“But often what was happening was not OK. It was almost never OK. It needed constant nudging and tending, fixing and pushing.”

Lenk Sketlish resists a meditation session at the conference he is attending. Existing in the present moment is not easy for someone who always has his eye focused on the future—and believes himself to be the best one to control it.

“The night drive out, the music beating in his head, the future was just moments away. This was the midnight beginning. This was the smooth running-out of the old world and the birth of the new.”

From the beginning, “the future” functions as a metaphor, shifting and reassembling depending on the moment and the character’s point of view. Here, Lenk is being driven to the plane that will take him away from the apocalypse and into what he believes will be a better future. The new future will place him, and his company, firmly at the powerful center.

“According to various providers of tepid takes, Seasons Time was either the most crass and culturally appropriative place on Earth, an ecological disaster, a charming example of Singaporean whimsy, or honestly, just lighten up, it’s a fun place to spend an afternoon shopping.”

Seasons Time is an apt and mischievous symbol of the consumer culture that permeates the book. It appropriates holidays, cultural traditions, religions, and even time itself to sell huge quantities of mostly pointless, wasteful products. As she flees from her assailant, Zhen hides in a bin of plush Valentine’s Day toys—in the middle of June.