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Title details for The Future by Naomi Alderman - Available

The Future

by Naomi Alderman
Guinevere Turner
Audiobook
5 of 7 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
5 of 7 copies available
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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 7, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781797163635
      • File size: 376131 KB
      • Duration: 13:03:36

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 28, 2023
      In the kinetic latest from bestseller Alderman (The Power), activists attempt to wrest power from three CEOs after a near-future apocalypse. The executives are Lenk Sketlish, the survivalist founder of the Fantail social network; Zimri Nommik, a serial cheater who runs the logistics and purchasing giant Anvil; and Ellen Bywater, who heads Medlar Technologies, a leading PC company, and often carries on imaginary conversations with her dead husband. When the trio receive an early warning about a pandemic said to be worse than Covid, they board a private jet to a secret doomsday bunker. A parallel narrative follows a group that’s been fighting for ecological and social change, among them Lenk’s assistant, Martha Einkorn, who grew up in her father’s survivalist cult; Albert Dabrowski, the ousted founder of Medlar; Zimri’s wife, Selah, who wrote some of the code for Anvil; and Badger, Ellen Bywater’s politically radical youngest child, who takes umbrage with a private early warning system for the über-rich. While Alderman’s erratic chronological jumps can be hard to follow, the narrative is eminently quotable (“The only way to know the future is to control it,” goes one line ready-made for a movie poster). The endless intrigue and surprising twists keep the pages turning. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Guinevere Turner and Natalie Naudus confidently lead the sweeping ensemble of voices who tell this devastating story of the end of the world, caused by the evils of technology and power. Once the fate of the planet becomes clear, a small group of super wealthy individuals jump into action, seeking refuge in secret predetermined locales. Assisted by the key performances of Graham Halstead, Lorelei King and Santino Fontana, Alderman's audiobook may peer bleakly into the future, but the details are of the moment. Aggressive AI applications mine massive data from everyday human behavior, while rich tech companies employ algorithms to steal labor from the masses under the guise of "efficiency." Jeremy Bobb and Fred Sanders round out this stellar group of performers. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
    • BookPage
      In 2016, Naomi Alderman’s novel The Power, a radical vision of what could happen if women became the physically dominant sex, offered transformative ideas about gender and supremacy. Now, Alderman offers readers a plausible world-to-come in The Future, a daring, sexy, thrilling novel that may be the most wryly funny book about the end of civilization you’ll ever read. As a teenager, Martha Einkorn left her father’s back-to-nature cult on the Northwest coast to become the personal assistant to a powerful social media entrepreneur. Lai Zhen survived the destruction of Hong Kong and a year in a refugee camp to become a survivalist influencer. When these two women meet, the attraction is immediate, but their romance is put on hold as news reports stream in of an impending apocalypse. The Future is awash with tech billionaires, preppers and an anxious population easily swayed by algorithms. It follows executives Lenk Sketlish, founder of the social network Fantail; Zimri Nommik, who runs the largest online retailer Anvil; and Ellen Bywater, who heads Medlar, a leading PC company. These powerful techies have spared no expense to create safe havens for themselves and are ready to leave the rest of the world to face destruction. The billionaires’ plan is thwarted by a band of rebels led by Martha and Zhen, including Ellen’s nonbinary child Badger Bywater and Zimri’s soon-to-be kicked to the curb wife Selah Nommik, who also happens to be a genius coder. With their combined expertise and shared conviction of bettering our world rather than manipulating it for their own ends, this group may just save civilization after all. That Alderman keeps the plot moving forward despite constant shifts in perspective and time is a testament to her creative skills as a writer and a game developer. The novel never slides into parody, despite the three rather clever parallels to some of our real-life billionaires and tech leaders. Clearly, Alderman cares deeply about our future and believes that we already have the skills in place to course-correct. By the end of the novel, you might too.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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