This latest offering, however, marks a new stage in the author’s career. This sweeping oeuvre is not only a demonstration of Alderman’s active imagination, but a testament to her wide-ranging abilities. Her literary fiction has covered Orthodox Judaism, Oxford undergraduates, and even the origins of Christianity. The Power is Alderman’s fourth literary novel, but she has also written a Doctor Who tie-in book ( Borrowed Time) and is the lead writer on the exercise app ‘Zombies, Run!’. The novel is based on a simple concept: what would happen if every woman in the world acquired the ability to give electric shocks – some harmless, some fatal – from her fingertips? From that spark, everything changes, as women begin to realise that they are now stronger than men. The Power reminds us that questions about our own society can be asked and answered by imagining a totally different reality. It is hardly surprising, then, that Naomi Alderman’s latest novel is part of this grand tradition, not least because Atwood happens to be her mentor. From Suzanne Collins to Margaret Atwood, and right back to Mary Shelley, women writers have always questioned the prevailing ideas of their day by considering the near future. In its purest form, sci-fi reimagines the structures of society and, in the process, creates a topsy-turvy fairground mirror with devastating implications for the real world it reflects. Some suggest that science fiction is a woman’s genre.
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