The Power

 The Power by Naomi Alderman, 341 pages.

This book starts with a simple premise. What happens if all women suddenly gained the power to produce and manipulate electricity? It takes a very wide view of this question, exploring not only the political ramifications, but also many branching social results. We mostly follow four characters. An abused foster-child who hears the voice of god (probably) and reinvents herself as "Mother Eve," starting a new religion focused on women. The daughter of a major player in organized crime who has exceptional raw power and isn't afraid to use it. A small town mayor who develops this new power and uses the changing political landscape to her advantage. A reporter, the sole man in our primary cast. 

Alderman is very clever with this book, but I think perhaps the most clever thing was it's framing device. In a small note at the beginning this book is presented as a piece of historical fiction written by an archeologist, thousands of years from our own time. This not only lets us see some of the very long term effects of the events, but also adds layers throughout that are fun to spin around like puzzle pieces while reading (although I will grant there's an amount of suspension of disbelief for the accuracy this theoretical far future write has for our own time). 

The scope of this book reminds me a bit of World War Z, which is another book concerned with wide ripples from a single speculative event. However, my one real complaint about the book (aside from the fact that it's a little too on the nose sometimes) is that it's scope is not quite ambitious enough. There are one or two lines about how the emergence of  the power is effecting fashion and gender presentation, which was very interesting, but I think that the book is a little weaker for not including the ways that transgender experiences would interact with gender based magic and the sort of sexual division that arises from it. It's also almost entirely focused on America and Europe, which limits the scope quite a lot. We get glimpses of the rest of the world from the respective of the reporter, but they are unfortunately very limited. Overall I definitely enjoyed this book and found it very thought-provoking. I really enjoyed the almost mythic tone it took at times, which makes sense for a fictional man writing about the way his world came to be. This book won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017 and I would say it was definitely deserving. 

Also: See Kara's post about this book here