She Treads Softly: Days of Future Found

Monday, November 4, 2019

Days of Future Found

Days of Future Found by Mary Wark
Silverreads: 11/5/19
eBook review copy; 330 pages
ISBN-13: 9781733427913

Days of Future Found by Mary Wark is a recommended dystopian novel.

In the year 2039 Ella lives in a climate-protected complex. She is an active senior who appears to be aging at half the normal rate as her peers, according to the Longevity Institute who has been tracking her for years. Her friend has told her to start noticing that older citizens seem to be quietly disappearing. While her friend seems to think there is some nefarious activity going on, Ella isn't sure. She does know that she'd like to break out of her narrow life. When the Institute offers her a trip to Florida at the same time her friend will be going there, Ella accepts the invitation and the two expect to uncover more information about what may be going on with senior citizens.

This is an uncomplicated dystopian and climate change fiction with a narrative that is easy to read and follow. The chapters follow four different characters, with the focus being on Ella. The scare that the Longevity Institute could be up to no good and may be planning to use Ella's bodily fluids or body to make longevity drugs for others never feels like a real threat and danger never seems imminent. While a changed future is presented, the changes presented are assumed and never fully explained.

Wark presents a comfortable cli-fi dystopian with a focus on older rather than younger characters. This is published by Silverreads, an indie imprint for releasing Wark's future forward fiction and is also a site for older readers to gather and review books.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Silverreads.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.