The Future

12

I’m not certain I’m quite nerdy enough for some books. I’d count The Future in their ranks. Not that I can’t get down with the tech and sci-fi in this novel, but there enough tech and sci-fi that anyone without at least a base of that stuff in their lives would be instantaneously turned off by its subject matter. People who aren’t ensconced in the tech bro, twitter, Amazon and Facebook of it all. People who couldn’t pick Elon out of a lineup, let alone Bezos. Are you aware of Gamergate? No? Well, you might want to sit this one out. And it’s not that these types of stories don’t exist in some broader and more accessible way, like, for instance, Ready Player One, but there’s a weird angle to this that feels less populist and more engrained in an industry Alderman is clearly trying to lampoon. Or at least make a comment on and about.

In fact, the whole book feels like a huge mash-up of all of modern society in the lord’s year of its writing, 2023. We have clear tech lords that do mirror dear leaders from Meta, Apple, Amazon, X/Tesla and whatever other kind of invasive tech platform one can imagine. They are squarely situated as this small, uber-rich cabal of frenemies who ban together purely out of a mutually assured destruction plan to ultimately become the kings of the world in the face of an inevitable apocalypse. They create a secret plan to build sustainable bunkers to ride out whatever comes. A plot that should feel pretty familiar to those who have seen the absolutely bonkers series, Paradise. But instead of sheltering the president, his cabinet and a plan to rebuild society, this is just the wet dream of Peter Thiel in which the tech oligarchs do finally take over the world and presumably repopulate it with their chosen few and their offspring. I’m not really sure these people are presented as evil bad guys so much as privileged narcissists. They don’t plan to end the world, just survive it. And, of course, emerge to a new beginning as its architects. There ain’t enough room for everyone in those bunkers, after all.

Alderman uses a lot of allegory and biblical references throughout the book to tie into what is happening in our main plot line. I’m sure if I were more familiar with scripture that I’d have anticipated the big twist, but I’m a heathen and not versed in verse. I don’t know Alderman’s level of biblical scholarship (though she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family), but these modernized bible stories are mostly conveyed through this online forum gimmick (which I honestly disliked just from a form standpoint) in the novel in which one of the characters, Martha Einkorn, conveys her world view. She’s a woman who escaped her father’s religious cult as a youngster and has risen in the world to be the assistant to one of the aforementioned tech leaders. She meets and falls in love (lust?) with a “survival influencer,” Lai Zhen, at a survivalist convention. Which is apparently a thing in what I have to imagine is an alternate universe or a near future that definitely doesn’t feel like the near future of this universe. Anyhow, the ladies have an affair that is short, but intense and kind of centers them as our story’s main characters and the pivot point for this head fake that the plot turns out to be.

Overall I enjoyed the novel. But there are elements that I bristled at. The device of using those online forums to convey world views and cryptic storytelling really took me out of it. I had some trouble following them and honestly ended up just kind of skimming them at times, trying to get back to the normal prose sections. I do think Alderman’s larger themes are good and interesting. The tech oligarchy is real and, when we think about the data they are collecting and the control they have over our news and our reality, is a little scary. I’m fine with them building survival bunkers or cryo chambers or whatever, but to think they’d ban together to secure the planet’s ultimate future is an interesting one. Where I fell out a little bit is her trying to pretend that people really care that much about environmentalism and conservation. They don’t. People would build a 5,000 square foot modern farmhouse monstrosity in the middle of a clearcut rainforest if it meant cheap and plentiful housing. They’d plow a wildlife preserve for an aqueduct if it meant more water for their showers and pools. You get it. Which, again, puts me in the mind that this is supposed to be some alt universe where the general public overwhelmingly cares about endangered bird and insect species. My other bugaboo is the introduction of technology that is either inconsistent or, at the very least, invented on the spot to fill in plot points. Alderman creates this future world / alt universe, but then there are these mech suits and nanobots and whatnot that seemingly grow or shrink in value based on situation. Same goes with the overarching level of global and local surveillance, which seems both omnipresent or not based on the ebb and flow of the narrative. In other words, this world is very technologically advanced, but only when and where it’s convenient to push the plot forward.

Ultimately, I was entertained. There could be some edits and/or elimination of some plot devices, but this love story buried within an apocalyptic sci-fi novel definitely has its plusses. I appreciate the thought that Alderman clearly put into the story to make sure nobody is merely a caricature and that even the proposed “bad guys” aren’t really so much bad guys as they are what they are. In other words, there is some ambiguity built into the narrative. The twist is decent, and in the most old-school sense, the ending is satisfactory. You can almost feel the limited television series being penned by someone for Apple TV+ as I type this. As it is very cinematic and grounded in a pretty traditional cautionary sci-fi framework. I have no clue if that’s in the works or if the novel has been optioned, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. I’d certainly watch it.