An apocalyptic event is approaching. Survivalists are preparing, and the world’s billionaires and leading tech CEOs are heading for their lavish secret bunkers.

I’m not really sure what to make of this book. I enjoyed the characters and elements of the story, particularly when following Zhen and Marius, but it fell into some pits while making the point that the people behind huge tech companies and their huge wealth are contributing to and creating situations that are detrimental to the world as a whole. It’s ambitious to attempt to incorporate an engaging fictional story within this worldview, and there were moments where the plot got a bit lost behind the social commentary. However, it did always get back on track and there are some really interesting philosophical discussions within the story.

It did pick up and improve a lot in the last quarter, where the story focussed on current events and exactly how things had unravelled in the way they did (that’s very vague but no spoilers!). I have to say I really enjoyed the ‘twist’ and the ending.

This is my first time reading Naomi Alderman, though I do have a copy of The Power which I am now looking forward to reading more than I was before reading The Future.

Like everything in life that is important, there are frustrations.

I absolutely loved the concept behind this book, and there are some really important things to recognise about our real lives. Yes, the world is probably hurtling toward imminent destruction. Yes, social media is not the greatest. Yes, our data is being farmed. Probably, the idea that fermentation was one of the reasons Foxes became Rabbits - this whole thought process about Rabbits and Foxes was my favourite thing about the whole book. Yes, there must be more that we can do to change our trajectory.

However, the awful character names and the slightly disjointed narrative, made it really difficult to get into. It took me two attempts. Also I’m not convinced that electric cars are the future, or at least not the current iteration.

Once I got started though, I was hooked and this turned into one of my favourite books of the year. It was compelling and thrilling and entertaining.

For me, Naomi Alderman's previous book, "The Power" is a better read than "The Future". There are elements in "The Future" that are interesting for sure, but it was somehow a little predictable and the characters too one-dimensional The Musk/Bezos/Zuckerberg/Tech Bro religious cult juxtaposition lacked the novelty and impact created in "The Power". Naomi Alderman is still a writer to watch though. Special thank you to 4th Estate and William Collins and NetGalley for a no obligation advance review copy.

I had high hopes for this, however it was quite disappointing. It was very disjointed, keeps going off into stories from the bible about Lot and the destruction of Sodom in detail, plus spent so long on the philosophies of the Enoch cult that you feel like the story is just a platform for someone to soapbox. When the story did get going it was OK, but kept going off on these tangents, so so all momentum was lost.

Set a few decades in the future from now, three big tech companies wield all the power in the world and appear not to care about the damage they are doing to the planet. Bring in three people close to those at the top of the big companies plus a survivalist journalist, mix them up together and hope they can sort out the world.
I struggle to understand quite how things can turn around from just these three companies (big as they are supposed to be). What about governments, politicians, oil and gas companies, religious leaders and everyone else who has a vested interest. So I felt the main thrust of the text was a bit simplistic.
I also failed to understand quite what the biblical type interspersions were trying to achieve. I found them dull and at first skim read them and then ignored them.
As far as the character were concerned most of them were a little caricature-like -quirky captains of tech who don't have time for lesser mortals etc etc - and the only one with a little more padding was Lai Zhen who came across as reasonably human.
I found the style of writing wasn't for me either. The chopping around with time wasn't well signalled and each time I got stuck into a section of the story it was all change again.
But mostly, I think, I feel short changed as the book was described as fantasy, whereas I'd have put it firmly in the sci-fi camp and probably would not have selected it on those grounds. Still, there were parts that I enjoyed. The final quarter of the book set on the island and the last couple of plot twists were enjoyable and I didn't see them coming.
If only it could be so easy to to sort out the world...
With thanks to Netgalley, 4th Estate and William Collins for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

'The Future' by Naomi Alderman is set in an indeterminate future where three big tech companies have taken over most functions of society. Innocuous communication devices gather and use data, algorithms are tweaked so people stay on the right side of pessimism and fear, and governments are heavily influenced. Through falling for Martha (the second in command at one of the tech companies) Lai Zhen, a social media survivalist gets drawn in to the billionaires plans to find a way to live happily through an apocalypse that will be of their making.

Alderman's writing is stunning. She is able to conjure up a future that is believable and technology solutions that (as far as I know) do not currently exist, but easily could do. Alongside this, she also describes a religious sect and uses the story of Lot in the bible as the spine to hang the novel. This adds a huge amount of depth without being preachy. Lai Zhen's character is very well drawn, but so were the other characters in the story. For me, Alderman is at the top of her game in terms of dystopian and utopian writing. I imagine this novel will be a huge success (including becoming a TV series or film) and I would highly recommend it.

I think I might have had higher expectations, but the blurb sounds way more interesting than the book is. Maybe others will enjoy the book, I couldn't.

The Future is a story of power, money, technology and how those things can be wielded both for good and bad.

Naomi Alderman is brilliant at writing worlds that simultaneously feel shockingly futuristic and plausibly not so distant at the same time. The Future is full of allegory and social commentary, whilst remaining fun and fast-paced. This was a fascinating read, with so many threads to it that there was always something going on. Hints and clues are weaved throughout to slowly reveal what's actually going on, but there is always a sense of mystery. It's the sort of story that gives you lots to think and talk about, and motivates you to keep reading to find the answers.

Recommended to fans of speculative and dystopian fiction.

Our story starts in the near future, as the world continues to move gradually but determinedly towards apocalypse. Our protagonists are several people close to 3 big tech CEOs, as well as a survivalist blogger. The plot includes and covers all the buzz words: social media and social engineering, AI, global warming, big tech, survivalism, etc.

I can see why some (many?) people might like the book. It has a very heavy moralistic overtone, stemming from visceral critique of the polarising effect of social media on public opinion, and how AI algorithms are contributing to potential impending global catastrophes. Our protagonists are multi layered and complex, with sophisticated value systems. Interestingly, three of four are LGBTQ. I also liked the questions that the book raises, though many probably emerge as a side effect of what the book is trying to say, vs being core to the story itself. The plot has elements of a political thriller as well as a love story, and is able to captivate a reader's attention over time. The underlying pacing is quite good, ensuring that despite the length the book is essentially an easy read.

I struggled with the book, nonetheless. I disliked the simplicity in the moral argumentation, and the assumption that a solution to most (if not all) humanity's problems can be found in addressing certain perverse incentives at the core of the growing influence of big-tech. What about religion? politics? history? other less-than-holy elements of the modern capitalist system (oil and gas companies, agriculture conglomerates, chemicals manufacturers, etc)? On a related note, I also struggled with the message that the book was delivering. What is the extent of evil that is excuses a "greater good"? Apparently, the answer is relatively simple, and the solution to our problems is not addressing their root causes, but rather actively taking advantage of them to manipulate and shift things in a different direction. Is it morally acceptable to use the system for a perceived good rather than change the system? Who has the right to decide what is good for people? Is benign dictatorship essentially better than an evil one, and who determines where one finishes and the other begins?

Other than that, the thing I disliked most was the predictability of the plot. While I can perhaps see how someone might see twists and turns, I could see all of them, and it didn't even feel to be around the corner. The thing that made it so predictable for me is the 100% congruence between the plot twists and the moralistic overtone (and undertone) of the book. So, following the simple moral path it is quite clear and to see where it leads. Nothing particularly wrong in this, but the book made it feel like the author expected me to be surprised and fall off my chair, whereas I found it to be tiring and boring.

I struggled also with the caricature-like aspects of the the capitalist system, as portrayed in the book, as well as the characters of the three CEOs at the centre of the plot. It's either the author did not truly understand how business works (or big tech, for that matter), or chose to dumb it down consciously for the reader. Either is offensive.

Form-wise, I found the long biblical diatribes tiresome and far less relevant than the plot warranted. It was not super clear how they added to the story, and I found them to be hammering the issue home after it was already a done deal. This reminded me of some of the last bits of Atlas Shrugged.

I am happy to recommend it to anyone who is looking for a simple "eco-thriller", with the moral ambiguity of Atlas Shrugged. Parts of the book felt like leftist conspiracy theories and fear mongering (and I say this while essentially agreeing with a lot of what the author is saying). If you're aligned with these values it almost feels like intellectual onanism (like libertarians reading Ayn Rand). If you're not aligned with these values you will find the book infuriating. If you're in the broadly defined middle, you will find the book mostly silly, but might enjoy it you can overlook the moralism.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of the book in return for an honest review.

I devoured this book. Just like I would like to eat the rich.

The Future is very reminiscent of The Power. It's told by following many different people, whose lives may only overlap for a brief moment.
The setting of The Future may be in 'the future' for us, but to me it felt all too present. Three billionaires are prepping for the end of the world, and then the end of the world arrives.

This book felt like a rollercoaster; the first half was building up to the big drop and the second half was thrilling, not knowing which ways the tracks would twist next.

Despite having a huge cast, the characterisation is so strong and tangible throughout the book. Alderman manages to have a unique voice for each person, without losing focus along the way.

The book is chock full of biblical analogies and questions on who is worth saving and surviving. It was fascinating and gripping and all too real at times. A wonderful piece of work by Alderman, yet again.

Very clever, frightening, worrying glimpse of the future and what happens when all the tech giants save themselves. Bit too tech and long for me but I enjoyed the opening and the concept.

This is a multilayered, slow burn thriller, which covers some complex issues: corporate greed, data mining and social media manipulations, to name a few. Three tech billionaires with secret bunkers placed around the world where they have plans to hide and wait out events in luxury should things not go how they would like.
The novel is well paced and well written with intriguing characters and issues. Exploring a possible future world that may or may not be happening. The addition of internet posts scattered throughout the text added to the atmosphere. There was no stated timeline, which was confusing and interrupted the pace for me.
Overall it was an interesting premise with likeable characters and well worth a read.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC.

The end of the world is upon the characters of 'The Future' from the very first chapter. It's set in the near future - about the mid 21st century. Three very clever, very rich and very unpleasant tech company founders have immense power (think Google/Facebook/Twitter/Amazon equivalents). They are secretly preparing for an apocalypse - they intend not only to survive it, but to thrive and rule in what comes after.

Zhen Lee is also a 'prepper' - she makes her living as a survivalist vlogger, making videos about survival technology. Ever since her traumatic teenage years fleeing war she has been expecting and trying to prepare for the worst.

A chance meeting puts Zhen on a collision course with these power-hungry billionaires, linked by Martha Einkorn, who grow up in a survivalist cult and is now the executive assistant to Elon Musk - ahem, sorry, 'Lenk Skentlish'. Martha and her associates think it might be worth trying to prevent an apocalypse rather than assuming it is inevitable.

It's an interesting and gripping novel from the beginning. I immediately felt drawn in and keen to know how it would develop, and I always looked forwards to reading on. Zhen and Martha are both good characters that you can sympathise with and root for, and there are a number of good supporting characters too. The plot is complex and has some unexpected turns along the way.

When I thought about some of it in detail in order to write this review, I did find some plot holes and loose ends - but most readers won't be subjecting it to that much scrutiny. It does lose a bit of pace towards the very end, but by then you've had more than three quarters of a good and compelling read so it's not the end of the world. Better that than the other way round.

It does include, as part of the story, one of the best description of AI technology that I have ever read, and an insight into how social media and their algorithms work. It's worth reading just for those - I feel it's moved on my understanding of AI considerably and I'm actually less fearful of it now. Alderman clearly has a good understanding of these technological topics.

I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys science fiction (there's plenty about gadgetry and technology that will appeal to fans of the genre), and to more general readers looking for an enjoyable but intelligent read. It does have themes of apocalypse/pandemics which some readers might prefer to avoid. Certainly I was impressed overall and would definitely read more by Alderman.

I must admit I was drawn to this book by its cover, I love the geometric design and thought the red was very vibrant and eye catching. I have read Naomi Alderman’s other book, The Power, and although I can’t remember the plot exactly, I remember I did quite enjoy it. In the spirit of reading a different genre, I thought I would give her latest book a go.

The book jumps around a lot, between timelines and characters. At the beginning, we are introduced to a few wealthy, high flying characters who are founders of social media and tech companies. To me it seemed like parallels for Facebook, Amazon, IBM etc. They all receive a notification on their devices telling them the world is ending and they need to decide if they want to go ahead with their survival plan.
The book is set in the near future, but I’m not sure how many years in the future. It reminded me a little of Black Mirror as everyone has tech linked to AI. Of course, climate change is ruining the world and viruses are set to wipe out the population.

As mentioned, this isn’t my usual genre, and although I tried, I couldn’t get into the story at all. I read about 15% before giving up. For me, I think the story jumped around between characters too much and I felt the characters were quite superficial. I didn’t like any of them and wasn’t invested in finding out what was going to happen. I found the story didn’t hold my interest at all and it was a thought to read, I didn’t want to pick up the book.

Some of the descriptions are quite good, but I did find the graphic flirtatious descriptions between Zhen and Martha unnecessary.

I thought I would enjoy this book, but unfortunately it wasn’t for me. I think if you like sci-fi, futuristic, books you might like it.

This book is published on 7th November 2023. Thanks to 4th Estate and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

The Future is Naomi Alderman's follow up to her acclaimed debut The Power and, as such, has big shoes to fill. But if Alderman was intimidated by the expectations her sophomore novel would inevitably face, it doesn’t show; if anything, The Future is more ambitious in its scope.

In the near future, three tech billionaires (unashamed avatars for Besos, Zuckerberg et al) effectively control the world. They blithely mine people's data, filter the news they consume and buy up ever-dwindling natural resources for personal gain, all while driving the world towards destruction; meanwhile, they are stockpiling survival tech and preparing secret bunkers, safe in the knowledge that, when the world ends, they won't be there to see it.

The plot of The Future is original and fascinating - at once wildly far-fetched and utterly believable. Even the parts of the novel which feature incredibly sophisticated and intelligent technology or bleak predictions about the fate of our planet feel totally realistic; with corporate greed running rampant, the economic divide ever widening and climate change more catastrophic by the year, the scenario set out in Alderman's dystopian science fiction novel feels like a logical end point for the paths we seem to be inexorably marching down. While there were elements of the book I didn't love, Alderman's unsettling vision of a near future which feels so horrifyingly possible chilled me and will stay with me for a long time, and there is a didactic tone to the writing which makes me feel that that was exactly the author's intention. Particularly topical - and therefore frightening - are the ruminations on the power and dangers of social media, and the seemingly endless possibilities for the creep of Artificial Intelligence into all aspects of our lives.

Much of the book is narrated by survival guru and media personality Lai Zhen, whose connection with Martha Einkorn, right hand to the CEO of social network Fantail, kick starts the action in the story, and I enjoyed her dry, snarky wit. The writing is stuffed with biblical and literary illusions, as the characters try to unpack what survival might look like and grapple with the ethical implications of leaving the rest of the world to burn. Some of these resonated with me while others merely slowed the pace of the narrative or diverted attention from the far more intriguing events of the main plot.

The novel gets off to a slow, somewhat convoluted start, and it took me a while to understand why I should care about any of the characters. An unfortunate side effect of the level of detail that goes into explaining how all the survival tech works, and into chronicling the gradual collapse of civilization, is that less time is spent developing the characters into people the reader can empathise with and relate to.

The timeline is bewildering, jumping erratically backwards and forwards so that is difficult to piece together the sequence of events or work out how much time is supposed to have passed. The year in which the story begins is left deliberately vague, although the Covid-19 pandemic occurred recently enough to be referenced frequently and, hilariously, the most concrete piece of contextualising information we get is that Ryan Reynolds is in his silver fox era.

I thought the ending was brilliant - unexpected yet not unbelievable and a total vibe shift.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

The concepts of how our future could look and the idea of changing the dynamics with tech billionaires felt fresh and intriguing. At times I found there was too much backstory that didn't add any depth to the plot, but overall I enjoyed reading the different POVs and following their journeys.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for the arc of The future by Naomi Alderman.

Wow!
A terrifying snapshot of what could be our future. Beautifully written with a brilliant twist.

Most definitely recommended.

I’m a fan of The Power and I enjoyed this book.

A cleverly written book that looks at ideas I’m also interested in around the future of the world and the way we live.

The characters are interesting and the way some of the chapters are written is clever.

The Future is Naomi Alderman’s latest novel where she explores the world we have made and where we are going.

The Future introduces us to three billionaires who, between them, run the tech industry (social media, online shopping, and search engines - very clearly inspired by Facebook, Amazon, and Google). This group are obsessed with the possibility of end of the world - and how to survive it. While they safeguard their own survival, they lead the world to destruction.

At the same time, an unlikely group of friends (led by an internet-famous survivalist) hatch a plan to try save our planet.

The Future can’t be compared to The Power, Alderman’s first book, as they’re just so different. However this one is even more daring and disturbing, I don’t know how she thinks up these stories. The world in The Future is so realistic that it’s terrifying. It annoyed me how long it took to actually get to the end of the world (over halfway through the book), but once it happened (!!!), I realised how easily it could happen in real life.

There are snippets throughout this book which take us inside a survivalist forum, at first I didn’t like these bits but they make sense in the story and I think the author was clever for adding them in. Spoilers aside, there’s a huge twist in this book that I genuinely didn’t see coming , so naturally I loved it. I always find myself guessing twists but this one was a genuine surprise. 😇

I think this is the type of book you’ll need to take your time with, there are a LOT of characters which can get quite confusing, and the story itself is complex and full of details (blink and you’ll miss some of the topics/ideas).

Overall I thoroughly loved picking this up and the ending didn’t let me down.

A terrifyingly realistic novel giving us a glimpse of what the future may look like if we continue on the way we are. Intelligent, chilling and beautifully written with a perfect twist. Highly recommended.