THE FUTURE by Naomi Alderman

Lai Zhen, an expertise on survival, finds herself under attack at a shopping mall.  She squeezes through ductwork as her assailant draws closer.  Then an unknown app called AUGR becomes active on her phone and gives her some timely advice on how to escape.  The source of the app seems to be Martha Einkorn, the assistant to the head of the world’s largest social network, with whom Zhen had a brief love affair.  Martha’s boss and two other technology moguls are preparing for the apocalypse.  They have stocked bunkers in out-of-the-way places, in case of a worldwide plague or nuclear disaster and made plans for quick getaway.  Martha is the only character with real-life survival skills, which she developed as the child of a fundamentalist cult leader.  Her role, as well as the major theme of the novel, are late revelations.  Clues lie in the parable of the Rabbit and the Fox, which formed the basis for one of Martha’s father’s sermons.  Even more telling is the recounting of the Biblical tale of Lot, in which Abraham asks God how many good people would there need to be in Sodom in order for God to save it. The plot of this novel is twisty and intriguing, but the characters are a bit flat.  Zhen is the heroine who becomes either a pawn in the machinations of the three head honchos or an accidental wrench thrown into their plans, and we’re not sure which, until the end.  This is probably one of many apocalyptic novels that the Covid-19 pandemic has spawned.  However, this novel is largely about preparedness, and we could have used more of that before 2020.  Thank you to Book Club Favorites at Simon & Schuster for the free copy for review.