing the future! Loved the angle of rich folks building a bunker and caring only about themselves. Rang very true to what might actually happen (or is happening??) if the mega rich knew the world was going to end. Unfortunately, the pace was too slow for me to make it through to the end. That being said, I'm excited for the movie version of this story!

This was slow to start but I‘m glad I stuck with it. Terrible people, running the world into the ground in the near future and what happens when people fight back. I liked the juxtaposition of greed and evil, consumption and climate change with religion woven through it all. This one made me think.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for this eARC.

Naomi Alderman is just fantastic. I love a good dystopian novel and this was certainly no different. What a great book.

(𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 @𝘚𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 @𝘚𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯.𝘈𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘰 𝘧𝘰𝘳 #𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬) I absolutely loved 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 by Naomi Alderman, so 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗨𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 was one of my most highly anticipated books this year. That can often be a bit of a curse for a book and I’m afraid that was the case this time. It’s not that I disliked 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, but I never really cared much about anyone in the story and instead often felt like I was being “schooled” in what our own future might look like if we don’t get our collective acts together. The weird thing is I don’t disagree with those predictions, but something about the delivery just didn’t hit for me.⁣⁣⁣
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The story takes place in the near future and features three hotshot tech company owners whose wealth and power have created a vise grip over almost everything and everyone. I took their companies to be close facsimiles to Google, Amazon and Meta. The three have been working together to save themselves and their loved ones from the apocalypse that much of the population feels is bound to come. Others, including a popular online survivalist and people close to each of the owners, believe that these corporations, if run differently, could have the power to heal the world and save the future.⁣⁣⁣
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The world building was fantastic and the premise solid. Yet, some parts just didn’t work for me. There were biblical sections that I skimmed and didn’t feel like I missed much by doing so. I was also disappointed by was the ending. For all the effort put into the rest of the book, the ending felt neat and tidy, almost like Alderman ran out of steam. I just wish I was left feeling more enthusiastic about this book and I’m eager to hear other readers’ thoughts. ⁣⁣⁣
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Have you read 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦? What did you think?⁣⁣⁣
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🎧/📕 I started this on audio, but had a hard time keeping everyone straight, so I switched to print. Once I was solid on the characters, I alternated formats for the rest of this book.

Being a huge fan of Alderman’s work, I was very excited for her new novel. It took me a moment to get into it, but once I did, I struggled to put it down. It’s a hefty volume, but then again, no one’s ever said the future would be light.
In fact, in Alderman’s vision, it is quite dark, basically apocalyptic. And the three mega-moguls who more or less own the world, do nothing to improve it, but are quite interested in saving their own skins and surviving no matter what. While those closest to them have a very different idea about …well, the future.
And so it goes. The epic power struggle. Who will win, morals or money? Read the book and find out.
Here’s the thing with this novel for me: it read long but amazingly well. One of the best books I’ve read all year, easily. Stupendously clever. Alderman is definitely carving out a niche for herself in science fiction/dystopian genre, first with the power and now this. I love clever books. There are enough dumb ones out there to make you appreciate it. Alderman has terrific ideas, and her writing is superb. The worlds she writes come to life three-dimensionally and stunningly.
But then, after the book is done there’s some distance/perspective, you realize that the grand concept here is actually rather simplistic or at least reductive. It casts the general population as wildly dumb/gullible/malleable/manipulatable/etc. which …well, isn’t far from the truth. But the novel’s solution for it is … kind of basic. And the timeline for it isn’t all that realistic either.
It seems that for a novel so very clever with details and logic and rhetoric, it would come up with something a bit more sophisticated then “tweak the algorithm, tweak the people, save the world” sort of thing. And Alderman actually seems aware of it in the end, going by the very last chapter. It’s like a dark pessimistic/realistic cheery on top of a hugely optimistic, pro-environmental, pro-world message.
But the thing is, you are not really aware of any of that while you’re in the novel (and what you do notice, you don’t much mind), and that’s purely because of Alderman’s skill as a writer. So it is an enormously engaging, enjoyable reading experience. Albeit one with arguable logistics. As opposed to The Power, which was sense through and through. Either way, recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

From the award-winning, bestselling author of The Power comes a white-knuckle tour de force and dazzling exploration of the world we have made and where we are going.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review an advanced readers copy of this book. This in no way affects my review, all opinions are my own.

The Power is one of my favorite books of all time, so when I found out Naomi Alderman was coming out with a new dystopian science fiction novel I was so unbelievably excited. While I don't think this one quite lived up to the hype of that book, I do this was a really powerful and thought-provoking story.

This book jumps perspectives and timelines but mainly follows a group of tech billionaire CEOs who are claiming to use technology to save the world while also secretly preparing for the end of it (seems depressingly familiar). The differing points of view jump to their friends and confidantes as well, as they also prepare for the imminent apocalypse. Alderman does a really interesting job of tying together these different timelines and formats but it was a little hard to follow at points. I think even if the chapters were labelled with dates/times it would've helped a little.

I do think this book was kind of slow for me, there was a lot of background information being thrown at the reader and with the jumping timelines it was hard for me to focus on the story itself. The last like 20% of the book though was INCREDIBLE. I couldn't put it down at that point and I absolutely loved the ending! I feel like the read was worth it for that alone.

The Future by Naomi Alderman (author of The Power) is a dystopian novel about a few tech billionaires leading the world. Well connected and smart, these richest people on the planet have safe guarded their future with secret end of the world bunkers to survive the coming end of civilization as we currently know it. It's powered by technology and secrets. There are also small groups of survivalists, hackers, and outsiders who want to save the rest of us.

The book is incredibly detailed and interesting. It's suspenseful and futuristic, but also feels real and possible which makes it a bit disturbing and scary.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the electronic advanced copy.

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Simon & Schuster for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“Murder Your Local Tech Billionaire to Save the World” the Novel.

Okay, okay. So there’s no actual murder in this book. And a great deal of this novel focuses on differences in belief systems, rather than drastic plot actions. However, it’s catchy, and if I had to choose a brief description that would get me to read this novel, that’s what I’d use to describe this book.

This book is told through a few perspectives leading up to the end of the world. We follow a few of these aforementioned tech billionaires as they use a groundbreaking new technology to figure out when natural and manmade disasters reach the tipping point where they need to “get out of Dodge,” as it were. Their focus is on expanding their companies and making more money - regardless of the personal or environmental harm it will cause. It’s much easier to simply figure out when the end of the world would occur, and survive it so they can rule afterwards.

The other main perspectives follow a survivalist popular for showing others how to survive in extreme scenarios and prepping for disaster, and the assistant of one of the main companies in the novel. We also get excerpts from a forum of preppers discussing both survival - but also with a surprisingly large focus on religion (and mostly a cult started by one single man named Enoch).

Through individual perspectives, and this forum, we can see the connections to the current world, and the potentially unhinged ramblings of Enoch to his Enochnites. The main story told by Enoch focuses on two characters named Fox and Rabbit (hence, the cover art) where Fox is a hunter-gatherer who lives off the land but never fully settles or owns it, while Rabbit lives in cities and has become complacent and lost the ability to survive on his own. The novel focuses on whether one way of life is actually better than the other, and whether you should choose to leave and abandon - or stay and fix it.

In the Biblical context, this story of Fox and Rabbit is seen through many different characters, with focus in this novel on Lot and Abraham. Lot has settled in Sodom with his family, and eventually has to escape with his family before God destroys the entire city. Abraham, however, is blessed by God and travels from one place to another, teaching his gospel. The idea we focus on in this novel is whether the city of Sodom could have been saved vs destroyed. And we take this perspective to the world at large with the question - When do you leave? For how many people is it worth saving the world for?

The two differing perspectives in this novel then clash between these two ideologies. Is it better to simply continue on as we are and let the world eventually crash and burn, and climb out of the rubble to potentially make the changes we need to save it? Or should we incorporate some drastic changes now to avoid the end of the world altogether? Are we Fox or Rabbit? Do we let Sodom be destroyed?

I really enjoyed this book far more than I would have expected getting into it. Despite having a slow buildup, the narrative is engaging and really brings you into considering the larger picture - as well as the reflections to the world we currently live in. There are a few times where the timeline changes unexpectedly, and it can be hard to follow along, but it’s never so difficult that it takes you out of the story. I will also say that there were a few times near the end where it felt almost too hopeful and optimistic about the future (and reminded me of Tomorrowland 2023), but otherwise I would have liked to incorporate the solutions provided in this book. I was also unsure what the ending epilogue actually meant, but this book feels like one where you get more out of it on subsequent rereads (and despite really enjoying this novel, there were a few times it felt like I wasn’t smart enough to fully understand it - but once again, I expect to be rereading this novel more than once.)

“The Future” by Naomi Alderman - (5 Stars) (Pub Date:11/7/2023) was an incredibly smart, fast - paced, compulsive read, that took me from ‘interesting writing prompt’ to ‘omg, that’s probably happening right now not 40 years in the future’ to ‘if it can get this bad, maybe it COULD get better’. A story with a terrifying near - future prediction and a final sense of hopeful possibility, if and only if…

Good Things: The tech and the AI/LLM pieces are excellently researched and take everything we surface-level know about what is and what is probable today to an incredibly realistic next-step scenario. This technology-fueled near-future of spiraling doom paired with the three worst emblematic, megalomaniacs alive today makes for an excellent and terrifying world for our flawed, interesting, and likable main protagonists to try and save. Also, GREAT hold-out till the end. Lastly, great representation for a myriad of non-traditional character tropes.

Opportunities: There’s really nothing needed … this book is top of the 2023 pile for me. All I can think of is that the ah-ha was GREAT, but also, a little ‘ah-ha’ like —meaning I’d spent some time getting to know and care about the ‘who and what’, and I would have liked to see just a little more time spent walking through the ‘ah-ha. I wanted to really revel in it.

Final Thoughts: I needed to read a book about how the future is what I make of it, just really really needed that message. This was also exactly what I needed after a run of slow and/or atmospheric reads. The pace was great, the world-building and believability were spot-on, and the characters were excellently developed. And there was an email address at the end that I took a quick minute to email…make sure you do, to get a little extra food for thought and an ongoing “but…wha???” mental reflection.

I appreciate the opportunity afforded me to have an early read of this story by netgalley and Simon and Schuster. The opinions in this review are expressly those of ButIDigressBookClub and are intended for use by my followers and friends when choosing their next book. #butidigress #butidigressbookclub #thefuture #naomialderman #simonandschuster @naomi_alderman #netgalley #netgalleyreviewer #arc #arcs #thefutureishere #thefuturebook #techthriller

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Review Shared on Goodreads - www.goodreads.com/leah_cyphert_butidigressbookclub
Publishing Review 11/19/2023

Martha is the right-hand to the CEO of one of the world's leading social media companies. In her role, she has played a key role in the growth of the company, which is now deeply enmeshed in the lives of people across the globe. Although she seems like a natural in this world, her childhood could not have been any more different and makes her question the power and impact of her company and other leading tech companies. When Martha crosses paths with Lai Zhen, famous on the internet for her survivalist tips, she believes she may have found the one person she has ever truly connected with. But soon both Martha and Lai's lives are blown apart for seemingly entirely different reasons. As Lai seeks to discover what really happened, she uncovers a web of events far beyond what she could have ever contemplated -- and realizes there is much more to Martha than she, or most anyone, ever realized.

This was a highly engaging and thoughtful story, full of strongly drawn characters, a propulsive narrative, and a perceptive exploration of some of the most important issues of the modern day.

Highly recommended.