I liked The Power; I thought it was a clever idea, told simply (in a good way). Conversely, The Future, has a LOT of ideas and the narrative jumps about chronologically and also between characters.

There were also forum extracts that didn‘t work for me (badly formatted on the ARC) and a lot of comparisons with Lot in the Bible so I skipped those bits.

It sounds like I hated it, but I didn‘t; it‘s still a soft pick.

This is my first book by Naomi Alderman and I was intrigued to read it having heard her speak about it earlier in the summer at The Women’s Prize For Fiction Live in London.
With the future of the world at risk, three of the world’s most prestigious, wealthy and influential tech leaders are secretly planning their own survival whilst watching their own technologies steer the human race towards self destruction of the planet. The novel has a slightly dystopian feel and yet there’s a simmering undercurrent that leaves you feeling like some of the big tech giants of today could actually have such schemes in place. Full of so many topical themes, this book is bound to get people thinking and talking.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for a review.

Well, I finished it. It was a close call as there were several times I wanted to give up.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Described as a ‘white-knuckle tour de force’ - not so much. There were some exciting bits, yes, but also some pretty long winded dull bits too.
A great deal of philosophising, and technical discussion, economics, and the issue of the mega rich with their mega companies effectively controlling ( destroying) the world. The author makes some good points, but at length.
The first line begins ‘on the day the world ended…’ Except it wasn’t. Or was it? It got confusing. The timeline jumped about a lot, and the narrative moved between action, long descriptive sections and online philosophising in a chat room. I found that the layout and online slang used in these sections distracting.
I really liked The Power but this one was a wee bit of a chore..

Thinly disguised tech giants wield enormous power over the world's communications, purchasing/delivery systems and technological development - the possibilities of a global catastrophe mean that the uber rich leaders of the companies are planning for their own survival while the rest of the world is left to devastation.

The narrative flits between characters, the past, present and future, keeping the reader a little in the dark at times which works well..

Not sure how the 'online discussions' are presented in a physical book, as on a Kindle there were blank white screens.
I learnt a lot (matchboxes and beads, the full story of Lot, foxes and rabbits etc) and wanted to be left hopeful about the future but of course humans are never satisfied.

Overall, a really enjoyable and thought-provoking read.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the free e-ARC.

The premise for this book is that the world is heading to a final global disaster; three billionaires running mega million companies have set up an alert system so that they and their loved ones can escape to safe havens before the disaster strikes. This type of dystopian novel appealed to me, so I started it eagerly. However, three quarters of the book is set in the past or present and involved a lot of pontificating about the value of life and the planet.

Overall the book is an interesting and thought-provoking read, but the style in which it is written didn't really work for me - it felt very bitty and disjointed. We get some more pontificating at the end as the author speculates about how we are ruining the planet and what steps need to be taken now to save it, which is both frightening and timely. As a work of fiction it kept me turning the pages, but I really wanted more substance and less speculation.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After reading the blurb for this book, I was expecting something to knock my socks off.
Unfortunately it didn't quite hit the mark for me.
When three of the best known techno 'nerds' decide to take over the world (think Pinky and the Brain cartoon but not as good)
These three billionaire's think that they are unstoppable but it just reads like a bad movie from each POV.
The concept of the story is good but it really it does go on forever!
There's some good humour and twists involved.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

Imaginative yet scarily plausible. I found some of the forum parts difficult to read but the main story was great.

I loved this book!

Set in the near future, The Future describes a world where the people who own the largest tech companies all have their own bunkers in readiness for the apocalypse. When that apocalypse arrives they'll leave the rest of us to it safe.

The story starts by setting the scene. It shows us what the world is like in the near future, introduces us to the 3 CEOs who basically control the world, and also introduce some of their closest people.

I don't want to give away the twists and turns, but this is truly a masterpiece. I just had to keep reading to see what was going to happen next. I've not read anything by the author before, but I'll definitely be checking out her other books.

Set in the near future we see the world (not too different from our own) where wealth, power and influence is in the hands of a few billionaires who lead massive global spanning empires (I'm sure you can name the current day companies that were the inspiration). The story is focused around the three biggest tech billionaires and there monopolization of the world for their own gain even at the cost of the earth, safe in the knowledge that they already have bunkers set up for them to retire to when (not if) a global catastrophe hits. So is there any hope?

A small group of friends from a variety of backgrounds group together to hatch a plan to save civilization - will their heist succeed or is this truly the end?

Overall I enjoyed this plot driven story but there was a significant structural challenge that I struggled to overcome and that was the jumping around in time that occurs through much of the book. The chapters are short (most less than 10 pages) which is normally something I enjoy but I found I was spending he first page or two of each chapter trying to figure out when these events were happening which kept pulling me away from what was happening and as we were jumping into a new chapter and a new point in time every few pages this made for quite a disruptive reading experience.

So overall I'm going for 3 stars

Review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5770058794

Review to be published on the Bask in the Story Youtube Channel on Tuesday 7th November

I was kindly given an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I absolutely loved this and will be buying a physical copy!

The Future happens in an uncanny, unsettling version of reality in the not too distant future, where tech companies have more power than anyone else. They dictate how we perceive and participate in the world. Alderman has an incredible ability to illicit visceral feelings of dread and doom throughout The Future, and grapples with what it means to be human.
The world building was so expertly done that I felt fully immediately in The Future, which made the many twists all the more thrilling!

*Gifted copy from Netgalley and 4th Estate

Having read and adored The Power, I knew I had to request this book! The synopsis will go a little way to explain the story so have a look at that in my stories. It is a pretty complicated one to try and fit into an instagram caption but it is most similar to a dystopian crossed with a environmental science fiction, but could also very nearly be seen as prophecy for the genuine, real life future!

We are in a world of tech companies that are profiting off the looming extinction of the planet and also survivalists who are not exactly profiting, but thriving off the eventual death of the planet. We meet three tech billionaires and learn about their companies as well as the contingencies they have in place for the end of the world. We also meet the people close to them, PA’s, wives and children. The tech world collides with the survivalists in tech conferences where the PA of a tech billionaire, Martha, meets Lai Zhen and their relationship drives a large portion of the narrative.

As the end of the world happens, there are twists and turns that keep you guessing and the second half of this book absolutely raced along. There are a lot of characters to follow along and also long passages from Genesis which I found rather long but other then that, it was gripping!

The solutions that are presented are clever and the ending is really satisfying! If you’re only halfway through and not sure where you’re going, keep going!

This also reminded me of the TV Show called The Wilds so if you enjoyed that, you might love this!

The Future by Naomi Alderman is a difficult book to pin down, and I am finding it hard to consolidate my thoughts on it.
I have seen it described as pre apocalyptic, not a term that I had seen before, and yet it is perfectly fitting for a book about a group of some of the wealthiest people in the world and their plans for survival as the world disintegrates around them. In this techno thriller style story we see how a group of people including the daughter of a cult leader, a famous survivalist, an ousted Silicon Valley visionary and a non binary hacker see their plans form and disintegrate in a desperate attempt to change the fate of the world before it is too late.
This is not a book for readers who like their stories fast paced or action packed, though there is a significant ramping up of both pace and drama in the final third of the book. Unfortunately getting there was something of a struggle. I really did not care enough about any of the characters to feel invested in their fates and found the sections of the book that were formatted as excerpts from an online forum just disrupted what little flow there was , without adding enough to compensate for it. The storyline also jumped around a lot both in terms of the point of view characters and the time the chapters were set in, maybe this is delineated more clearly in the finished book but it certainly was not always clear in the arc copy.
All that being said I do think that the book raises some interesting questions and gives the reader a lot to think about, and I am sure it will provoke a lot of interesting discussions in many book clubs and groups.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed The Power so was eager to get stuck into this one.

Sadly I just couldn't get into it. The format was very disjointed and although the underlying story was enjoyable, the difficulty in reading it kept taking me out of the story.

A look at the future as a result of what we have and are currently doing to our
World . A book designed to make you think parts you will enjoy and others you will hate.
Unfortunately it was not a book for me

I absolutely loved Naomi's previous book The Power so I was so excited to read this. It's similar in the way that there are multiple points of view that converge nearer to the end and I also never knew what was going to happen next. I'm not as big into dystopian books anymore, but I will already read whatever Naomi Alderman writes!

I just could not get on with the style of writing of this book, made it about a third of the way through and gave up. It felt a bit all over the place and I didn't really like the switching between a narrative and forum threads from the internet. I wasn't keen on the constant biblical references either.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book, sorry but it just wasn't for me.

I don't usually go in for novels in the future or the past but this was perfect.

I loved the plot, dystopian thrills abound but my favourite thing by far was how fluid and well this was written. Planned perfectly and with a pace that never missed.

I rec0mmend this to anyone who has been shy of picking up a novel like this.

I received an advanced reading copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Fourth Estate, and the author Naomi Alderman.
I quite enjoyed this dystopian thriller but you do have to suspend disbelief quite significantly in order to get truly involved. An insightful commentary on big tech and the billionaires that are gradually creating a technological monopoly and what drastic measures could be needed to save the future. Enjoyable, would recommend as a holiday read. 3 stars.

I was very excited to read The Future by Naomi Alderman, after having enjoyed her previous novel The Power. Set in - the clue is in the title - the near future this is a dystopian tale that feels all too real. Three billionaire CEOs of global tech, social media and distribution companies prepare for the apocalypse. Their companies control the minutiae of people's lives across the globe, whether they know it or not. Then we have the survivalists, such as Lai Zhen who makes her living as a survival expert, who are also preparing for the apocalypse in a very different way, without the high tech bunkers and immediate notification of the destruction of the world.

The story jumps around with interwoven timelines and narratives and is interspersed with interactions from an online forum exploring a cult leader’s philosophies. It all draws together in the end.

I did find it slow going at the start, but it hit a point where I was thoroughly invested in the story and couldn't stop reading. There are parts that various readers may enjoy less - the tech side or the forum side with its biblical allusion, both of which for me were pitched right and essential to the heart of the story.

The ending I thought was brilliant, and I didn’t see it coming.

Overall this is an intriguing read of a dystopian near future, with echoes of the utterly brilliant Margaret Atwood in the writing. I definitely enjoyed the book. It's clever, it's frighteningly possible, it's hopeful, it's fascinating and thought provoking. Who are we as a society, what do we prioritise, can we get ourselves out of this mess, can we bring the planet back from the brink?

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of the book.

Naomi Aldernan has a great storyteller knack and this is propulsive fun with a great twist, though, I always feel she goes on about an hour too long!
I much preferred this to The Power though- I think the characters here are more three-dimensional than in The Power- the villains are more layered though still deliciously repugnant!

It takes awhile for you to get the measure of the ‘good guys’, but again I like the more multifaceted idea of flawed heroes. I’m sure people who are very attuned to technology will find massive plot holes and causes for eye rolling in this novel, but as somebody who is quite willing to assume anything is possible technologically, I found myself pretty much spellbound. A futuristic ride that leaves the reader with a lot to think about.