The Future

The Future belongs to a genre that has proliferated in recent years, called “near-future” fiction. Often, though not always, housed within the genre of science fiction, near-future novels explore how current events and trends might play out within the next few years or decades. Unlike sweeping science-fiction sagas that look to how the world, or the universe, will change in the coming millennia, near-future novels focus on the potential outcomes, positive or negative, of contemporary political, technological, and/or sociological debates or concerns. One of the primary purposes of near-future fiction is to critique the issues that haunt current conversations—and to imagine how those debates will evolve in the coming years. Like Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad (2011) or Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story (2010), The Future investigates how evolving forms of current technologies will change society and the planet. The novel emphasizes the ecological toll of technological advancement, in which the quest to replace obsolete tech with brand-new devices at an ever-more furious pace generates enormous waste. It also explores the impact of technological development on interpersonal relationships and political divisiveness.

The novel’s social critique influences the form. For example, five of the six parts of the novel begin with the reproduction of a (fictional) discussion on an online forum, entitled “Name The Day”; it is a space for users with survivalist tendencies to discuss events and preparations. The author showcases both the original posts and, in the margins, the responses from other users, creating meaning in the space between the original message and the feedback. Unlike a traditional conversation, the online forum allows simultaneous narratives to emerge. The chatter of the internet, and its encouraging of disagreements and discord, is part of what the novel critiques.

The novel also breaks with tradition by incorporating the acknowledgments within the body of the book. Between the final chapter and the ostensible afterword, there is an “Acknowledgments” interlude, which both includes the customary list of people who helped with the book—first readers, editors, assistants, and so on—and a more unusual recognition of another author who has written several lauded near-fiction novels. Alderman credits Margaret Atwood with encouraging her to travel to the Arctic, which, in turn, partly inspired the book. (The novel also references one of Atwood’s influential near-future novels, Oryx and Crake.)

Finally, it must be noted that the technology corporations skewered within the novel are clear representatives of actual companies: Fantail’s social media empire evokes Facebook; Anvil’s shipping and multimedia presence suggests Amazon; and Medlar’s personal computing monopoly stands for Microsoft and/or Apple. In this way, the novel speaks as much to current concerns as to future ones. As the novel’s conclusion stresses, the struggle—between the haves and the have-nots, between equality and inequality, between history and the future—never ends.