QUICK TAKE: cool concept (tech bros invent essentially a time machine that allows them to see one year into the future) and I loved how creative the author is in telling the story through emails, transcripts, letters, etc. That being said, I had some problems with the story structure and character decisions, and have I mentioned time travel makes me go cross-eyed with confusion almost every single time. Fast read for fans of the genre, otherwise at your own risk.

Two friends from Stanford create a machine that can see one year into the future. The story is about the political and social problems they had obtaining financing and production, It is told through a collection of hearing transcripts, emails, texts and miscellaneous articles. This technique worked very well and the narrative is fast paced and quite enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Future is Yours.

I'm not a fan of books in the sci-fan genre, usually, but the premise of The Future Is Yours was so intriguing, I had to request it.

I was disappointed to find the narrative was written in epistolary form; emails, texts, Twitter, Tumblr posts. As a reader, I find this form of writing not so much creative or original as lazy. An epistolary novel should be written sparingly; I've read a few and I can honestly say it's not my favorite form.

On the other hand, the premise is fascinating so I went into The Future Is Yours with an open mind.

Yet, again, the epistolary hampers the narrative in several ways:

1. There is little to no character development. The main characters and co-founders of this incredibly technology have been BFFs since college yet I don't feel the bromance.

Adhi, the programmer, is of Middle Eastern descent, and stereotypically portrayed as on the spectrum, lacking social graces and unable to meet and woo women.

His BFF, Ben, is a charismatic African-American, the marketing guru who can't keep his zipper closed and causes turmoil for his long-suffering, hard working wife.

I'm always happy to see diversity in any creative form, whether it be a book, movie or play, but the stereotypes and cliches rubbed me the wrong way.

2. I skipped the techno babble and the epistolary writing meant the nuance and specific details of how this time machine worked is never fully fleshed out, not that I'd probably understand the description if it was given.

This meant very little was devoted to how the Prototype works. Readers are just told it does after a couple of failed attempts.

3. Little to no female representation in this book, which makes sense, I guess, since this story seems to portray the toxicity and rigid patriarchal hierarchy of the tech industry.

I didn't connect or sympathize with any of the characters, there was no emotional connection, though I did like the ending because it came back to what I felt the main theme of the story was really about: friendship.

I love this premise, anything with a time travel aspect, but the execution left much to be desired.

The Future is Yours is a novel about two friends who embark on creating technology that can connect to the internet a year into the future,

The writing style was entirely from interviews, emails, texts etc. Reminiscent of “Sleeping Giants.” It worked for me. It also helped the pace and made this a relatively quick read.

The implications of knowing future events is the plot. How would society handle that? Socially, politically, military... All interesting points.

The science fiction part reminded me a tad of “Dark Matter.” Overall, I think it was good. Don’t think the author stuck the ending though. Left too many unanswered questions and I just didn’t like how it ended. I still recommend reading it.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC.

LOVED this book! I finished it in one sitting!
Very non traditional writing style - taken from court transcripts, congress hearings, emails, texts...but easy to follow. Great character development. "The Future" is a computer program that is quantum computing and able to see a year into the future on the web. What transpires after the initial protocol and invention roll out is a tale of betrayal, greed, power, relationships, business, security, government and passion or over reach - your opinion!
So thankful for this ARC - highly recommend and maybe not too far off in our own future!

Anyone for a peek into the future?
Ben and Ahdi were varsity buddies where strange circumstances brought them closer together. Adhi had a quantum computing idea for his dissertation about having a computer talk to itself one year into the future, thus being able to allow the user to see into the future, and now that Ben has studied it, he is convinced he can market the idea. Things start to go a little wobbly when personal feelings interfere with their project and suddenly what was supposed to be a certainty in the future seems to be going off into tangents. What started off as a great idea has now become a contentious legal and potentially dangerous military issue. Is the idea worth protecting and if so, how far will they go to do it?
A computer that allows you to see exactly one year into the future. No thanks! I would hate to see the decisions that I had made, as the reasons for the decisions would not be clear in the present. You would never know what influenced the decision or what anomaly cropped up in that year.
What was interesting was the marketing and how people were buying into the product before it was even completed or was working correctly. Are people so desperate to know where they will be or are they too lazy or scared to make decisions now if they know the future is laid out for them?
I found the style of the book, having been written in the form of emails, transcripts, and social media postings, rather interesting to read but also difficult to get into deeply. You only get to see “published” words and not necessarily a person’s internal thoughts and feelings so connecting with the characters deeper than what was laid out in correspondence was not easy.
The ending was not that big a surprise as you could take a guess where it was headed and I felt the discrepancies and the changing/not changing the future was a little thin. I must admit that a lot of the sciency stuff I did gloss over (both times I read the book even though I tried harder the second time!)
Overall a very interesting concept, but there was something lacking for me to be able to fully invest in it. Perhaps it was the 2-D characters (due to the way we got to know them) or maybe it was the fact that the story was fed to you in chunks and it felt like the bits in between were missing.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for an ARC of the book.

I enjoyed this book. Because it was the world we already exist in, there was no need for much world-building. The characters had a lot of growth and not necessarily in a positive way. We were allowed to watch them fall apart, and the ending really brought justice to this. However, excessive information on the science behind their programming felt overwhelming to me. As someone technical but not scientific, I understood some but not all of this.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book, and I liked the way it represented the dangers of knowing the future. It showed many sides of this danger and indicated that maybe we would be better off minding our own business.

I tried to give this book a chance, but realized I wasn't the right audience for this I ended up not finishing this book. Because I didn't finish the book, I don't think it would be fair of me to publish a review.

Intriguing tech thriller. Told through emails, blog posts, news articles, and transcripts; a tech genius creates a computer that can see exactly one year in the future. But can someone change the future? Or is it inevitable? The questions of the morality of knowing the future and how you use that knowledge is explored in this novel.

Have you ever wondered what the future holds for you? I have. During those moments where life seems the bleakest, I have often wondered, “Where is the light at the end of this tunnel?” In Dan Frey’s The Future is Yours, two best friends create a device, which has the ability to access information that will be published up to one year from the present moment. Empowered with knowledge of future events, the best friends then seek to answer the next logical question: can they change the future?

Overall, I found Frey’s novel to be a fast-paced and enjoyable read. I would recommend The Future is Yours to all readers of science fiction. In particular, science fiction fans of unconventional narrative structures, such as Amy Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s The Illuminae Files, will most likely find the novel to be a thrilling read. For The Future is Yours, Frey has compiled a manuscript of emails, text messages, transcripts, and published articles to detail the development of the best friends’ device as well as the creation of their Silicon Valley company. In the narrative, Frey also tackles the larger, ethical question of information access. Should the public have access to a device that can reveal one’s future? What consequences would arise from such a decision?

Many thanks to Del Rey and NetGalley for the e-ARC! All opinions are my own.

The Future Is Yours by Dan Frey is a brilliant book, i loved the plot, couldn't put it down, it was totally engrossing

The Future is Yours by Dan Frey, I really disliked the email and paper format the book took right away, and it turned me off the rest of the book. Thank you for giving me a chance with this book and I do think others will enjoy it.

The book is a very quick read of emails, texts, and transcripts. I don’t always feel like you can get to know a person by email or text, but the author did a wonderful job creating characters that you could figure out and understand.

The idea that learning the future could be addictive or too appealing not to peek into, was analyzed from several different personalities. Each is giving you a different view and part of the puzzle that the book puts together.

I did enjoy this first read from this author and will look for other books by them.

This book is a bit hard for me to review, as I found it to be a compelling read, but am not sure the format will be one that many will really love. I am not a fan of science fiction, but admit this story was very original, compelling, and riveting to read. It was put together in a way, that is sort of like the fake documentary movies, so many are fond of. If you are a science fiction freak, don’t mind different formatting, then I do think this book will be a top read for you. It has an intriguing premise, is well written, and quite unique. Highly recommend to those looking for a sci fi, which is sure to capture your attention!

This book was a solidly enjoyable science fi trip, told in a mixed media epistolary format. I initially didn’t know if I would feel connected to the characters, but I was pleasantly surprised.

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.

I loved the way the characters all operated, and how easy it was to understand their motivations. Even in the longer segments of speech, I knew exactly who was speaking. The texts and emails all felt realistic and I had so much fun with the way the tone shifted--especially throughout their emails with investors.

Before I started reading "The Future Is Yours" by Dan Frey, I was really looking forward to the promise of a good time travel story. Perhaps something philosophical, with some common enemies and uncommon friendships and unexpected twists and inevitable betrayals. Well, that's not how it turned out.

"The Future Is Yours" is told in a quasi-epistolary manner, more like an eclectic collection of real-time testimony (literally), recollections of the recent past as emails and text messages, near-real-time conversations, and near-future news articles. The central conceit is somewhat novel, and the way of telling the story really does seem to fit well. It's what we actually get to see that turns out badly. This is not a sci-fi novel, nor is it fantasy: as far as I can tell, it's a snapshot of a deeply abusive relationship within the toxic brogrammer culture of Silicon Valley tech start-ups, with always-too-little venture capital flowing from only-God-knows-where into activities that no-one wants to account for, let alone remember. There are lots of triangles, both psychological and physical: Stanford/SF/DC, friend/friend/girlfriend, bully/developer/investor, money/ethics/morals.

So, trigger warnings: extended psychological abuse, narcissistic Silicon Valley douchebags, and a waste of a good sci-fi premise.

The Future Is Yours told epistolary style using emails, texts, blog posts, transcripts, and news articles. I am a huge fan of this style of writing. It also includes photos and diagrams that really add to the novel. Depending on how the audiobook is done, I probably wouldn't recommend that route.

For the first half of the book, I was fully invested in Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry's story and invention. I really thought this book would rival Dark Matter or Recursion. It started to fall flat when I couldn't really see a need for the technology. The ending didn't work out for me. There were other story lines that I think needed to be fleshed out.

I also found myself wondering about the stereotypes being portrayed. Adhi Chaudry is a stereotypical Middle Eastern nerd who is uncomfortable with woman and is essentially being used by his friend and business partner, Ben Boyce. Ben Boyce is a black man who essentially ends up being a villain of sorts. I am wondering how people of color will feel about these stereotypes.

So an antisocial introvert doing everything in his power to avoid the world … may have created a technology that will end up destroying it? Interesting. I have no further questions.
...
If given the chance, I will always open Pandora’s box.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for sending me an ARC of The Future Is Yours in exchange for an honest review.

I’m always ready to read another time travel story. Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry have invented a quantum computer that can connect to the internet one year from now. Part of the story is traditional science fiction about the device itself and the potentially dangerous effects this technology might have on the world at large. Once you know what will happen in the future, do you have the free will to change that future? And why have some of the future reports started to change? This portion of the novel reminded me of the awesomely bad Ben Affleck|Uma Thurman movie Paycheck.

Beyond the more traditional themes and plot lines, The Future Is Yours focuses a surprising amount on other areas, such as how the two of main characters navigate Silicon Valley and the world of venture capitalists to try to bring their product to market. And the entire novel is told exclusively through written records—texts, e-mails, blog posts, and records of Congressional testimony—which requires the reader to sometimes have to read between the lines, ultimately uncertain about what truly happened between characters in a realistic way. But most of all, the novel is about these two men—Ben the ambitious, brash dreamer with the head for business, and Adhi the somewhere-on-the-spectrum genius programmer—and how their discovery changes each of them and their relationship.

The Future Is Yours is a fresh take on a time travel story, and is all the more interesting for being an epistolary novel with an open ending. It’s a fun, fast read. Recommended.

In Dan Frey’s The Future is Yours, as two friends work to develop a quantum computer that can retrieve information from the future, the technology holds unintended consequences on society and their friendship.

First things first, I have to point out is that this is an epistolary novel--meaning that it’s told through a series of emails, texts, court transcripts, Tumblr blog posts and the like. While I laughed at some of the several-page-long Tumblr posts, they varied in actual plot or thematic relevancy. I wish the posts had overall been shortened and connected better back to the plot since they seriously bog down the pacing.

Also, I’m not sure if this is strictly an issue with my digital ARC, but with all the different types of documents that make up the story, I wish the formatting had been cleaner. Some pages are cluttered and less easy to follow, so I wish that there had been one type of documentation source per page and that there had been greater line spacing between the Twitter retweets.

All in all, I had high hopes for this one. Conceptually its sounds amazing. Execution-wise? It’s sloppy and the story unfortunately falls flat for me.

The book's format will work for some people. It is essentially epistolary with extra documents. Texts, emails, transcriptions, formal documents, etc. This format messed with the pacing for me. But the larger problem was that the ending didn't really deliver.