Short Fiction by Scott Westerfeld
In the distant future, everything is so very perfect that they make high school kids go through “Scarcity” class so that they can appreciate how great they have it now. Each student must pick a past hardship that has now disappeared and experience it for two weeks, such as the common cold, or adolescent hormones.
This was a novella; I wished it were longer. It was a fun read.
I also read by this author: Afterworlds
Audible Original Fiction by Mark Tufo
I also listened to recently from Audible Originals: The Break Up Artist
Fiction by Ken Follett
This book took over a week to read, which is a long time for me. It's pretty dense prose and complicated; every word needs to be understood with no skimming. I've read other books by this author, mostly historical fiction, and those were all good enough for me to devote the time to this one.
In this novel, the author takes the events that led to The Great War, or World War One as it became called, and modernized them into a slowly escalating world crisis that ends up making war inevitable. But in modern times, we have nuclear options available, and World War Three doesn't end well for anyone.
This was a good story with great characters, but it was chillingly easy to see how the USA and China, in particular, could be maneuvered into war even with moderate and decent people in change, which in general we never have...
I also read by this author: Circle of Days
Fiction by Ian Mc Ewan
This was a strange story. The premise is that Thomas Metcalfe is a historian in the year 2119 and he specializes in the period of 1990 to 2030. He is particularly interested in an event called the Second Immortal Dinner which took place in 2014; it was a dinner party where several people of literary importance were in attendance.
(Incidentally I couldn’t believe there was ever an actual First Immortal Dinner, but I looked it up. On 28 December 1817 some painter had a bunch of people over to his house in London, including Keats and Wordsworth. Of course, in real life it's just called The Immortal Dinner. So it's not such a stretch to imagine that there could be another dinner so aggrandizedly labeled, I guess.)
The beginning of the book, the futuristic part, was a little slow and draggy. I almost gave up, but part two of the book, in which we switch narrators and discover the real events of the past, is really good.
Thousands of years in the future, humans live all over space, not just on Earth. In the star system of this story, they live in The Interdependency and have completely lost touch with Earth altogether. The Interdependency is a network of planets and space stations joined by The Flow, which is the only method of connection between planets that are light-years apart. (Think wormholes in Star Trek. Like that.)
Okay, I understand that long sci-fi backstory is a lot, but just go with it. Because this is an amazingly good trilogy. I loved the characters so much! And the narration is also top-notch.
Definitely listen to these in order.
I also read by this author: Starter Villain
Fiction by John Marrs
In a futuristic Britain, the divide between rich and poor becomes ever-wider, and government control over individuals grows stronger and stronger, as the line between private corporations and public entities blurs. In this installment of the story, couples who can't have biological children compete on reality TV for the opportunity to have AI kids.
Wait, what? Just accept the premise. It's the dystopian future!
This book is listed as #3 in the "Dark Future Series," which includes The One, The Marriage Act, The Passengers, and The Minders. I have read all of these and I think they have the order wrong; this one is more like number four or five. But that's not important, I guess.
The important thing is that this book was really good, especially in audiobook form with the different narrators.
Fiction by Meg Elison
This is the last book in the "Road to Nowhere" Series (see below). It was a good conclusion to the series, in that it wrapped everything up pretty well while producing some surprises at the end. Still, it was kind of sad to me; I liked the characters of Flora and Etta a lot and really wanted them to end up happier.
I suppose it's hard to have a happy ending in a post-apocalyptic world...
Fiction by Meg Elison
This book is the sequel to The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. It continues the story of the post-apocalyptic world where the population had been almost wiped out about a hundred years before by a plague that still threatens the human race, especially the women.
The city of Nowhere, the place where the Unnamed Midwife had taken refuge, is surviving, but there are at least ten men for every woman still. Women who have borne a living child are revered, but many still die in childbed fever. Raiders from Nowhere go out to find Old World goods, and to rescue women and girls from slave traders around the country, and Etta is one of those raiders.
This was an exciting continuation of the tale begun in the first book. The story does get darker and more brutal though. There is one more book in the series that I plan to listen to next.
Fiction M.R. Carey
This book is the prequel to The Girl With All the Gifts, an excellent zombie apocalypse novel.
(I'll bet you didn't know "excellent" and "zombie apocalypse" could go together like that!)
This also was a very absorbing story with great characters.
I also read recently by this author: Echo of Worlds
Fiction by M.R. Carey
This book is the sequel to Infinity Gate, which I listened to recently. This book made a fascinating conclusion to that exciting story, which I cannot describe without spoilers.
I definitely recommend it!
Fiction by John Marrs
This story, set in the same futuristic Britain the author created in Passengers and The One, explores the idea of a national "Sanctity of Marriage" Act. The Act gives tax advantages and other financial incentives to married couples who participate in a national program called "smart marriage." Smart marriage is ostensibly designed to ensure stable family relationships through keeping legally married couples (both gay and straight) happily together with the the help of AI monitoring. But is that really the goal of the Act, and more importantly, is that goal even achievable?
This was an exciting story with several twists, The narration was also really good!
Fiction by M.R. Carey
Fiction by Meg Elison
Audible Original Fiction by Dennis Taylor
This book is the sequel to We Are Legion (We Are Bob), which I listened to a little while ago. It chronicles the further adventures of The Bobs, an ever-increasing group of AI clones who run spaceships in the future. (It’s a bizarre premise, but just go with it.)
It’s definitely different, and the story is pretty interesting.
I also read from Audible Originals: Scum of the Earth
Audible Original Fiction by John Scalzi
This book is a sequel to Lock In, which I just listened to. Both are listed as "only from Audible," which I think qualifies them as Audible Originals; however, I know that at least the first book is also available in print, and at my local library. So that's why I didn't list that one as an "original," although may be I should have?
Anyways, this book is set in the same future universe as Lock In, and also features FBI Agent Chris Shane. In this story, Agent Shane and his partner Agent Vann are faced with an athlete who inexplicably drops dead while competing in the exciting new sport Hilketa, played in robot bodies and involving... decapitation? (Just go with it; it will make sense inside the story framework.)
This was as interesting and original as the first story, and the ending is a surprise.
Fiction by John Scalzi
In the future world of this novel, there are a significant number of people who have been left completely debilitated by a (lab-engineered?) worldwide virus that has swept the planet. Initially the virus, called Haden's Syndrome, kills some people, but most recover. Then the strangeness begins: of those who recover, some catch a second, more dangerous stage with meningitis-like symptoms, and some progress to a third stage that leaves them completely paralyzed. These people (now called just "Hadens") are considered "locked-in," because their brains are still alive and active, and their automatic body systems function, but no voluntary part of their bodies will work. They cannot move or communicate. Medical science (relying heavily on governmental subsidies) finds a few solutions to help these people, but it's technology that truly manages to unlock the Hadens population. So begins a world where people can move around in robot bodies and navigate a special version of the internet with their minds.
Okay that's just the back story.
The book is actually a murder mystery, starring newly minted FBI agent Chris Shane, who is a Haden using a robot body (called a "threep") and investigating Haden-related crimes in the Washington D.C area.
This was an amazing innovative and interesting book. I highly recommend it.
Fiction by Ashley and Leslie Saunders
Fiction by Deborah Willis
I can't decide whether to categorize this novel as "futuristic" or "contemporary." Basically it's something that really could happen now, but I think it's set in the future. I labeled it both ways, because it's kind of futuristically contemporary.
Okay, maybe that's not important.
Here's the idea: There's a bazillionaire who wants to colonize Mars, so he's funding a mission to send two humans there to live FOREVER. Seriously, they can't come back; the mission is to dump them there with (ostensibly) all the supplies they need to survive. They are supposed make a colony and set things up all nice, and then they send back reports of how fabulous it all is on the Red Planet so the next group of colonists can come join them. You know, in the future. Whenever that's feasible.
So how to get someone to want to volunteer for this quasi-suicide mission? Well, you make it a competition of course! And hey, let's offset some of the cost and monetize the whole thing by making it a reality show! It's going to be called... wait for it... Mars Now!
Enter our protagonist Amber Kivinen, a 32-year-old Canadian who (allegedly) sells home-grown cannabis with her boyfriend Kevin. She might look like a loser on paper, but she's got enough charm and ambition to go all the way! Maybe. At least she's one of the 24 international finalists.
This story follows Amber and Kevin, as she tries to win a ridiculous TV popularity contest in front of billions of people on the Mars Now! show, and he sits at home on the couch growing (and smoking) weed.
This story was both hysterically funny and super sad. I really loved it!
Fiction by Naomi Alderman.
I went into this book completely cold, (not having read any synopses or reviews, and not having ever read anything by this author before) which was a risk for me. This time is was a good bet; the book was great!
In this not-too-distant future world, there are three people who control a huge portion of not only the world's money, but also the world's thoughts. Through each person's individual online platform, which are both rivals of each other and somehow bound together by mutual interest, everyone in the world views everyone and everything else in the world. Everyone's personal social media feed is controlled by at least one of these online giants, and each of those companies is controlled by a single person.
In this story the media platforms are given fictional names, but it's obvious that the Big Three are some form of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, or whatever. The goal of each one is to captivate their audience as much as possible and keep them scrolling online longer and longer, and that goal is accomplished by making sure the most inflammatory and polarizing content is highlighted specifically for each user. (This definitely sounds familiar; am I right?)
The result of these money-grubbing tactics is that the whole world seems to be going down in flames. There's even an incredibly popular online forum called Name the Day that's all about surviving the coming apocalypse. (Wait, is this contemporary nonfiction? Not yet, we hope.)
And in the face of the world's imminent destruction, the strategy of the Big Three is to make plans for the bunkers they will personally hide in when it all goes to heck.
Wow, huh?
The story actually begins with the three multi-billionaires getting The Text: "It's happening. Your loved ones and staff have been alerted. Quietly and calmly pack your stuff and board your private jet for your trip to your personally prepared survival bunker." Then it goes back in time a bit to let the reader know how we got here, and then....
What comes next? You'll have to read it, but let me say: Mind. Blown. What a great story!
The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men
Fiction by Patrick Ness.
Todd Hewitt lives in a world where dogs talk. (Although, as he points out, the problem with that is that dogs don't really have much to say.) In fact, every animal talks: sheep, frogs, even bugs! Or, more accurately, all the animals broadcast their thoughts out loud. Unfortunately, this means the thoughts of men are also audible, and that makes for constant Noise in Todd's village of Prentisstown that is hard to endure.
I say "the thoughts of men" because, in Prentisstown, there are no women. Todd's mother, along with every other woman, was killed by a plague twelve years ago that also wiped out half of the men. It was this same sickness, a result of a germ released during the Great War, that caused everyone's thoughts to manifest themselves aloud.
Or at least, that's what Todd has been taught. But is all of it true? As Todd approaches his thirteenth birthday, the date when he, the last boy in Prentisstown, will become a man, he begins to learn that things may not be the way he has always thought they were.
This was an exciting book series that held a lot of surprises.
