Father of the Future – Book Review – Beyond The Spine Reviews

Spoilered sections will be clearly marked under subtitles.

While having read plenty of Darren Shan books in my youth (mainly The Saga of Darren Shan, The Thin Executioner, and some of the Zom-B books), Father of the Future is my first Darren Dash book.

For those who don’t follow Darren O’Shaughnessy’s social media, ‘Darren Shan’ is the name this author uses for his YA collection, meanwhile ‘Darren Dash’ is the pseudonym under which his more mature, adult titles are published. Father of the Future is a Darren Dash title.

From YA to Adult

Reading an adult book from an author you normally associate with the YA safety net can be a little difficult for some. My husband, for example, struggled quite a bit with the adult sequels to His Dark Materials, penned by Phillip Pullman.

Like how some actors are regularly typecast, I think that it’s easy for a readership to associate an author with certain ideas. Which is unfortunate, because perhaps it discourages some against spreading their wings into new, interesting territories.

My first-time experience of reading a Darren Dash book was, I’ll admit, a little odd! It’s true that I associate this author with the safety of YA reads, and despite Darren’s many warnings on his social media—I confess, I was still unprepared for the lewd aspects of this futuristic romp!

While I was a little thrown at first, Darren’s writing never fails to make me smile. I quickly got settled into this strange, wry civilisation, and was soon very glad for having picked this book up. I’m sure that I’ll be reading more Darren Dash titles in the future, though I wonder if any will make me smile as much as this one… I’ll have to read them to find out!

The Plot of Father of the Future

Minor spoilers in this section!

Cassique is a time travelling ‘fixer’. It’s his job to fix errors in the timeline, to ensure that the future he hails from comes to pass as it should—to ensure that his existence is protected. Unfortunately, Cassique starts having second thoughts about the value of the society he is protecting, and then he is ordered to take a two-month long holiday by his society’s ruler: Father, an unscrupulous AI.

This holiday proves to be a little too much time to think for Cassique!

We’ve all been there!

For me, this book felt like 1984 meets Netflix’s Loki meets 2001 meets I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, except that I enjoyed this novel more than any of those four fictions. *Well, perhaps I enjoyed it equally to Loki season one, but season two is failing me big time.

Father’s representation is a curious one. The ego the supercomputer displayed made it a fun villain for the book, although sometimes I questioned its legitimacy as a computer. While sufficiently alien, sometimes, I felt that Father strayed from the expectations I had for a logical computer.

Then again, with the recent rise and slight fall of ChatGPT, I can understand it a little more. These computers are, after all, very influenced by the humans who they serve and interact with daily.

Besides, I often find super logical villains to be… a little empty? A little boring?

Cassique was a lovable hero, and I found myself rooting for them quite early on. I won’t go into too much detail about them, but the introductions and effects of Alb and Beta D were also very fun to read! While I could have read more about Cassique trying to mope without Father noticing, the change that these two brought to the novel was still very welcome and uplifting!

I sort of wish that there had been another woman in the main cast to provide a foil to Nijin’s sterile love, but to do so would have taken the story in a different direction, which leads me onto my next point.

Let’s go!

Romance in Father of the Future

More minor spoilers in this section!

Though I’ll admit I was a little sad that the main female representation was conducted through Nijin, her love for the games and her society was very cool. So often, women are relegated to emotional roles, but Nijin is a perfect example of her society’s sterile, self-serving environment.

When she was first introduced, I expected her to be someone who would join Cassique—and would perhaps go on to become a real love interest—but as I read further into the book, I realised this wouldn’t be happening.

One might think from the book’s orgiastic introduction, or from the future society’s penchant for crotch-free clothing, that sex and romance would be a big part of the novel. Sex certainly is, but it’s been sterilised. Dingle-dangles, hoo-hahs, pecks and breasts are everywhere, but they’ve lost their mystique and their allure in their commonality.

Father of the Future is a pent-up book; romance is a far-flung dream. Alb and Beta D encourage Cassique to pursue romance, at least once, but at every turn it evades him. Its lack is purposeful and felt throughout, encouraging the reader to empathise with Cassique a little more.

My Favourite Moments in Father of the Future

One of my favourite parts of Father of the Future would have to be the non-binary representation. I’ve read one or two mainstream authors before this which try to serve thoughtful representations, but this is the first book I’ve read that has consistently used neopronouns.

It was an educational experience for me! I hadn’t realised how easily I’d understand Dash’s use of ‘zir and ze’. Generally, when I think about neopronouns, I start to feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of options. Father of the Future makes me think that the English language definitely has room for at least one set of gender neutral, at the very least.

I Read It Too Quickly…

My main criticism of this book might as well be a criticism of the sci-fi genre as a whole. For me, I’m happy to buy the time travel and Father’s omnipotence as magical, so the in-depth sections near the end (pp.190-202) that attempt to explain some of the concepts and ideas behind what makes it all possible and why various plans to thwart Father wouldn’t work, for me, slowed the book down quite a bit.

That said, I’m sure that other readers will have enjoyed pondering these thoughtful paragraphs, and it is a problem I personally regularly encounter when reading (but sci-fi in particular).

It’s also possible that my complaint here comes from being too tired during this section—a human failing. It has been a LONG time since I marathoned a book this hard, and I’m surprised to find that on reflection, the sections I was referring to are shorter than I remembered.

My fatigue aside, I did love the ending.

Mel’s Final Notes

I’ll definitely be thinking about this book for a long time. Its concepts and characters will stay with me for quite some years, I expect.

As a final note, I’d like to remind any author-readers to make sure they checked the final pages of Father of the Future. I have my own finished draft of a book, and it’s been truly inspiring to read a little about the journey that Father of the Future took before it finally reached publication on Amazon books. Truly, I’m writing this review between my umpteenth draft of my book, because I do believe that one day, maybe next year, maybe decades from now, I’ll be ready to release it into the world.