In The Power the world is a recognizable place- there's a rich Nigerian kid who larks around the family pool; a foster girl whose religious parents hide their true nature; a local American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But something vital has changed, causing their lives to converge, with devastating effects. Now, with the flick of a switch, teenage girls can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world changes utterly.
This extraordinary novel by Naomi Alderman, a Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and Granta Best of Young British writer, is not only a gripping story of how the world would change if physical power was in the hands of women but also exposes, with breath-taking daring, our contemporary world.
About the Author
Naomi Alderman is the author of three previous novels: Disobedience, The Lessons and The Liars' Gospel. She has won the Orange Award for New Writers and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She was selected for Granta's once-a-decade list of Best of Young British Novelists and Waterstones Writers for the Future. She presents Science Stories on BBC Radio 4, she is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and she is the co-creator and lead writer of the bestselling smartphone audio adventure app Zombies, Run!.
She lives in London.
Industry Reviews
The Hunger Games crossed with The Handmaid's Tale * Cosmopolitan *
Electrifying! Shocking! Will knock your socks off! Then you'll think twice, about everything -- Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale for the Gone Girl generation * Grazia *
A stone cold genius -- Sarah Perry
The Power is a subtly funny, lyrical and utterly subversive vision of an impossible future. As all the best visionaries do, Alderman shines a penetrating and yet merciful light on to our present and the so many cruelties in which we may be complicit -- A. L. Kennedy
The Power is a fascinating look at what the world might be like if millennia of sexism went the other way...as a whole the narrative feels ingenious...deserves to be read by every woman (and, for that matter, every man) * The Times *
A feminist science-fiction story that's about to make waves * Red *
If you enjoy Margaret Atwood's dystopian fiction, this strong, substantial novel is for you * Woman & Home *
Alderman is a fluent and powerful writer * Sunday Times *
Thought-provoking novel * Glamour *
When we say that The Power is profoundly disturbing and you may well want to argue with it as you read, we mean that in a good way * SFX, Five Stars *
As awesome as it is compulsive * Heat, 5 stars *
What starts out as a fantasy of female empowerment deepens and darkens into an interrogation of power itself, its uses and abuses and what it does to the people who have it * Guardian *
A raw, gutsy slice of speculative dystopia * Metro *
Like the best science fiction, this dystopian feminist fantasy holds up a mirror to the here and now * Mail on Sunday *
A gripping read and a reminder of the true joy of a truly engaging story * Stylist *
Frenetic sci-fi novel * Daily Mail *
Naomi's super-charged, subversive novel....forcing you to rethink everything * Psychologies *
Gripping and disturbing, it pushes the reader - even the confidently feminist reader - to question the assumptions underlying many of the mechanisms that drive relationships between women and men * Harper's Bazaar *
An instant classic of speculative fiction... a big, brash, page-turning, drug-running, globe-trotting thriller... endlessly nuanced and thought-provoking, combining elegantly efficient prose with beautiful meditations on the metaphysics of power, possibility and change * Guardian *
Sci-fi with a feminist twist * Jewish Chronicle *
it is so whipsmart, it is so brilliant, I absolutely loved it, it's going to stay right in the science fiction canon forever...you know it will end up on TV -- Rowan Pelling
Very smart, very crisply written -- Christopher Frayling
Insightful, thrilling, funny and well-written.. Alderman's book is in the tradition of Ursula le Guin, Margaret Atwood, Sheri Tepper and Joanna Russ * Daily Telegraph *
A thrilling narrative stuffed with provocative scenarios and thought experiments. The Power is a blast. * Financial Times *
A brash sci-fi fantasy, clever and coarse, calculated and hectic * Observer *
This book sparks with such electric satire that you should read it wearing insulated gloves * Washington Post *
The Power is at once as streamlined as a 90-minute action film and as weirdly resonant as one of Atwood's own early fictions * Boston Globe *
