No one knew that the British government way back when was really so strained for new ideas. Their colonies were prosperous, pillage was rampant, but they were so bored on the homefront that they started writing fetishistic stories about navels. That's right, as odd as it sounds, this is one of those missing-from-history-books episodes in a glorious tradition. (A superlative collection of these belly button stories is available from Random House.)

My 8th Great Grandfather was a Palatine. This book taught me more about my family history than I could ever find elsewhere. The book is a well written history book which as an interested party, I couldn't put down. If you are related to Palatines, I think you need this book !

This is an engrossing, compelling book, full of great inssights, and painted against a credible, dark, and wonderfully ominous future landscape. In reading other reviews, I am surprised by the level of criticism, even though much of it is on point. Yes, the race element is at times a little heavy handed, in the last story in especially. Yes, there are places where the story line could be tightened, or is a little predictable--but not often, and not much. But these problems are minor compared to the thrill of exploring a fascinating future world, populated by fresh, fascinating, characters. This is WOW science fiction, like we rarely get. Perhaps the criticisms are a functin of how much Mosley achieved. He's a stone's throw from having created a truely GREAT Science Fiction book, in the Asimov, Heinlien, Clark pantheon. And ok, it is NOT at that level. But at times it comes really close. If you like SciFi, read it. You'll be glad you did.

Nine Stories of an Imminent World is about life in America a generation from now which isn't that different except the drugs are better & the daily grind is worse; justice is now delivered by automated courts & the Supreme Court has decreed that constitutional rights don't apply to anyone who challenges the system.

If your mind is not open when you start Futureland, Walter Mosley will use the crowbar of his words to pry the lid off before he's done with you. He makes you think & he makes you step beyond the stereotypes & look at where they came from.

This near-future science fiction thriller held me firmly in its grasp from the fly leaf to the last page. Every chapter is an individual story yet when all is read & done - it is very well done!

In the not-too-distant future, major corporations have taken over the functions of the state and most workers have been reduced to a perpetual treadmill between subsistence work and a barely livable unemployment. For criminals and anyone who opposes the omnipresent corporate state, punishment is swift, certain, and enforced with dispassionate unconcern for rights or human dignity.

Author Walter Mosley's nine inter-related stories tell of this near-future and, especially, of the position of blacks in a supposedly racially integrated world. While occasional anarchistic resistance can slow the forces of capitalism run beyond any rules (and FUTURELAND is filled with stories of this resistance), the overall tendency of history cannot be stopped.

Although FUTURELAND was written before the events of 9/11, the encroachments on liberties that Mosley forecast in these stories appear far less paranoid and far more near at hand than they could have to the average reader when Mosley wrote them. Readers do not have to agree with Mosley's dark message, nor share his fears about neo-Nazis ready to cleanse the world of non-white blood, to see the frightening possibilities that Mosley shares.

In the initial story in this series, Whispers in the Dark, Mosley adopts a dialect-heavy style that makes reading difficult. Stick with FUTURELAND. The payoff is worth the effort and Mosley's later stories are far more approachable, from an ease of reading perspective, if even darker from their take on the world.