The Oracle Year

Whatever I say about The Oracle Year is not going to be adequate to prepare you to read it. In fact, it is essentially impossible to prepare you for the story. It is too crazy and too complicated to explain and too compelling to describe. It is unlike anything I have ever read, which is both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, I have no comparison to share with you. On the other hand, I had no expectations and no idea what to expect while I was reading it which made it as refreshing a story as you can get.

While mostly a thriller in nature, The Oracle Year is also part social commentary. What causes Will the most trouble from his predictions is not that he defrauds companies but that the world refuses to accept that someone has the show more ability to predict the future. Regardless of how he received these predictions or how he uses them, the vast majority of the power players see it as a usurpation of their own powers, forcing them to attempt to discredit and/or silence Will by any means necessary. It is not just the politically powerful though that are in an uproar. People from all walks of life not only feel it their duty to find out who the Oracle is but view it is their right to know. The skepticism others profess is more than a little chilling; these are people who are utterly incapable of believing in a mystery and are willing to destroy the world to prove that no mystery exists. Their inability to let others believe in a miracle speaks volumes to the polarizing atmosphere in which we find ourselves in real life.

The Oracle Year is high on action and adventure. Plus, it has the feel of stories like Ocean’s Eleven as you wait to see how the story ends, sure you are missing the sleight of hand and other misdirection that Will uses to stay alive. In addition, there is a definite urgency to Will’s actions after he receives the predictions which only gets more intense as his anonymity begins to fail. The intensity of the story is surprising. Even though there is little-to-no character development, you find yourself drawn to Will and his plight as well as the plight of his friends, all of whom find themselves in way over their heads. Set David and Goliath in the twenty-first century, and you begin to understand just what forces are against Will as he uses his predictions to try to make the world a better place…after earning billions of dollars first. show less

Small-time musician Will Dando wakes up one day with 108 predictions of the future inexplicably in his head and quickly discovers that all of them are coming true, even the ones that he tries to prevent. With the help of a business-savvy friend, he soon makes a lot of cash selling information about the future, but then events set in motion by the predictions begin to spiral off in directions he never could have predicted.

It's funny. Almost the entire time I was reading this book, I was thinking of things to be critical of. The writing is unexceptional and a little too full of "As you know, Bob" dialog. Tons of ridiculous stuff happens, and I'm genuinely not sure whether it's meant to be satirical or we're meant to take it all seriously. show more Soule is primarily a writer of comics, apparently, and he may just be bringing some of the slightly over-the-top, larger-than-life sensibilities of superhero comics to the story, but they may not work quite as well here as in the comics.

And, above and beyond all of that, the story touches on all kinds of potentially really interesting philosophical territory involving free will, the nature of time, and the interconnectedness of things in ways that seem like they could have provided good fodder for a much more serious, more meaty, more grounded story than this. Sure, it's fun, I thought to myself, but maybe it's a waste to use a setup like this one on something that feels... well, a little bit silly.

But you know what? The truth is, this is fun. It was a really fast, entertaining read with a good premise, and, having shut the book on the last page, I find myself wanting to wave away all those criticisms and just think about how much I enjoyed it. The fact that it avoided giving us the ending I was dreading, in which all is explained and the explanation is stupid, helped with that, too. Plus, I give Soule extra points for giving us some elderly women as significant, competent characters in roles that you never get to see old ladies in. (Old men, yes. Young and beautiful women, yes. But never old ladies. And there really should be more awesome old ladies in fiction.)

Rating: What the heck. I'm going to go with my gut instead of my brain and give this a 4/5. Shut up, brain. show less

I thought this was a solidly good book which looks at what happens as a result of one man knowing for certain that events are going to happen. Charles Soule wrote a Big Idea post on John Scalzi's blog and it hooked me. Here's part of what he had to say in it:
"We make decisions based on our analysis of the future – lots of them. We constantly predict what will happen next on timelines short and long. We have to. It’s the only way to operate, to live. We’re all prophets, in other words, predicting the arc of our lives moment to moment....We’re all, on a very fundamental level, optimists. After all, if we weren’t, we’d never do anything at all. " That seems pretty straight forward but what Mr. Soule does with those thoughts show more takes the reader into pretty interesting territory.

Will Dando is a pretty good bass player living in New York City just barely getting by with the gigs he plays. He is in his twenties and he is just starting to realize that while he is a good musician he is not a great musician, or at least not New York City great. Then one morning he wakes up from a dream with a list of 108 predictions about the future. Some are big events but some are small and they just seem to be random. Will has to decide firstly if these really are true predictions and then what to do with them. He is pretty soon convinced they are true and then he convinces his best friend Hamza, a stock broker, to quit his job and help him work on these predictions. They release some on a secure web site called The Oracle and add that they know more. Pretty soon Will and Hamza have more money than they know what to do with and they could just sail off into the sunset. Except there are still predictions that Will has not released and he is worried that whoever sent the predictions to him is using the turn of events to bring death and destruction to the world. Then there's the fact that the US government is hunting for him and so are a bunch of believers from a right wing church. Will has to stay ahead of all of these people who are unlikely to wish him well. Hamza's wife, Miko, gets involved and her contributions to figuring out all the connections between events are valuable. She is also much more diplomatic that either Will or Hamza. When Will decides they need more help he agrees to an interview with Leigh Shore, a junior reporter on a news website who did an early favourable piece about The Oracle. Leigh is a gutsy woman and she decides to take the interview as far as it will go, which is pretty far.

We never do find out who sent these predictions to Will which is a pretty big item to leave hanging unless there is a sequel planned. I'll be watching. show less

This was an interesting book. I thought the premise was entertaining and the characters were appealing. I felt like it could have gone a bit deeper into some of the elements of the story. There were times where it felt slow moving and other times it was moving so fast that I felt we were skimming over the story. In the end, I felt like I did not know the point of the story. Not just that I didn't get all the answers to my questions, but more that I didn't know what the author was trying to say. It seemed like there was something there I was supposed to take away, but I missed it. That said, it was an entertaining book and I enjoyed reading it. There was just something missing for me.

This was a fun ride. It falls in a category I like to call a Blockbuster Hit. Light tone, exciting premise, great pacing... but above all, a great trigger novel. It has everything we like in mainstream SF hits. A little wish-fulfillment, a little naughty action, a point where the character decides to change, and the point where the S*** hits the fan.

From there, it's all action and thriller.

Yeah, yeah, but what is it ABOUT?

Will is a modern-day oracle.

108 prophesies, a little dark-web anonymity, a little greed, a lot of action, and a little saving the world.

Cool, right? And it is cool. I had a great time.

It's much better than the other things I've read by Charles Soule. :) She-Hulk was okay and Swamp Thing was kinda a mess, but his show more bonafide novel was as sharp as a tack. :) show less

Both Luke and Mark report that Jesus said no prophet is honored in his own country. With social media uniting the world, no prophet is going to be honored anywhere, which is something Will Dando, gig musician, discovers when he receives 108 predictions in a dream. Unsure what it all means, he posts a few of them on a website, one that is heavily protected to maintain his anonymity. He called on the expertise of his best friend Hamza to help leverage his knowledge for the money and anonymity he needed.

His site soon becomes a worldwide phenomenon as all his prophecies come true, though many are very minor. Now he is The Oracle. He sells some prophecies to corporations who can use the knowledge to make money. He posts a few that warn show more people so they can avoid a disaster. And of course, there are repercussions. Religious leaders condemn this infringement on their domain. Political leaders, including the President and national security advisors, are worried about the power The Oracle could wield. International espionage and high jinks begin with The Coach, the ultimate agent of the powerful whose single-minded pursuit of mission success is equal parts awe-inspiring and awful.

I enjoyed The Oracle Year, mainly because I like Will Dando who begins the story as an ordinary guy but is transformed into one smart cookie. I appreciate that he considers the burden of knowledge and power. He wants to share what he knows, but in ways that minimize harm. He has a moral center that keeps the book on course, making this book more than an adventure thriller, but also an inquiry into what we owe our fellow people on this planet.

I received an e-galley of The Oracle Year from the publisher through Edelweiss.

The Oracle Year at Harper Collins

Charles Soule author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/9780062686633/ show less

If it's done well, sometimes it's okay to leave a few questions unanswered and Soule did it very well. The "who" and the "why" were ultimately far less important than Will's journey.

And, yes, I know that tells you fuck-all about the book itself, but you can read the synopsis and anything more I could say would be inadequate in describing it. If you enjoyed Dark Matter or All Our Wrong Todays or are a fan of Mr. Soule's comics work, you'll probably enjoy this book. It starts out as one thing, but ends up being something very different. I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it because I had no idea where it was going and I needed to find out.

That being said, though, it often feels like it may have started life as an idea for a comics show more series that just got too much for that format. There are passages that read like panel descriptions, which definitely helps with the visuals, but created a bit of readerly vertigo for me. show less