Socially inept and narcissist codependency. [The Future is Yours by Dan Frey]

Two best friends create a computer that can predict the future. But what they can’t predict is how it will tear their friendship—and society—apart.

“An impossibly addictive brainteaser wrapped in a buttery popcorn kernel.”—Aneesh Chaganty, director and co-writer of Searching and Run

IN DEVELOPMENT AS AN HBO MAX ORIGINAL SERIES

If you had the chance to look one year into the future, would you? 

For Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry, the answer is unequivocally yes. And they’re betting everything that you’ll say yes, too. Welcome to The Future: a computer that connects to the internet one year from now, so you can see who you’ll be dating, where you’ll be working, even whether or not you’ll be alive in the year to come. By forming a startup to deliver this revolutionary technology to the world, Ben and Adhi have made their wildest, most impossible dream a reality. Once Silicon Valley outsiders, they’re now its hottest commodity. 

The device can predict everything perfectly—from stock market spikes and sports scores to political scandals and corporate takeovers—allowing them to chase down success and fame while staying one step ahead of the competition. But the future their device foretells is not the bright one they imagined.

Ambition. Greed. Jealousy. And, perhaps, an apocalypse. The question is . . . can they stop it?

Told through emails, texts, transcripts, and blog posts, this bleeding-edge tech thriller chronicles the costs of innovation and asks how far you’d go to protect the ones you love—even from themselves.

I really enjoyed the format of this book. A fun spin on telling a story through letters, we have a story told through electronic correspondence and official documents. That said, was the story super enjoyable? It was a cute story and a fresh take on time travel, but it was miles away predictable. That time travel was going to be developed only to be used in a preventative fashion was obvious early on. Personally I thought it would be less with physical transportation and more of an information Inception type of thing. But it was obvious.

Probably one of the biggest hurdles I had reading was buying the voice of Ben, the Black male protagonist. He’s supposed to be this barrier breaking, first minority CEO type, but he reads like a run of the mill douchebro. He burns bridges, acts unrealistically stupidly for someone in his position, self sabotaging every chance he gets. His Blackness was secondary for him, and I couldn’t buy into it. The same goes for Adhi, our male protagonist of Indian descent. Apparently that background mostly meant his mother’s broken English, his regular referencing of the Bhagavad Gita, and loose musings on Hinduism. Neither character dealt with or acknowledged racism or any other barriers in their industry. It just wasn’t realistic.

It’s a relatively fast read with an interesting cast of characters, with sometimes superfluous character development. For instance, Leila's drama with her father was not compelling. Speaking of Leila, I guess I'm assuming she and her family are white, being that her ethnic background was not really highlighted. Which in itself is problematic if everyone else's is. But I digress. The semi open-ended conclusion was interesting. Unfortunately it was generally a middling story. 3 stars from me for Dan Frey's The Future is Yours.

The Future Is Yours (ISBN: 9780593158210) was published February 2021.