Fourteen babies will be born at Northside General hospital in Houston
I found The Oracle Year just a couple of days before release and the synopsis sounded so good. It didn’t completely deliver on what I expected it to be and that made me sad because The Oracle Year is a promising novel for this day and age.
Book Review: The Oracle Year by Charles Soule
Rating:
Title & Author: The Oracle Year by Charles Soule
Genre: Science-Fiction, Drama
Release date: April 3 2018
Series: Standalone
Publisher: HarperCollins
Synopsis
Knowledge is power. So when an unassuming Manhattan bassist named Will Dando awakens from a dream one morning with 108 predictions about the future in his head, he rapidly finds himself the most powerful man in the world. Protecting his anonymity by calling himself the Oracle, he sets up a heavily guarded Web site with the help of his friend Hamza to selectively announce his revelations. In no time, global corporations are offering him millions for exclusive access, eager to profit from his prophecies.
He’s also making a lot of high-powered enemies, from the President of the United States and a nationally prominent televangelist to a warlord with a nuclear missile and an assassin grandmother. Legions of cyber spies are unleashed to hack the Site—as it’s come to be called—and the best manhunters money can buy are deployed not only to unmask the Oracle but to take him out of the game entirely. With only a handful of people he can trust—including a beautiful journalist—it’s all Will can do to simply survive, elude exposure, and protect those he loves long enough to use his knowledge to save the world.
I give The Oracle Year by Charles Soule three out of five hearts because I thought it was really promising, but it just didn’t deliver on it.
I loved the characters, Will and his friend Hamza. Will gets the dream in which there are 108 predictions and after one of them turns out to be true he starts giving some of them away to the people who might learn something from it. But the most important stuff he keeps for himself to sell to the too-eager companies that will spend any money to get the upper hand on others.
Hamza goes along with his friend because he wants to get the best out of the hand his friend has been given. He helps Will to set things up so that he can safely show the predictions without letting anyone know who he is. The friendship is clear and interesting. I liked the dynamic between Will, Hamza and Hamza’s wife.
I found the writing was great, it was just that the overall plot of the novel lacked severely. It felt like one of those plots that has already been used and not just drawn inspiration from. Together with a slow pace, annoyed me. I couldn’t figure out whether the novel spanned a month or a year.
Like I said before, the story sounded interesting, the characters were great. But it just doesn’t deliver.
Let me know what you thought of this book!
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For now, let books enrich your life!