I am delighted to share my review for a collection of short stories. After the Burning by N.S. Ford is a wonderful selection of dystopian fiction.

“Things did not vanish. They were cleansed away.”

Five spine-chillingly plausible tales for our times. In a society without books, a labourer makes a shocking discovery. An artist starts an underground club for art made by humans instead of artificial intelligence. Parents who refuse to have their baby implanted with a communications chip must fight for their rights. A child goes on a school trip to the extinct natural world. Just before a general election, everyone becomes addicted to a new superfood.

A must-read collection of dystopian stories. They are works of fiction but, unless we act now, will soon be a reality.

MY REVIEW

This is a fabulous book of short stories that have a dystopian theme. I do like this genre and to have a story that gives a glimpse into a possible future is always scary and it also makes for very addictive reading.

The five short stories are a great mix and each one is a different topic but within the umbrella of dystopian fiction.

A story about school trips in a futuristic world is an eye-opener and also rather sad when I sat and thought about it. This is one that I do think is a possibility if things don’t change.

The story of the artists really caught my attention and this is one that again I can see happening as AI becomes more and more prevalent in our society.

Technology is something that is always developing so the story of having a computer chip implanted is another one that I really enjoyed. I didn’t expect the twist in that one!

Books are a big part of my life and are something that I cannot imagine not having. So reading about the discovery of a box and its contents was interesting as well.

The one I really enjoyed was the superfood story. This is something that did for a small part remind me of the book Soylent Green (if you know, you know!) but wasn’t quite as macabre but still shocking.

Overall these are well-written and really imaginative. They are short but detailed with nice twists to them. With collections of short stories it is difficult to rate as some I like more than others but all of these were good. This is a book I would happily recommend if you are looking for some entertaining and eerie dystopian stories.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

N S Ford is a book fanatic, blogger and cat lover who lives in the UK. She is the author of two cross-genre psychological thrillers, ‘We Watch You’ and ‘They Lie Here,’ plus a new collection of dystopian short stories, ‘After the Burning’.

Many thanks for reading my review, a like or share would be amazing 🙂 xx