Like WW3 1987, I might be doing re-reviews, only in this case of books that have nothing to do with a Fuldapocalypse. At least one worth revisiting is Naomi Alderman’s The Power, which got a TV adaptation after I got it and was one of the first diversified reviews on this blog.

The plot summary: Women gain comic book electricity powers. Because men have been JUST SO CRUEL a critical mass become “Magnetos” and not “Xaviers”, so society devolves into a power trip (pun intended) with the timeskip showing a cruel bizarro-Gor.

The gold standard for this kind of “see how power [pun also intended] corrupts and how oppressed become oppressors” is of course, Orwell’s classic Animal Farm. But whereas that was an allegory of revolution (and not just the Russian one, the name ‘Napoleon’ is very deliberate), this is kind of like if a radical vegan wrote Animal Farm and the message was how animal husbandry is inherently vile. Instead of the pigs becoming humanized, they’d turn into, I don’t know, Beastmen of Slaanesh depraved sadists, because HUMANS ARE THE REAL MONSTERS.