The Future

 By: Naomi Alderman 

Location: FIC ALD

Genre: Fiction, Sci Fi

"So you mean... like... a book is stored thoughts. But an 'artificial intelligence' is stored thinking?"

Phenomenal! Magic! Ingenious!

Words cannot express how incredible The Future is.

The Future is a fast-paced, suspenseful read with short chapters and a version of Reddit with twists upon twists! LISA

The bestselling, award-winning author of The Power delivers a dazzling tour de force where a handful of friends plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.

When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find herself working for a powerful social media mogul hell-bent on controlling everything. Now, she’s surrounded by mega-rich companies designing private weather, predictive analytics, and covert weaponry, while spouting technological prophecy. Martha may have left the cult, but if the apocalyptic warnings in her father’s fox and rabbit sermon—once a parable to her—are starting to come true, how much future is actually left?

Across the world, in a mall in Singapore, Lai Zhen, an internet-famous survivalist, flees from an assassin. She’s cornered, desperate, and—worst of all—might die without ever knowing what’s going on. Suddenly, a remarkable piece of software appears on her phone telling her exactly how to escape. Who made it? What is it really for? And if those behind it can save her from danger, what do they want from her, and what else do they know about the future?

Martha and Zhen’s worlds are about to collide. An explosive chain of events is set in motion. While a few billionaires assured of their own safety lead the world to destruction, Martha’s relentless drive and Zhen’s insatiable curiosity could lead to something beautiful or the cataclysmic end of civilization.

By turns “playful, incisive, horribly relevant, and surprisingly hopeful” (Lauren Beukes, New York Times bestselling author of The Shining Girls), The Future unfolds at breakneck speed, highlighting how power corrupts the few who have it and what it means to stand up to them. The future is coming. The Future is here.

"Who knows if machine has lost game of noughts and crosses? Who knows if it won? I do. We are the ones who can tell. We know when to give bead ... We know when sentence makes sense, we know when piece of art has meaning. Machine don't know, it just keeps trying, combining pixels, making sentences. Everything come from us."

Review from Mark

OK, most important thing first. I can confirm one of the main characters is called Lenk Sketlish. This sounds more like the dish no one orders at a Hungarian café than an actual human being. Distracting.

Anyway, on with the review. The Future is about how fictional versions of techno-giants a la Jobs, Bezos, Zuckerberg might prepare for a possible oncoming apocalyptic event.

There are lots of great ideas, big ideas, and deep ideas in this book. Alderman is clearly a brainbox and The Future will make you think, possibly about things you've never really thought about before. And that's kind of great, right? I particularly loved the thread about minor manipulations of social media posts and how this can change collective consciousness - cool! There are several points in this book where it approaches greatness, and Alderman, as shown with The Power, is an author capable of greatness.

But this isn't quite a great book. It felt a little disjointed at times. Some sections were incredibly strong, then the book would lose it's way for a while. And I wasn't fully taken with the main character Lai Zhen. She just didn't quite jump off the page for me.

But The Future is absolutely worth a read. Even if you don't love it all, you'll probably find something you love, whether it's meditations on the power of mega tech companies, bible allegories, Foxes vs Rabbits, great descriptions of what AI is (and isn't), repurposed "sex suits" that can guide you through post-apocalyptic situations or out-of-place stunts (inserted for the movie adaptation?) involving explosions and swimming pools.

Right, I'm off for a bowl of Lenk Sketlish. Have fun Goodreaders!