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I have just finished the TV adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s science fiction novel (pictured above, on Amazon Prime Video), in which a biological quirk causes society to unravel. Young women begin generating electricity in a once-dormant organ, learning how to shoot sparks from their fingertips.

The global balance of power shifts overnight, as told through half a dozen parallel storylines set in different countries. We see revolution in the Middle East, near-biblical resurrection in the US and revenge in eastern Europe – with all the stories posing questions about the purpose and corrupting potential of physical power.

I am also nearing the end of Kazuo Ishiguro’s sci-fi novel . The setting appears to be an English private school in the 1990s, but in this alternate reality, mass human cloning is the norm. Everyday squabbles are interspersed with a dawning realisation of the twisted role the children will have to play as “donors”. Terrifying.

Thomas Lewton

Features editor

London