The Future—as the richest people on the planet have discovered—is where the money is.
I was granted early access to The Future by Naomi Alderman through the HarperCollins Canada Frenzy influencer team. Thank you as always for the opportunity to read this book! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
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About the Book
The Future
by Naomi Alderman
Published 7 November 2023
Simon & Schuster
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian
Page Count: 432
Add it to your Goodread TBR!
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.
The Future—as the richest people on the planet have discovered—is where the money is.
The Future is a few billionaires leading the world to destruction while safeguarding their own survival with secret lavish bunkers.
The Future is private weather, technological prophecy and highly deniable weapons.
The Future is a handful of friends—the daughter of a cult leader, a non-binary hacker, an ousted Silicon Valley visionary, the concerned wife of a dangerous CEO, and an internet-famous survivalist—hatching a daring plan. It could be the greatest heist ever. Or the cataclysmic end of civilization.
The Future is what you see if you don’t look behind you.
The Future is the only reason to do anything, the only object of desire.
The Future is here.
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My Review
My Rating: 3 Stars ⭐⭐⭐
The Future is the story of the richest, best connected people Earth has to offer and their selfish pursuit of technology that will carry them past the extinction of humanity. Part apocalypse thriller, part dystopian political commentary, and part pandemic scifi, The Future has a lot to say about hubris, wealth, and the folly in trying to create a future for a few at the cost of preserving the planet for all.
I fell in love with the idea of this book based on the synopsis and other teasers I was exposed to before reading, but alas, the book did not deliver what I hoped it would deliver. “The future” feels like right now, 2023, or even a few years ago, 2019, 2020. The pandemic of 2020 is referenced a lot, letting us know that this book is set sometime after that, but the atmosphere and settings of the book just don’t give that impression.
We’re made aware that plenty of potential world events we’re worried about now have begun to take place. One of the characters lost everything in the bombing of her family’s apartment building in Hong Kong. Murders and assassinations are covered up and withheld from the public so well that no one questions it. The apocalypse event the rich are outrunning is an even more devastating pandemic. It’s all very intelligent and accurate to what the world is worried about right now, but perhaps too relevant. Perhaps the world isn’t ready for a serious cautionary tale about the next pandemic.
Intertwined in all of it is a religious cult that uses Old Testament/Torah scripture as metaphorical instructions for life and the future. It’s a fascinating element to the book and, although others have criticized some inaccuracies in quoted scripture (I think it was done on purpose,) I really think this could have made an even better book. The Future jumps constantly between a few perspectives and weaves together several storylines, which is usually something I love to see, but the particular characters and storylines woven together in this one were too disjointed. This very interesting cult story clashed with the rich snobs and the apartment bomb survivor. It could have been mixed in a functional way, but ultimately it felt like this was a different novel’s story taking place in the same world, at the same time (a companion novel) being told in the same binding.
Overall I think this book had a lot of potential. I’m always up for a good dystopian with a twist. I think it needed to focus a little more. There are tech billionaires and their snobby silver spoon kids, there are doomsday preppers with issues, and there’s the religious cult. Pick two. As is, the story is too disjointed, the pacing is inconsistent, and I don’t feel like I was given the opportunity to care about any one character enough. I’ll be back to read more from this author.
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