A unique take on a futuristic story

Naomi Alderman is a British novelist, having studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford before taking up a career as a writer. She also has experience as a writer for an alternate reality game. I'm not a huge fan of science fiction/futuristic/dystopian novels, but this one piqued my interest. I was surprised at how much I liked it!

The future | Published November 2023 | Read October 2024

In The future, we follow Martha Einkorn and Lai Zhen through a dystopian scenario. Martha, an escapee from her father's religious cult in an isolated compound in Oregon, now works for a powerful social media giant with fixation on controlling the future. Martha grew up hearing her father's tales of an apocalypse and is now surrounded by three squillionaire tech CEOs (representing the Musks, Bezoses and Zuckerbergs of the world, I assume) who are building systems to protect themselves from future societal collapse. Lai Zhen is an internet-famous survivalist. She finds herself fleeing from an assassin when suddenly an app on her phone appears out of nowhere, instructing her on how to survive the situation.

The future is one of the most unique books I have read in a long time. It's suspenseful and moves along at a cracking pace. Alderman uses a very modern literary device of Reddit-type comments to tell a lot of Martha's story. She does a bang-up job of world-building, so much so that I felt like I had been transplanted into the book with Martha and Lai Zhen. I completely warmed to both women (and their co-conspirators) and I loved how they navigated their quest to halt the damage that has been done to our planet and the current hurtle towards an end-of-days scenario. This was a near-futuristic novel that asks the reader to ponder corporate greed and the state of our planet, but it was also realistic, character-driven and had emotional depth that I wasn't expecting.

I have to give kudos to Alderman for writing an intelligent book that kept my reader's brain working the whole way through without overwhelming me with jargon and scientific concepts. The allegorical references were also cleverly woven into the story and not overbaked. I was captivated by this book and loved the way it all panned out, with a well executed twisty resolution.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐