His history opens with the earliest developments of the power. Neil’s historical novel is structured on the plots of four principal characters – Roxy, Allie, Tunde and Margot – and traces the ten years prior to the Cataclysm. The bulk of The Power purports to be The Power: A Historical Novel by Neil Adam Armon. Surely a kinder, more caring and – dare I say it? – more sexy world than the one we live in.’ It’s clear from these opening pages that we’re either in a different world than most of us live in or at some different point in time, perhaps the future.
She writes: 'I think I'd rather enjoy this "world run by men" you've been talking about. Naomi’s voice, however, is more commanding and self-assured. Neil’s voice is rather passive, and it’s clear that he doesn’t hold the power between the two. Neil is writing to Naomi hoping she’ll read and comment upon his manuscript, a ‘novelization,’ he writes, ‘of what archaeologists agree is the most plausible narrative’ of the time just before what is called the Cataclysm (to tell you what this is would give away the novel). The first is by Neil Adam Armon, who is writing from The Men Writers Association to a woman named Naomi, perhaps the author of the novel under review, perhaps not (but rearranged the letters of Neil’s full name can be anagrammatised into ‘Naomi Alderman’). It’s bookended with letters written between two historians. Naomi Alderman’s The Power is an exercise in what if: What if suddenly one day all of the women on the planet developed a power to shoot electricity out of their hands? What if the power was stronger in some and weaker in others? What if the patriarchy could no longer defend itself? What if women were the ones in power? In Alderman’s persuasive imagining, these what-ifs lend themselves to odd turns and even odder outcomes, yet the final result is an astonishing confirmation of the oft-quoted aphorism ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ The Power is a novel within a novel.
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