Futureland
Nine Stories of an Imminent World
By Walter Mosley
Warner Books - November 12, 2001
ISBN: 0446529540 - Hardcover

Reviewed by Nancy Marie, MyShelf.com
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The world Walter Mosely creates in FUTERLAND: Nine Stories of an Imminent World, is a bleak, depressing world run by mega-corporations, and controlled by drugs and super-technologies. It is a world of haves and have-nots, with the have-nots possessing little or no means of bettering themselves. It is a racist, discriminating society, where true justice is only available for those with the means to buy it.

The nine independent stories are linked, similar to the way Bradbury's MARTIAN CHRONICLES are linked with each story telling and showing a different aspect of Futureland's society. But there the similarity ends. Unlike the Martian Chronicles whose opening stories are filled with hope and the excitement of new adventures, Futureland opens with a story that is both tragic and depressing, and it leaves you wondering if the hero is a prophet of God and is mentally and spiritually gifted, or is just plain mentally insane.

The other stories continue this theme. Stories about a criminal who is betrayed by those in the system he trusted, and with justice being handed out by holographic, computerized conglomerations of the memories of long-deceased judges. And, then, there's the world Mosely creates through the lives of the unemployed. People who live in subterranean complexes, are fed the same thing day after day, who never have access to the world above, and who are granted the privilege of watching a movie, once a year, on Christmas day.

It is a compelling book, dark in its view of the future, and in some ways, it sounds a lot like our society today. But in other, more horrendous ways, it is not, for which we can be thankful and only hope that FUTURELAND remains in the realm of Mosely's imagination

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Nancy Marie is the author of When You Wish Upon A Star.

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