My full review on my blog (link attached).

Has anyone seen the 1979 Walter Hill movie The Warriors? I watched it as a kid and thought it a pretty obscure ‘70s dystopia (I asked around and nobody I asked has even heard of it), but Polansky definitely has, and made it the beating heart of his new novel.

Tomorrow’s Children is a happy, explosively energetic bastard child of The Warriors and The Stranger Things, delivered by the unlikely midwife in the shape of Snake Plissken from Escape from New York. I realize that the works I mentioned above are all visual media – and that’s intentional, for Polansky’s newest novel reads like a movie script. It’s fast and furious, full of teenage hubris and hope, angry and slick and overflowing with the youthful feelings of invulnerability and greedy, indifferent ambition – until it doesn’t, and it’s a well earned lesson indeed. The city of New York is a character of its own in this novel, its burroughs and its streets, its rivers and its parks, even its subway lines all playing a substantial role in the events unfolding with precision across geographic locations.

As with many of Polansky’s books, explaining too much of the premise might spoil the fun, so I will be cryptic. It starts with a bang, one that will probably turn away a few prospective readers. Intentionally, I assume – after all, not everybody opens a story with a guy who tries to kill a dog for food.

Having that out of the way, let’s take a look at the setup. A few generations after a little apocalypse, in which New York had been wrapped in a cloud of noxious gas known only as “funk” that killed most of the population, mutated a number of those who survived, and returned the general populace to the illiterate, pseudo-medieval state of civilization, New Yorkers keep themselves busy fighting their tribal wars among the ruins. There is a feudal elite consisting of a handful of the most cut-throat gangsta types who assumed noble titles such as Pope, Mayor, or Commissioner, but don’t be misled – they are just tribal chieftains obsessed with the power they have and with how much more power they can get. Add into the mix a mismatched bunch of teenagers with the explicit desire to destroy the system, and an experienced gumshoe with a hidden agenda, and you have the beginning of Tomorrow’s Children. Nothing is as it seems, and discovering the hidden motives and relations is a big part of the fun. An even bigger part of the fun, to me, was Polansky’s description of the various factions, or tribes, each more flamboyant and over the top than the previous one, each distinct and tragicomical in their worldviews and behaviour. This part was a clear homage to The Warriors, down to the descriptions of colours, traditions, and gear of the gangs.

[...]

Tomorrow’s Children is dazzling and rabid, cruel and softhearted in equal measures. If there is one criticism I have it is the too abrupt ending, hanging in the air and begging for a sequel – and at the same time denying any rationale for a sequel, since the story is almost entirely self-contained: a tale intentionally extracted from a larger tapestry, making no references to the world beyond and yet being pulled into it against its will. Well, we’ll see soon enough, I guess, if Polansky decides to return to this world and give us a tour of some other part of it.

This used the post-apocalyptic elements perfectly, I enjoyed getting through this world and getting to know the characters in in. I enjoyed the idea of the first tourist coming to the island. Daniel Polansky does a great job writing this and glad it worked.

I wanted to like this book so bad the premise sounds like it's going to be great and then you start reading it and there's so many characters and it's just all over the place this has to be his worst work to date and I don't like to say things like that about authors that I really like to read he's built some of the coolest worlds that I've read before this just isn't it,....Thank you to Netgalley and Angry Robot for the ARC

If I had to summarize my review in three words this would be it.. Trust the process!
This will for sure be a polarizing book and in all honesty it doesn't do itself any favors.
For starters, it throws you out of the gate amid clan battles and politics and no explanation is provided. The amount of characters we're introduced is overwhelming and to make things even harder we hardly get any background for any of them and we have to make sense of everything as we go along. Due to this being a post-apocalyptic version of Manhatan, the inhabitants use some strange dialect that takes some getting used to to fully comprehend what is being said. And finally the author chooses to use a confusing structure with short chapters that even paragraph by paragraph we jump from one place to another.
All of the above I think will make a lot of readers give up on this, even before the halfway point. And that would be a shame, because...
...this is really very good. It's full of humor, great action and has pretty charismatic and interesting characters. The story really starts to make sense after the 60% mark, but when everything came together I really couldn't stop reading. The setting is a great example of a post-apocalyptic world and the authors imagination really signs in this aspect with the different clans portrayed here. The pacing is non-stop and that evens out the complexity of the first half mentioned above.
I wish that the author had given us some more info on the protagonists though (not for all of them, because as I said the cast is huge), cause that would have given the thrilling conclusion some extra emotional impact and also some of them were really fucking cool.
To summarize.. go into this expecting to not make sense of much in the beginning, go along with the zanny characters and you'll be rewarded.. As I said "Trust the process.."

Con Daniel Polansky y su obra tengo una relación un tanto extraña, porque me asombra su imaginación y su prosa, pero me abruma también lo experimental que se vuelven a veces sus obras. Con Tomorrow’s Children me temo que la balanza se ha decantado hacia la extrañeza y por eso no me ha terminado de convencer, pero examinemos algunos puntos de interés de la obra.


El escenario en que se desarrolla el libro es muy curioso, tomando parte de la ciudad de New York y aislándola del resto del mundo durante varias generaciones por una sustancia de origen desconocido denominada funk que también tiene extraños efectos sobre los habitantes de la Gran Manzana o lo que queda de ella.

Se puede considerar un escenario postapocalíptico, ya que la falta de recursos o incluso de la energía suficiente para hace funcionar los servicios de una ciudad como esta ya sería catastrófica, pero es que además, la presencia de esta sustancia psicotrópica, asesina e ineludible influye de tal manera en la sociedad o lo que queda de ella que a veces lo que vemos ante nuestros ojos raya lo incomprensible. La desintegración de las estructuras de poder habituales da lugar a la balcanización de la ciudad, con bandas en cada esquina luchando por el territorio y una violencia descarnada.

Daniel Polansky nos lanza en medio de un situación muy complicada como si nos lanzara de un avión sin paracaídas, dejando de mano del lector intentar entender la trama aderezada con una panoplia de personajes quizá demasiado extensa. Además, el uso de recursos literarios o no dentro de la novela sin tampoco explicar demasiado más que ayudar entorpece la lectura. Por ejemplo, utiliza ideogramas en vez de palabras para transmitir información o las notas al pie de página para ponernos al día con la situación de algunos personajes. Es muy enrevesado, al menos para mí.

La presencia del funk permite al autor añadir toque weird al libro, con la aparición de monstruos de carne putrefacta, poderes psíquicos y seres subterráneos, por ejemplo. Nuevos ejemplos de la portentosa imaginación del autor que ya destacamos en March’s End, pero que enturbia un poco las aguas al adentrarse en el proceloso proceso de lectura. Por que la trama, además, es bastante enrevesada.

No sé ni siquiera si recomendar el libro o no por las dudas que me ha generado leerlo. Espero que alguno lo entendáis mejor que yo y lo podamos comentar.

I was excited by the blurb of this novel, but the execution was just not there. The characters are very one note and there were just too many for the reader to form any real attachment. I was not invested in the story at all and as much as I tried, it was a DNF at 50% for me.

I really wanted to like this book. The premise seemed really interesting, and I'm usually a fan of multiple perspectives and complicated world building. I usually love when an author lets me piece things together instead of spoon-feeding me the plot. Unfortunately, this was so convoluted it wasn't any fun. The plot was so scattered. I never formed an attachment to any of the characters - I truly didn't care what happened to them (and not because they were unlikable or morally grey or villians - they just all blended together). It took me so long to get through this. About 50% into to the book things started getting better, but I almost didn't make it that far. I think this book would benefit from a map and section showing gang territories, gang relationships, and common slang. If that had been more clear, I may have been able to maintain interest through the first half of the book.

DNF at 40%. Too many characters and none of them are enjoyable to follow. The emoji writing system (in-universe) was kind of silly, and the way it was written (not in-universe) didn't really work with me. The setting was super vibey though.

Hmm was looking forward to this. It just didn’t resonate for me. A harsh writing style, lots of characters I didn’t really feel any depth and engagement to the book. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

Polansky is a daring author. Having read some of his other works, I was eager to read this and I was not disapppointed. Our patrons will love this. Will be ordering.

This book is the epitome of apocalypse noir. It reads quick for how long it is, which was surprising.

I really tried to get into this book. I got about 25% in but really had a hard time tracking all of the characters. I think there were at least 20 names in that short section. The plot jumped from place to place and from person to person and I didn’t quite latch on to anyone. The world was very bleak and definitely apocalyptic. The language was strange and the use of emojis didn’t quite work. The characters’ diagnose just didn’t make sense and was choppy to read. The location was familiar in NYC and definitely apocalyptic and dreary. But I had to DNF because the plot didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

Sorry, had to DNF. It started on a positive note, however I just couldn’t get into this one.

I couldn’t find myself wanting to return to this story, it could possibly be my head space at the time after reading a Malazan book, so pinch of salt here.

A chaotic fever dream that felt like Escape From New York (without the escape bit) mixed with Jet Set Radio!

Thanks to Angry Robot and NetGally for the Arc.

I enjoyed this book but I also found it somewhat difficult to follow. The futuristic, degraded English many of the characters speak can be difficult to parse at first but becomes a rewarding bit of world-building as it goes on. Some of the major plot points could have been made clearer and keeping track of everything became difficult towards the end.

What made it enjoyable to me was its brisk cinematic pacing, it's vivid action scenes, and the gritty setting that was swarming with memorable and bizarre characters. A psychic who spies through the eyes of her feline companions, a cannibal subterranean warrior, and a cult of deranged fundamentalists who worship Beyonce as a Goddess, are just a few of the freakish characters you'll encounter. Despite it being a bit overwhelming at times and not always as clear as I would have liked, I had a great time slumming through post-apocalyptic New York City and mingling with our twisted descendants. I'd happily read it again to catch what I may have missed the first time through. A wild ride and an absolute blast.

This book was hard to follow and hard to get into. I just couldn’t understand the lingo or the plot and the icons inserted in the text were distracting and I couldn’t figure out why they were there.

I'm honestly not sure how to feel about this book. I love Polansky's work, but this one took a long time to get into. Like....most of the book. But once I got into it, I couldn't really put it down.

First of all, the cast of characters is massive. It's so hard to keep track of who's who, especially at the beginning when it jumps from character to character very quickly and you're only getting quick snippets without getting to know any of them. However, over the course of the book, you do get a feel for some of the main characters such as Gillian, the Kid, Ariadne, Hope, Ael, and a few others. But overall, I felt that a lot were very shallow and didn't have much connection to them.

The world itself, set in some kind of post-apocalyptic New York was interesting, but you never find out what the funk is, which is a little frustrating, despite the fact that it is central to the plot. Not a lot is handed to you and you have to work things out for yourself, which a lot of readers will like, but personally, I do like things to be a little clearer.

That said, once I got into the book, I did like all of the twists and turns that it took. There's a lot of backstabbing and betrayal from unusual places. You just have to stick with it through the first third or so.

All in all, I would say it's a solid 3.5 stars.. I rounded up because I genuinely like Polansky as an author.

This was a very interesting futuristic plot. At first the amount of characters was overwhelming and it took me a while to tease apart who everyone was. However I did find myself excited to follow certain characters.
I really struggled with the use of emojis for the images/language - it was an interesting concept but it felt a bit strange and disjointed.

I enjoyed this book, though I didn't really warm up to any of the characters, the story was interesting and I wanted to know what was happening. It's set in Manhattan after being entirely surrounded and isolated by a low-hanging fog that causes instant exploding death for some and hallucinations or mind-control abilities for others. The island has devolved into a lower tech tribal kind of society, with each neighborhood having a warlord and the more powerful neighborhoods forming a loose alliance. Some of the tribes are subterranean, in the now unused subway tunnels. There are a lot of characters to follow, but we mainly follow a sheriff hired by the alliance to investigate the assassination of one of the more minor warlords. The relationships between the various characters is complex and revealed slowly. The writing is excellent, which overcomes how generally unlikeable everyone is. Plot advancements are doled out expertly, this is not so much a murder mystery but a puzzle, and you need to discover how all the pieces fit together. It's a pretty grim tale, but ultimately satisfying and thought provoking.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed the low town books I thought I was in for a treat with this book……. I have to be honest and state it was not for me, the story just didn’t engage me and I DNF about half way