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The Future review: Doom is booming in a wild tale with a major twist

This science fiction novel shows that its author, Naomi Alderman, is well up to the tough job of satirising end-stage capitalism – and swerving an obvious ending, says Sally Adee

8 November 2023

A Armageddon type scene after a war or a natural disaster; Shutterstock ID 3272394; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: - — Is there a way out in a world obsessed with prepping for doom?
shutterstock/Mark Plumley

The Future
Naomi Alderman (Simon & Schuster)

YOU may have heard this old story. Two mid-20th-century satirists, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, walk into a hedge-fund party thrown by a billionaire. Vonnegut, probably holding a drink, tells Heller that the host made more money in a single day than Heller has from every sale of his novel Catch-22. Heller shrugs. “Yes,” he replies. “But I have something he will never have: enough.”

Fifty years later, no one…

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