Wow. This book is a banger, I tell you. There's a lot of themes crammed in these pages, from the dangers of technology, to mental health, friendship and human relationships in general, but it is done the right way.

Writing a book about two minority boys with several handicaps who not only excel at one of most prestigious universities but also endeavour to build a company that would change life and tech as we know it is a bold move.

Dropping names like they do here is even bolder. As is telling the story through documents instead of a first person or outsider narrative. And that is certainly not my fave style, but it worked really well here, even if I did not pay attention to the dates like I should have.

The most impressive part of this all isn't even the sheer amount of knowledge pne has to have to qrite about quantum computing, scifi, Hinduism and all that. Neither is the ability to make every character have a distinct voice through documentation alone.

The most impressive part of it all is the twist at the end - mind blowing stuff there.

I'd say the future is very bright for this author.

I must admit to a bit of the technology being above my pay grade as far as what I want to or need to know, so I did skip over much of the quantum computing specifics, but I was still able to follow along with what was happening. There are some greedy people out there and Ben is one. When his friend comes up with a dissertation on time travel as far as accessing the future on a computer, Ben is all for getting the money together to launch the start up. When his friend has misgivings, he tries to push the friend out. By the way, the friend is also in love with Ben's wife, but Ben doesn't know.
It got a bit deep towards the end, which seemed to take a long time to get to, but then it got a bit confusing for a while until I caught on, but still the ending was a bit of a surprise.
Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

disclaimer – i received a copy of this book via random house publishing group - ballantine in exchange for an honest review.

make no mistake, dan frey is one of the authors to add to your to be read list in 2021. his new novel, the future is yours (publishing 02/09/2021), tells the story of ben boyce and adhi chaudry, friends since college, who can potentially change the entire world through the invention of a computer called 'the future'. with it, you can travel exactly one year into the future - see how your job interview went, see what stocks are a good investment, see which politicians are in power, see if your marriage will survive. the story details the creation of the computer, the friendship between its inventors, and the circumstances of its use.

an epistolary novel, ''the future is yours', uses the framework of emails, chats, texts, and congressional testimony to tell the story. reading these, we begin to understand the characters' motivations, wishes, desires, and maybe some some of their secrets. we get to follow along, practically step by step, as their journey to create 'the future' reveals the consequences of the choices they make in that endeavor. frey gives us well-rounded, complicated characters and as we get deeper and deeper into who they are, and who they want to be, we're able to connect with them and feel vested in their journey and its ultimate end.

five of five stars

five of five stars

I really enjoyed this book. Reading the synopsis left me feeling like it could go one of two ways: Either the book would be really well done and I would enjoy reading it, or it could be overdone and cheesy in the time-traveling sense and ruin a really great premise. Fortunately, the book was really well written and ended up being a great read.

The story is told through various forms of media (interviews, news articles, text messages, voicemails, emails, etc) which is something that I have not previously encountered. It was fun and intriguing and left me curious as to how each of the various forms of media would all come together in the overall story. There is still dialogue through emails, texts, etc., so there is still a bit of storytelling in a traditional sense. It is just presented in a manner that plays into how the overall story is written.

As for the plot and storyline, it was great. It went about as I expected it would based on how the book synopsis read. There were still plenty of twists and turns that left you guessing or wondering how things would play out. The dynamic between the 2 main characters was engaging and strange at the same time. It definitely plays well with "opposites do attract". Their dynamic could be humorous on one page and infuriating on the next...which for me shows great character development.

The moral subtext throughout the book is a good one, even if it is pretty standard for time travel...just because we can see and possibly affect the future doesn't mean we should. The 2 main protagonists fell on either side of this dilemma which impacted their decision-making and ideals throughout the story. The author did a great job exploring this dilemma from both sides while developing and shifting the characters' thoughts and actions throughout.

Highly recommended.

that was the perfect way to use scifi and computers to create a creepy atmosphere. The characters were great and I really enjoyed the plot.

Being a huge fan of Sylvain Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants, the format of this book as told in media form using transcripts, texts, emails, blogs, articles, etc., was familiar to me and I loved it. And being a huge fan of Blake Crouch, the futuristic sci-fi storyline was exciting as well.

I’m going to venture to say that this book is my favorite read of 2020 so far!

Two best friends discover a way to look at the internet one year ahead in time and see what happens in the future. This storyline takes them from idea to reality, to becoming billionaires, to building the computers, and through to marketing. The government steps in and holds a hearing to determine if being able to see the future is a security issue. Can the friendship survive?

This was exciting stuff and I couldn’t get enough. I got serious goosebumps at the ending, and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

Well done, Dan Frey! I’m adding this author to my must read list of authors.

*Thank you so much to Del Rey Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy!*

I liked the idea behind this story. I thought it would be very interesting. The writing style did not work for me, I found it to choppy and lost interest in the story. I specifically disliked the text/email parts between Ben and Adhi, they were just hard to read through.

I do not think that this was the book for me. I couldn't connect with the mixed media format or the non-linear time line. No matter how many times I picked it up and tried to read it, I really couldn't get into it. The writing was broken up quite a bit by not giving any sense of atmosphere or setting. I do apologize for not being able to finish this one. I do see the connection to Andy Weir, but I did not like The Martian. I loved Artemis. Thank you for letting me give this book a go.

A very unique story told in the form of emails, text messages and snippets from congressional testimony. The story flows rather well and keeps you engaged the entire time. I really enjoyed the way everything is eventually revealed while still keeping it interesting. I recommend it to anyone who loves light sci-fi reads.

WOW! I could NOT put this book down. I really loved the layout of the book, the back and forth of emails, the texts, and the senate committee discourse gave me the racing feeling of impending doom.
This book also made me think of all the new ways that the internet could be used.
Also, would you want to learn about something you did ONE YEAR in the future?
This book really made me think and got my heart pounding.
I Loved it and can't wait to read more from this author.

Trying to get my head around the tech concepts in this book at times made my mind feel like a pretzel. But in a good way. I read quite a bit of science fiction. I thought I'd read many of the storylines that are commonly used but this, like the book, The Immortals, asked the question' "do we really want to know what the future holds". and what would we do with the information if we had it. This story revolves around a very few main characters, the two prime ones being a genius tech wizard and his best (and seemly only friend) who together develop a computer program that can pull data and allow them to gain knowledge of events one year in the future. Instead of using this knowledge to gamble or corner the market they choose to begin a start up company, seek venture capital monies and begin the task of giving this knowledge to the masses by founding a tech company they believe will make them billions. They launch this venture with what appears to be an over abundance of naivete and an inability to foresee how this knowledge even between the two of them will lead to nothing but problems. I found the concept of this story both mind bending and possible in a way that much science fiction is never able to achieve.
The story gives a small glance in how knowing future is not exactly what you expect. I gave the concept and much of the execution of the idea 5 stars. Some of the problems were to be predicted but the writer came up with a wide variety of events that were both unique and imaginative examples of all that could go wrong. The writing was straight forward and easy to understand. I wish I had paid more attention to the dates that head each chapter as toward to end I began to see their importance and had to go back and see if I had missed exactly how these played a part in the storyline.
I came to know these character and even care about them as the story progressed. I found this hard at first as the story is written in emails, texts and blog posts. While the style was appropriate and worked well with the content I found it initially to keep me at a distance as my own tendency (and I think it is true for many) to skim emails rather than read them carefully. That for me was the primary flaw that made this slow going at first but about half way thru I became invested and was anxious to see how the story would evolve.
All in all I found it a particularly appealing Sci fi work and felt it was an exceedingly strong debut by this author.

The Future is Yours is all about tech gone mad. Frey's talents in screen writing and design, might have been the impetus leading to the epistolary style of this work. Told in a retrospective view, the emails, articles and data from Senate hearings allow the reader to reconstruct the rise and fall of a Silicon Valley company that changes the world. What if a device existed that would transmit information from the future to the present? What if a person knew when they would die? or what stock would tank in a week? or.. what troops were mustering on foreign soil?

The start up company, The Future, combines computer design with quantum processing to engineer a device that in fact can do these things. The men involved are more boys than men. They are young Silicon Valley tropes.: one filled with machismo and sliding ethics (Boyce), the other with soul cringing introspection (Aldi) Together this unbalanced pair show the perils of pushing a concept while leaving ethical considerations behind.

Frey's ear for dialogue provides banter between the two is very reflective of current language, as are the more formal speech patterns from the Senate hearings . For me, both protagonists were unlikable, and perhaps that was the point. The reader was left pondering what indeed would happen to the world if the Future was part of our now. Certainly not golden age science fiction, with fumbling robots and space pirates, this novel present s the sticky issues of our rapidly changing times.

Full disclosure I received this review copy from netgalley and Del Rey in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for this opportunity.

Adhi Chaudry had an incredible idea for his graduate dissertation. But because it was believed to be utterly unrealistic, it was not approved. However, Adhi knows it is, indeed, possible. When he tells his friend, the charismatic Ben Boyce, about it, they decide to use the idea to get rich. They plan to market Adhi’s special computer that can see one year into the future. After all, who would not want to see the future? This is Adhi’s story.

This story is told only through emails, articles, and other such forms of communication. This method seemed strange, at first, but it certainly makes the story feel very, very real! There is another reason for this format, too. An awesome one that you will discover at the end of this book!

Very realistic characters and this mysterious format really make this book an incredible experience! It truly makes you think!

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

When I started this book and realized its unusual structure, I almost stopped. I'm glad I didn't. By 'unusual structure,' I'm referring to the fact that the book has no traditional narrative prose. The story is told completely via text messages, emails, articles, and congressional transcripts. Despite my early doubts, the story quickly engrossed me and I plowed through it in a couple of late-night sessions.

It's the most accessible "time travel' book I've read in a long time. Unlike so many of this type of book, the technology seems far more plausible and thus it's easier to suspend disbelief. The characters are well developed and the protagonist in particular has a really strong character arc that unfolds believably throughout.

I recommend this one!

Thank you to both NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine/Del Rey for allowing me to review an advance copy of Dan Frey’s debut novel, The Future is Yours.

The Future is Yours uses a compilation of Congressional testimony, text messages, Twitter responses, Reddit, emails, and various tech news articles to tell this incredibly thought-provoking story. Although this format is not unique and has been done many times before by countless authors, it somehow seems to work better for this particular novel since its central focus is technology.

Business partners, Adhi Chaudry and Ben Boyce, have created “The Future.” The Future is the name of their company as well as the computer they invented, which allows them to see the Internet one year from the present. Set in Silicon Valley, the novel guides the reader through the stages of a tech startup, including the ethical concerns that tech innovators face on a regular basis.

The novel is a fast, genuinely entertaining read. I can’t say too much without spoiling the main events, but if you love tech, ethical debates, the notion of time traveling, and want to experience a less conventional method of storytelling, I’d say this is a pretty great find.

Also, if you work in tech, it may feel as if the information provided throughout only scratches the surface and is too simplistic (probably so that the average reader can understand it), but it does provide a familiar account of what it is like to work in Silicon Valley's Startup culture, and you will definitely be able to commiserate.

Pros: The premise is interesting and the plot moves along at a quick clip and occasionally does cool things with that premise. Due to the format it is also extremely easy to skim.

Cons: Reading the email exchanges of tech bros is just not very interesting. The main character, Ben, is especially annoying to read. Both for stylistic reasons (his voice in emails is a lot of <i>This is going to be <u>sick</u>; the train is moving so get out of the way!</i>) and deeper reasons, like being completely unable to grapple with the implications of his technology in ways that seemed implausible.

This is a novel told in a series of emails, memos, transcripts, other similar documents but excluding all conventional dialog or narration. It follows to some extent a pioneering novel by Dos Passos and a classic from the ‘60s by Brunner with e compiler is finally revealed in the last few paragraphs. The book suffers from this format because the needed narrative threads then have to be contained within the reproduced documents which is often awkward. One example is a husband and wife sending business-oriented memos to each other instead of chatting in person or over the phone. This is a format that can enhance a novel but not become one.

The author decided to use this format and stuck to it religiously even when it stopped working. That point was when a re-thinking should have taken place but it didn’t. Another issue is placing a novel about the immediate future using real people and events. For example, the novel (or the version I got) has Justice Ginsburg alive in 2021 – something that I know to be false making suspension of belief, for me at least, impossible through the rest of the novel.

I found no likable major characters. Each one was stubborn refusing to listen to reason as well as unwilling to evaluate the consequences of their actions. However, the overall problem is that this is a time travel or time-shift plotted book. Like almost all of them, Split Second by Richards and Hawksbill Station by Silverberg being exceptions, the time travel or time peeks raise so many questions and paradoxes that they crush the book.

Here the initial explanations raised more questions than they answered. Further piling on along with added discoveries only added to the mess. In the end, we have self-centered people we’re told are intelligent acting persistently stupidly and wreaking havoc both personally and universally as they blunder along.

I really enjoyed this’ time travel with a twist’ book. I really would have given it 5 stars if not for some coarse language. I’m usually not a fan of the way it’s written in memos, texts and etters but you get used to it after a while and it pays off in the end.

This is a super fast read. Not a narrative with dialogue, it chronicles the rise and increasingly unstable success and future of a Silicon Valley startup called "The Future", through a series of primary sources such as texts, e-mails, reports, and transcripts of Congressional hearings.
A forward thinking and brilliant student of Computer technology and his equally ambitious friend cum business partner team up to create a machine which can access itself through time, allowing a user to retrieve information from a specific point in time in the future. Initial searches by the founders indicate enormous financial success. and they work hard to build and grow the company they have already seen. Set firmly in the present, we read as the protagonists communicate their navigation of fundraising, encountering various venture capitalists, y-combinator, and Elon Musk along the way. Also addressed throughout are fundamental ethical issues presented by time-travel and prescience. Periodic doses of religious and philosophical thought, as well as ruminations about popular Sci-Fi and Fantasy are also presented as blog posts, Again, a fun and quick read with some mysterious goings on.

Time travel is one of the most persistent and fun tropes in science fiction. The list of time travel books, TV shows and movies is staggering - from HG Wells to Doctor Who to most recently, the mind-bendingly bizarre movie Tenet,. Into this crowded but seemingly inexhaustible field comes The Future Is Yours by Dan Frey. As with much science fiction, though, the time travel element is not point here, or at least not wholly the point as Frey takes on Silicon Valley, the venture capital industry, social media and the tech giants.
The Future is Yours is based on an old science fiction premise. That is, that while physical objects cannot be sent back in time, due to quantum entanglement information can. This premise has been used in books like Gregory Benford’s 1980s award winner Timescape and more recently by William Gibson in Peripheral and its sequel Agency. But unlike those books, Frey takes a completely new angle. In The Future is Yours entrepreneur Ben and his genius partner Adhi discover technology that allows them to search the internet a year into the future and decide they want to monetise the idea. They want to create a desktop timescope that will allow anyone to peek into information from the future. To do this they need money, and money comes from venture capital and soon they find themselves swimming in the dark waters of unbridled capitalism.
The overarching narrative is provided by evidence that Ben is giving before a Senate Committee a month before his world changing product is going to launch. While at first the predictive capacity of the technology is seen to be infallible, as the hearing progresses the reader discovers that this premise seems to be falling apart behind the scenes. Over the course of the narrative, Fey deals with corporate malfeasance, the male-dominated culture of silicon valley, the pursuit of profit over ethics, the use of lawsuits as weapons of hostile takeover and the amount that all of this is underpinned by personal relationships.
So that in the end, The Future is Yours is more like a science fiction version of The Social Network with Ben as Zuckerberg and Adhi as Saverin. Only not quite. The relationship between the two is a little more complicated and involves a third party, Boyce’s wife Leila, who is also Adhi’s best friend and secret (and later not so secret) crush. It is the personal relationship and conflict that drives this story as much as the technological, ethical and legal challenges that keep coming their way. Along the way, through Adhi’s blog, Frey also gets to reference and geek out about some of the touchstones of science fiction – Star Trek, Blade Runner, Doctor Who, Frankenstein, Dracula and even A Christmas Carol – also used to ram home some analogies in the plot.
The Future is Yours is narrated in epistolary style. It is made up of a collection of emails, text messages, articles and transcripts. So reader’s patience with this will depend on their willingness to accept this style. Sylvain Nuevel used this approach to mainly good effect in his Themis Files trilogy, although the approach was a little forced by the third volume. The Future is Yours is a stand alone and so there is less chance of it outstaying its welcome. But it is difficult in this surface style of narrative to really get a feel for the characters.
The Future is Yours asks a very simple question – if you could know the future, particularly if you then know it can’t be changed, would you want to? Dan Frey bakes this ethical conundrum into a page turning take down of the tech industry and of Silicon Valley in particular. And while he has to resort, as all time travel tales ultimately do, to a little sleight of hand that asks readers to seriously suspend their disbelief, he does, for the most part, make it work.