Everything Belongs to the Future
Laurie Penny
Tor.com
October 18th, 2016
In the future, the Fix keeps anyone rich enough to buy it young. Their age and appearance is fixed in time; they live longer, looking young and perfect for years more–50, 100, whatever they can afford.
A community of young, poor artists want to change things. They sneak into a party thrown by the company who created the Fix to steal the pills being passed out like candy, so they can pass them out in their food truck for free to the poor. They’re caught by a woman who looks permanently 14 years old–but she’s in her 90s. She’s one of the original scientists who created the Fix, and she’s more than a bit disaffected over what’s become of her creation.
She works with the activists to even the odds–it just comes in a way that no one expected. They’re about to change the world.
Everything Belongs to the Future is a novella about time and character. The way each sees time, and their own sense of personal integrity effects the story deeply–both in how we understand the characters and understand the way they use their discovery. Its a great story, and the only fault it has is not being longer. This is always a problem I have with good novellas; I end up wishing there were more of it.
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.