Essef - Nine Stories of an Imminent World. The place is the United States. The time, the near-future, 2020-2040. Here, justice is blind and the ranks of the disenfranchised have swollen to a toxic level. High-tech rules the day while human nature, for better or worse, remains constant. In nine interwoven tales, Mosley paints a keen if fictional portrait of what the future could hold if our own political climate continues. From Ptolemy Bent, the child genius whose act of mercy lands him in the world"s first privatized prison, to Fera Jones, a heavyweight champ who gives up the ring for a political career, characters appear and reappear in different storylines as everyone tries to survive a fast and furious "Futureland".