Everything Belongs to the Future

August 29, 2016
Time is the ultimate weapon in this uneven dystopian novella from political columnist Penny, in which have-nots are determined to take down the haves who benefit from access to “the fix,” an expensive life-extension drug. The story, set in Oxford, England, follows a group of starry-eyed off-the-grid misfits who team up with brilliant scientist Daisy Craver to overthrow “gerontocratic biopower and the money system” by giving away a generic fix for free. Little do the idealists realize that Daisy is planning a different revolution, one that aims to destroy everyone and everything the fix has touched. Despite its provocative central gimmick and a powerful opening voice, the story drags under the weight of heavy-handed philosophical sidebars and discussions about the nature of time, art, the ethics of science, and the business of scientific discovery. The book insists that scientists don’t think about the implications of their work but artists do, an idea that will no doubt come as a surprise to many readers in both the arts and the sciences. Penny raises valid questions about access to scientific advances, but readers will wish those questions came with more believable characters and a less predictable plot.