'A World That We Expect' starts slowly, to allow the horror of the near-future to really unsettle the reader. But when Emmett Helaman returns to the hidden refuge where his people are supposedly safe, and learns they only have a few more years to survive, the novel becomes a real page-turner. The plot builds to a climax that only allows the briefest of epilogues.
That the only survivors 100 years into our future are members of America's largest 'doomsday-cult' religion distinctly adds to the creepiness of the story. While the plot develops in a series of unexpected ways, the culture of those living in the barely surviving community of Asher is truly fascinating. I hope 'A World That We Expect' isn't meant to be a 'we told you so' fantasy, because the clear links from the present to the projected future should serve as a strong warning to everyone. The blind trust in 'God's plan', and the all encompassing need of all of the survivors in Asher to fulfill it, is not presented as a solution to our current global over-consumption. Our blind trust in the infinite resources of our planet is just one small human-caused mistake away from a world that we can expect.
The novel closely follows only one man, Emmett, who comes to understand that he must affect another, single man, in order to prevent his situation from reaching its inescapable end. As an emotionally crippled thinker, rather than a do-er, Emmett only acts when he literally has no other options. He has to lose everything, before he risks everything. The claustrophobic desperation of his situation makes for rather grim reading. Unfortunately, the presented future is so probable that the novel's solution for its survival seems a bit of an far-fetched hope, rather than a potential plan that we will be able to actually use.
As one who is always reacting, rather than pro-acting, Emmett is pushed in ways the reader – and he, are not expecting. Everyone around him, and the reader, are quite sure that what he is attempting to do just won't work. Once man just can't change the course of history. But when the alternative is extinction ...
The best of speculative fiction should serve harsh warnings about where our present world is headed, if we don't do something about our current lifestyles. 'A World That We Expect' deserves a place among the great dystopian SF masterpieces. In the best of 'science fiction', the science and technology are critical to the story. This is not a 'young-adult' space-opera. The failures of science and its application that produce the post-apocalyptic world are clearly defined, and frightening plausible. The hard science solutions Emmett turns to are equally believable. But unlike many hard SF novels, which don't go much beyond the authors technical wizardry, 'A World That We Expect' is mainly about the culture of those in America who are currently prepared for the end of the world for religious reasons. That gives the book a tinge of horror, and the mindless zombie.
Definitely worth reading.
Available in Paperback : http://www.amazon.com/A-World-That-We-Expect/dp/149045554X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378670260&sr=8-1&keywords=a+world+that+we+expect
Kindle : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EBYKM7C/
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