Thank you to Angry Robot, Daniel Polansky, and NetGalley for giving me an eARC of Tomorrow's Children in exchange for an honest review.

I do not know how I feel about this book. In some aspects it was great. But in many other aspects, I was just confused. This story takes place in post-apocalyptic Manhattan, which is surrounded by something called the funk. The concept itself sounds good. However, the clearest explanation of what is going on comes from the summary on the back of the book. It should not take me until the last 10 chapters to know that the apocalypse took place 6-7 generations ago or to know random details about the society. Readers are thrown into the middle of the action with a large cast of characters and there never is an explanation about what is going on or what the society is. The language is different and while using emojis as writing is a cool idea, there was never a footnote or an index that actually told you what the emoji word was. I will say, that having the footnotes to clarify what was what and who was who was really helpful. There is a part of me that wonders if listening to the audiobook if/when it comes out will help me to make more sense of what is going on. However, first I need to decide if I actually want to know what is going on. This might just be the case for a book that is not my cup of tea and that is okay. I will say, that people should give this book a chance themselves rather than relying solely on reviews because what does not work for someone just might be another individual's favorite book of the year.

Sorry I just could not connect with this book .I hope other readers enjoy it more than I did .I was disappointed that I didn't enjoy it more

Tomorrow's children :

Tomorrow's Children is set in a post-apocalyptic New York, destroyed by the funk, a sort of mortal mist.

Let's start with the positive; I think the world building is pretty original, I love that they developed powers which make it kind of sci-fi/ urban horror fantasy vibe ? The history of the gangs was well made, the fact that there's still capitalism and social classes was really funny to me (in a good way).
That particular post apocalyptic setting is also pretty original, since it's not directly post apocalyptic but many generations after the end of the world.
The writing in itself is fluid and simple, the author is certainly a man of action more than words and its ok, although I think he really nailed the individualisation of the dialogues.

BUT, there is also some negative points : I think the world building would have been clearer with a map ? I've never been to New York so trying to make sense of the different gangs and neighbourhood was hell, I quickly abandoned the fact that I will understand what TriBeCa is ! I also thought that emoji replacing words, and in such that everybody was illiterate really sounded silly to me, knowing that I think knowing how to read is a need that even parents in post-apocalyptic era would learn to their children (I know they're approximately the 4/5 generations after the mist but still), moreover since they don't have phones how do they know about it ? My last criticism would just be taste and colours ; I think there's too much characters and it drove me out of the story since I wasn't able to know any and was confused 90% of the time.


Summary : Very original ideas, characters and setting. Although, some details frustrated me ( illiteracy with use of emojis instead and too many characters for my liking).

I had such trouble with this one. With the jargon and the prose, I never got very engaged in the story or cared about much of anything happening. I pushed through thinking I’d hit a stride at some point, but sadly never did. In truth, it should have been a DNF.

Note: arc provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for honest reviews

I’m not sure I actually *liked* this book but once I’d cracked the first quarter, it became a compelling read nonetheless: not an easy book to get into. I liked the concept and its grit but there was no one character that really stood out to me. I dont think this is Polansky’s best work. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

There is a trap in writing fall-of-man, post-apocalyptic fiction, and that trap is future slang. You might be willing to work out quite how much technology or knowledge may be lost, but accurately predicting the change of language is really tough and leaves you open to something not reading well. Not everyone can write A Clockwork Orange, and that's not exactly a breathless read. Tomorrow's Children, a story of post-apocalyptic gang warfare on the island of Manhattan is full of both devoluted slang, and evolved language, some of which makes sense, some of which is clumsy, and some which seems willfully obtuse. Asphalt becomes phalt, and now just means the ground. I can see that, its linguistic path follows a pretty standard route. But how "night" becomes "dim", and "day" becomes "bright" seems less clear, and that's a pity because Polansky sticks to that one religiously. Mix that up with Manhattan neighbourhood slang (Stuy for Stuyvesant Park, the Ef-De-Ar) you'd hope the prose style wasn't too stylised just to make it accessible. Unfortunately, the prose style is florid in places.

For a New York native, this might grab you like the tales of London gangs of Borribles did me as a kid, though that was always very readable. Instead, there is this tale of multiple gangs starting a war while something tries to reconnect to the mainland all while the mysterious "funk" 9which caused the apocalypse) closes in. And cute gags and short Vonnegutian chapters notwithstanding, it didn't really connect to me at all.

I greatly enjoyed most of Daniel Polansky's books and was eager to check this one. I'm glad I did, but it's a daring one. The first half of the book throws readers into a post-apocalyptic world and introduces lots of characters. It's really difficult to get into and get the full grasp of what's going on. Things do connect later in the story, and it becomes interesting. Still, when I crack a book open, I want to feel immersed as soon as possible and not have to force myself to read 150-200 pages to get a sort of compensation for the effort later on.

In summary, it's a challenging book to get into and appreciate.

My full review on my blog (link attached).

Has anyone seen the 1979 Walter Hill movie The Warriors? I watched it as a kid and thought it a pretty obscure ‘70s dystopia (I asked around and nobody I asked has even heard of it), but Polansky definitely has, and made it the beating heart of his new novel.

Tomorrow’s Children is a happy, explosively energetic bastard child of The Warriors and The Stranger Things, delivered by the unlikely midwife in the shape of Snake Plissken from Escape from New York. I realize that the works I mentioned above are all visual media – and that’s intentional, for Polansky’s newest novel reads like a movie script. It’s fast and furious, full of teenage hubris and hope, angry and slick and overflowing with the youthful feelings of invulnerability and greedy, indifferent ambition – until it doesn’t, and it’s a well earned lesson indeed. The city of New York is a character of its own in this novel, its burroughs and its streets, its rivers and its parks, even its subway lines all playing a substantial role in the events unfolding with precision across geographic locations.

As with many of Polansky’s books, explaining too much of the premise might spoil the fun, so I will be cryptic. It starts with a bang, one that will probably turn away a few prospective readers. Intentionally, I assume – after all, not everybody opens a story with a guy who tries to kill a dog for food.

Having that out of the way, let’s take a look at the setup. A few generations after a little apocalypse, in which New York had been wrapped in a cloud of noxious gas known only as “funk” that killed most of the population, mutated a number of those who survived, and returned the general populace to the illiterate, pseudo-medieval state of civilization, New Yorkers keep themselves busy fighting their tribal wars among the ruins. There is a feudal elite consisting of a handful of the most cut-throat gangsta types who assumed noble titles such as Pope, Mayor, or Commissioner, but don’t be misled – they are just tribal chieftains obsessed with the power they have and with how much more power they can get. Add into the mix a mismatched bunch of teenagers with the explicit desire to destroy the system, and an experienced gumshoe with a hidden agenda, and you have the beginning of Tomorrow’s Children. Nothing is as it seems, and discovering the hidden motives and relations is a big part of the fun. An even bigger part of the fun, to me, was Polansky’s description of the various factions, or tribes, each more flamboyant and over the top than the previous one, each distinct and tragicomical in their worldviews and behaviour. This part was a clear homage to The Warriors, down to the descriptions of colours, traditions, and gear of the gangs.

[...]

Tomorrow’s Children is dazzling and rabid, cruel and softhearted in equal measures. If there is one criticism I have it is the too abrupt ending, hanging in the air and begging for a sequel – and at the same time denying any rationale for a sequel, since the story is almost entirely self-contained: a tale intentionally extracted from a larger tapestry, making no references to the world beyond and yet being pulled into it against its will. Well, we’ll see soon enough, I guess, if Polansky decides to return to this world and give us a tour of some other part of it.

I wanted to like this book so bad the premise sounds like it's going to be great and then you start reading it and there's so many characters and it's just all over the place this has to be his worst work to date and I don't like to say things like that about authors that I really like to read he's built some of the coolest worlds that I've read before this just isn't it,....Thank you to Netgalley and Angry Robot for the ARC

If I had to summarize my review in three words this would be it.. Trust the process!
This will for sure be a polarizing book and in all honesty it doesn't do itself any favors.
For starters, it throws you out of the gate amid clan battles and politics and no explanation is provided. The amount of characters we're introduced is overwhelming and to make things even harder we hardly get any background for any of them and we have to make sense of everything as we go along. Due to this being a post-apocalyptic version of Manhatan, the inhabitants use some strange dialect that takes some getting used to to fully comprehend what is being said. And finally the author chooses to use a confusing structure with short chapters that even paragraph by paragraph we jump from one place to another.
All of the above I think will make a lot of readers give up on this, even before the halfway point. And that would be a shame, because...
...this is really very good. It's full of humor, great action and has pretty charismatic and interesting characters. The story really starts to make sense after the 60% mark, but when everything came together I really couldn't stop reading. The setting is a great example of a post-apocalyptic world and the authors imagination really signs in this aspect with the different clans portrayed here. The pacing is non-stop and that evens out the complexity of the first half mentioned above.
I wish that the author had given us some more info on the protagonists though (not for all of them, because as I said the cast is huge), cause that would have given the thrilling conclusion some extra emotional impact and also some of them were really fucking cool.
To summarize.. go into this expecting to not make sense of much in the beginning, go along with the zanny characters and you'll be rewarded.. As I said "Trust the process.."

Con Daniel Polansky y su obra tengo una relación un tanto extraña, porque me asombra su imaginación y su prosa, pero me abruma también lo experimental que se vuelven a veces sus obras. Con Tomorrow’s Children me temo que la balanza se ha decantado hacia la extrañeza y por eso no me ha terminado de convencer, pero examinemos algunos puntos de interés de la obra.


El escenario en que se desarrolla el libro es muy curioso, tomando parte de la ciudad de New York y aislándola del resto del mundo durante varias generaciones por una sustancia de origen desconocido denominada funk que también tiene extraños efectos sobre los habitantes de la Gran Manzana o lo que queda de ella.

Se puede considerar un escenario postapocalíptico, ya que la falta de recursos o incluso de la energía suficiente para hace funcionar los servicios de una ciudad como esta ya sería catastrófica, pero es que además, la presencia de esta sustancia psicotrópica, asesina e ineludible influye de tal manera en la sociedad o lo que queda de ella que a veces lo que vemos ante nuestros ojos raya lo incomprensible. La desintegración de las estructuras de poder habituales da lugar a la balcanización de la ciudad, con bandas en cada esquina luchando por el territorio y una violencia descarnada.

Daniel Polansky nos lanza en medio de un situación muy complicada como si nos lanzara de un avión sin paracaídas, dejando de mano del lector intentar entender la trama aderezada con una panoplia de personajes quizá demasiado extensa. Además, el uso de recursos literarios o no dentro de la novela sin tampoco explicar demasiado más que ayudar entorpece la lectura. Por ejemplo, utiliza ideogramas en vez de palabras para transmitir información o las notas al pie de página para ponernos al día con la situación de algunos personajes. Es muy enrevesado, al menos para mí.

La presencia del funk permite al autor añadir toque weird al libro, con la aparición de monstruos de carne putrefacta, poderes psíquicos y seres subterráneos, por ejemplo. Nuevos ejemplos de la portentosa imaginación del autor que ya destacamos en March’s End, pero que enturbia un poco las aguas al adentrarse en el proceloso proceso de lectura. Por que la trama, además, es bastante enrevesada.

No sé ni siquiera si recomendar el libro o no por las dudas que me ha generado leerlo. Espero que alguno lo entendáis mejor que yo y lo podamos comentar.

I was excited by the blurb of this novel, but the execution was just not there. The characters are very one note and there were just too many for the reader to form any real attachment. I was not invested in the story at all and as much as I tried, it was a DNF at 50% for me.

I really wanted to like this book. The premise seemed really interesting, and I'm usually a fan of multiple perspectives and complicated world building. I usually love when an author lets me piece things together instead of spoon-feeding me the plot. Unfortunately, this was so convoluted it wasn't any fun. The plot was so scattered. I never formed an attachment to any of the characters - I truly didn't care what happened to them (and not because they were unlikable or morally grey or villians - they just all blended together). It took me so long to get through this. About 50% into to the book things started getting better, but I almost didn't make it that far. I think this book would benefit from a map and section showing gang territories, gang relationships, and common slang. If that had been more clear, I may have been able to maintain interest through the first half of the book.

DNF at 40%. Too many characters and none of them are enjoyable to follow. The emoji writing system (in-universe) was kind of silly, and the way it was written (not in-universe) didn't really work with me. The setting was super vibey though.

Hmm was looking forward to this. It just didn’t resonate for me. A harsh writing style, lots of characters I didn’t really feel any depth and engagement to the book. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

Polansky is a daring author. Having read some of his other works, I was eager to read this and I was not disapppointed. Our patrons will love this. Will be ordering.

This book is the epitome of apocalypse noir. It reads quick for how long it is, which was surprising.

I really tried to get into this book. I got about 25% in but really had a hard time tracking all of the characters. I think there were at least 20 names in that short section. The plot jumped from place to place and from person to person and I didn’t quite latch on to anyone. The world was very bleak and definitely apocalyptic. The language was strange and the use of emojis didn’t quite work. The characters’ diagnose just didn’t make sense and was choppy to read. The location was familiar in NYC and definitely apocalyptic and dreary. But I had to DNF because the plot didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Sorry, had to DNF. It started on a positive note, however I just couldn’t get into this one.

I couldn’t find myself wanting to return to this story, it could possibly be my head space at the time after reading a Malazan book, so pinch of salt here.

A chaotic fever dream that felt like Escape From New York (without the escape bit) mixed with Jet Set Radio!

Thanks to Angry Robot and NetGally for the Arc.