Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Everything Belongs to the Future, by Laurie Penny

Find this story
(Near-Future SF) The Fix offers a couple of centuries of youth to anyone who can afford it. By 2098, it has changed the world. A group of people decide to fix it back. (22,060 words; Time: 1h:13m)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended

See related articles on Tor.com.
"," by (edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden), published on by .

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Pro: There's lots of tension and buildup to the release of the time bomb.

Con: There's too much stuff here that destroys disbelief.

The pill itself, of course, but that's part of the what-if. Daisy's ability to make a fast-aging drug in someone's house is equally absurd, and it's not in the what-if. The all-powerful, evil company that controls the whole world is a tiresome cardboard villain. Somehow a company managed to take over every government in the whole world just through patent law? No one has elections anymore, apparently

But the worst part is the actions of the characters. If they wanted to make a terrorist attack, why not use explosives? Using this complicated aging aerosol is nuts. And why did this spark terrorism around the world when nothing else did? Given the world described in the story, there would be bombings every few hours. But even given that, why did the company allow the attack? Why didn't it round them all up the first time? In fact, given that Margo died in the arrest at their flat, why were any of them allowed back out--much less Daisy?

Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
Laurie Penny Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB

1 comment (may contain spoilers):

  1. I thought this was a 3 myself, but I agree with the cons you posted. There are some issues / holes with the plot. There were some things that did not add up.

    My biggest one, which you also listed - was that given the company by then, did know about the attack, they did let it go ahead ?

    ReplyDelete