In The Future is Yours, two Stanford misfits bond in college and subsequently discover a revolutionary process. Using quantum computing and a boat-load of start-up capital, they have a way to access future data from computers located in the present.

Think of how disruptive this would be on society. No more betting on sports or stock markets. In a way, no more free will. How can you change your future if it is already right there on your computer? Soon you, as a reader, begin to wonder if someone has already discovered this technology but kept it for their own use. Elon Musk comes to mind but what about Jeff Bezos and even Warren Buffet? Okay, before I continue down the QCAnon rabbit hole, I have to admit I adored this book. It made me think while I was reading it but also for days afterward. It also has just enough science so I didn’t feel I was back in college. Overall, The Future is Yours is a riveting and thought-provoking science fiction read. Don’t miss it! 5 stars and a big favorite! Plus it got picked up as a series by HBO Max. I can’t wait!

Side note: I personally love epistolary novels. I feel like I’m investigating “the case” myself rather than reading the result of someone else’s investigation. So high points for using this style in a science fiction novel!

Thanks to Del Rey Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Oh, so smart and cleverly told, this sci-fi thriller is one you don't want to miss!

What if you could know what happens one year into the future -- but be powerless to change it?

Best friends, Ben Boyce and Adhvan (Adhi) Chaudry, want to be on the cutting edge of a new technology that will take Silicon Valley by storm and make them loads of money. Their idea involves transmitting data though time so that someone using their machine could see the future and know the outcome of any endeavor. The narrative unfolds in the format of texts, emails, transcripts, tweets, and blog posts as the characters try to bring their unique product to market. Faced with hurdles and problems, the friends soon see that there are some negative side effects of their project to deliver this future knowledge to all of mankind. What was meant to be empowerment and maintenance of free will is soon shown to be anything but.

I was absolutely captivated and could not put this book down until the end. The science, although quantum computing is definitely not my forte, was explained and rendered understandable so that it made the possibility of this machine believable. I enjoyed how the atypical narrative style showed the flaws in the personalities of all the characters and how it was the perfect way to tell this whole story. I laughed out loud at some of the tweets (you'll see what I mean) as the author captured social media trolling and commenting so perfectly -- everybody has an opinion! There are many moral and ethical issues that will make the reader question the ultimate future of technology if it continues to enslave those of us who use it. Is it really better to KNOW the future after all? You decide! And, you really will have to that at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Del Rey for this e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend.

The reading experience of this was really interesting to me: I spent maybe the first and last fifteen percent of the book deeply skeptical but was absolutely immersed in everything in between.

The premise is simple, for a science fiction novel. Two best friends from college found a Silicon Valley startup after one of them develops a machine that allows people to look for information up to a year in the future. Adhi Chaudry is a socially awkward nerd who happens to be a scientific genius. Ben Boyce is a born salesman with a talent for navigating the vicious world of high-tech venture capitalism. Together, they plan on making The Future available to everyone, to the consternation of governments and big business alike. But when the seemingly immutable future they've modeled their entire philosophy on shows signs of changing, the best friends, whose relationship has already been sorely tested by the demands of their business partnership, begin to differ significantly on what they want to do with their technology next, with possibly fatal results.

Told in extremely engaging format -- collecting emails, texts, blog posts, transcripts and more -- this is a fast-paced novel that works best as an examination of the ways friendships grow and fracture with time and stress. Ben and Adhi are both deeply interesting and flawed people trying to do what they think is best as they're beset by moral and legal complexities in the attainment of their dreams. The epistolary format is really great for showcasing both their private thoughts as well as how those contradict the public things they say and do. It's also a great way to philosophize over destiny and free will, as well as conceptions of time and inevitability (with a very cool Hindu perspective, as well.) Bonus points for drolly satirizing how little government understands technology, fitting given that the idea for this novel came from Dan Frey watching Congress (often clumsily) interrogate Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook.

What didn't work was the science, oh Lord. Reading Adhi's initial treatise leaping from instantaneous quantum transmission to outright time travel made this Information Technology major (who studied quantum physics for fun because my uni didn't offer those courses) mutter, "'Consequently' is doing a lot of work in this thesis." I was also unimpressed by Adhi's choices at the end of the book, which seemed both self-defeating and somehow more destructive than the future he feared. The whole <spoiler>"I'm going to burn everything down if you don't do what I tell you" is a wildly unsympathetic stance that eschews positive change for melodramatic villainy</spoiler> under the guise of humanitarianism.

What I did enjoy, aside from the gripping writing and style, was how I kept singing "Troy and Abed in the MORNING!" while reading this. It's so great to have the two leads be Black and Indian respectively (and I know Abed is Arab, but Danny Pudi is half-Indian, so visually it works) and to have their complicated friendship be the focus here. The Future Is Yours is actually already in development with HBO Max, and while Mr Pudi and Donald Glover are probably too old for these roles, I'll definitely be thinking of them as our heroes till the actual casting is announced.

The Future Is Yours by Dan Frey was published February 9th 2020 by Del Rey and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9780593158210">Bookshop!</a> Want it now? For the Kindle version, <a href="https://amzn.to/36KZhMc">click here</a>.

Mind bending and terrifying at the same time!

When two friends create a quantum computer that can access data one year into the future, their own future seems limitless. This device will be able to tell you anything from sports scores to stock market tips to if you will live for the next year! With a start-up on the rise and knowledge of what will happen, what could go wrong? Ambition, greed, and jealousy, that’s what!

This was an interesting approach for a futuristic quantum novel. It is told through a series of emails, text messages, future articles, and transcripts from a Senate Exchange Committee hearing. There is never any actual personal dialogue, but you just keep reading because you want to know what is going to happen next. It’s a little weird in that you can never really gauge a visual representation of any of the characters. Maybe a little from their backgrounds, but no descriptions are given throughout the book. You can easily develop emotions for the characters based on their behavior through their correspondence. Most readers will just loathe Ben by the end of the book, but he does have ambition. I’m not a huge fan of Leila either, but I get she was just trying to save face in a bad situation. I felt sorry for Adhi, but got frustrated with him at the same time. I really want to comment on the story arc and concepts that Frey used, but I feel like I would be giving something away and want readers to discover this on their own!

If you like futuristic novels of the like of Blake Crouch and Andy Weir, this will likely fit right in your wheelhouse. There is a lot of foul language throughout the book, so I would recommend it to mature readers.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.

The nitty-gritty: A computer with the ability to see one year into the future causes all sorts of problems in this thought provoking and twisty sci-fi story.

I thought this book was a lot of fun! If you enjoy twisty, mind-bending sci-fi stories with an emphasis on technology and how it shapes our lives, you’ll probably have fun with this too. The Future is Yours is told in an epistolary format through a combination of emails, text messages, internet articles, blog posts, tweets and more. I liked this format a lot, although in my eARC the formatting wasn’t very good. For that reason, I would recommend reading a physical copy if you can, which I’m sure is formatted better.

The story revolves around Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaundry, who meet at Stanford as undergrads and decide to launch a technology start up after Adhi makes a startling discovery. Based on theories of quantum computing, Ben and Adhi develop a prototype computer that can “see” one year in the future. This opens up all sorts of possibilities, and they decide to call their company The Future and sell their revolutionary computer to the masses. But things do not go smoothly, as they run into all sorts of roadblocks, including trying to lure investors into giving them loans, family squabbles, and the frustrations of coming up with a Prototype that actually works. When they finally succeed they become overnight billionaires (on paper, at least.) But it turns out seeing a year into the future might not be a good idea after all, and that’s when things really start to fall apart.

Ben and Adhi have been summoned to a Congressional hearing which begins on December 1, 2021, right before the company is due to open retail stores across the country and launch their product. This serves as the main framework for the book, as the judiciary committee questions Ben about data that has come back from the future, suggesting that civilization as we know it is coming to an end. These sections are interspersed with emails and other communications between Ben, Adhi and a host of other characters, which show the progression of creating and testing the device. Most of these communications are dated, which is very important, as Frey jumps around from past to future and back again. I liked that he even mentions Covid-19, as Covid falls right in the middle of his timeline. (I’m pretty sure the publisher made a decision to add this in before publication, since the author probably wrote his book long before Covid made an appearance.)

Frey does a great job of exploring all the things that might go wrong when people are given a crystal ball of sorts that can see into the future. Before the computer even hits the market, Ben and Adhi do lots of testing on the Prototype by googling themselves and the company to see if they will be successful. When they are able to pull up and download future internet articles that prove their success, they start to get greedy in the present, which leads to all sorts of issues. There’s also a very dark side to all this, as several deaths occur that directly link back to the use of the Prototype. Ben and Adhi try to cover up all the negative aspects because there is so much money on the line, but you just know it’s coming back to bite them in the butt.

I enjoyed the way the author shows the pitfalls and challenges of starting a business, from investors to marketing and having to deal with people who are trying to seize control of their ideas. Ben and Adhi bring various friends and colleagues into the mix who ultimately muddy the waters and cause a lot of headaches for them. Frey also namedrops famous companies like Apple and Facebook to make some of his points, which I liked.

The actual idea of a computer that sees into the future was a lot of fun, and I loved how the characters react to certain revelations about themselves. And of course, once they get their computer to work, they start to think even bigger—the big question of “can we change the future for the better?” is explored with interesting results. Near the end, Frey introduces yet another futuristic device to bring his story full circle, and I actually thought it worked pretty well, although I’m curious to see what other readers think about it.

But let’s talk about the characters, which is where this book falters a bit. I really didn’t like Ben at all. He’s sort of a jerk, not to mention he always seems to be lying about one thing or another. His wife Leila is a corporate attorney and eventually joins the company—conveniently enough when The Future starts to run into legal problems. There’s all sorts of soap opera-like melodrama surrounding Leila and Ben and Adhi, and Ben cheats on his wife at one point and tries to shrug it off as nothing. Leila and her father have an odd relationship as well. He’s trying to control Leila’s life and wants her to work at his firm, but of course Leila has other ideas. The only character I really liked was Adhi, who is a sensitive, thoughtful man who uses his blog, The Black Hole, to muse over art as a metaphor for life—he talks about Star Wars and Star Trek, vampires and Krishna, and I thought these sections were a good way to dig deeper into his personality. Adhi is also the only person connected with The Future who is smart enough to realize how it might actually destroy the future, and he takes steps to correct that.

But ultimately, my issues with some of the characters didn’t really ruin my reading experience. I finished The Future is Yours in only a day and a half, mostly because I wanted to find out how everything ended up. I’ll admit I did not see that ending coming, but for me it worked.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

This is a mix-genre book that makes us question, if you could know your future, would you want to? Ben and Adhi, meet at Stanford University and become close friends. After Ben graduates and Adhi, in Post-graduate studies, they come up with a plan to build technology that will allow you to connect your computer to future.

As you can imagine, this raises a lot of thoughtful questions as they bring this technology to life. As they bring more people into the project, terrible outcomes are occurring, eventually causing a rift between our two protagonists.

Told through, emails, texts, articles and depositions, Frey welds together an at times riveting story that will leave you with more questions than answers at times.

This is a unique story and it is fast-paced. This will be a great book for discussions. It looks like it is being developed for TV and I will totally watch this.

Thank you NetGalley and Del Rey Books for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! I need more Dan Frey and epistolary SF in my life! This book I like holding a mirror up and showing us what happens when we press boundaries and when we achieve what we think are our dreams. How might the world change if we could know everything, predict everything - would we be able to use it for the better, or would society start to fall around us. I cannot suggest this book enough!

5/5 Stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“So an antisocial introvert doing everything in his power to avoid the world … may have created a technology that will end up destroying it?”


Ben and Adhi were college roommates who bonded over shared trauma – the death of a parent – as otherwise they couldn’t be more different from each other. Ben’s charismatic and driven, someone who sees himself as a Steve Jobs visionary type. Adhi, on the other hand, is an introverted engineering genius. Dissatisfied with their lives after college, Adhi uses knowledge from his Google day job to create a time travel machine, albeit one with very specific limitations. It’s a quantum computer that connects with itself exactly one year in the future, giving them access to everything on the future internet. They quickly come up with a startup to turn it into a consumer device, but as the year progresses, can their friendship – let alone the world – survive knowing the future? After all, why wouldn’t you want to know about the future?

“I do not intend to pin my fate and success to chance, or investment.
To the roll of the dice, or the rise and fall of the market.
I intend to bet on myself.”


While some of the possible benefits – and pitfalls – of being able to see a year in the future are explored, the focus of the book was more on Ben and Adhi’s relationship rather than the technology itself. Adhi compares them to Kirk and Spock, though I think that’s a bit idealistic (and rather indicative of Adhi’s way of thinking). While they may see themselves as idealistic visionaries and even superheroes, there to bless the world with their invention (or at least the part of the world that can afford to buy it), they both have a lot of morally grey moments. Understandably, they’re quickly swept up into the VC echo chamber and find themselves pulled between the allure of making money or “bettering the world.” There’s a lot of hubris, and the addition of a love triangle with Ben’s wife Leila adds another level. The author does a good job of laying out the solidity of their friendship before things went wrong and then each incident that fractures it.

“Is “playing God” so wrong, in a world that seems devoid of meaningful divine interventions?
Someone needs to do it.”


Though I found the plot itself predictable, the format was fascinating. I love epistolary novels and this is definitely the modern version of one. The story is told through blog posts, press releases, emails and text messages, within the overall frame of the transcripts of a Congressional hearing. Even in these formats, each character has a certain style, from Ben’s rambling to Adhi’s staccato sentences. I would’ve liked a few more red herrings in terms of the plot, but I suppose it really says something for the characterization that I kept reading even though I was pretty certain how it would end after a chapter or two (and yeah, I was right). As for other cons, the author is white, while the characters are people of color – Ben is black and Adhi is Indian. For the most part, it’s not much reflected in text, besides Adhi’s mom emailing him and telling him to come visit to have saag or daal. There is one moment, when a female employee accuses Ben and the company in general of being a boys’ club, where Ben throws their diversity around, like it somehow absolves them of misogyny. That felt off to me, but it could’ve just been the general ickiness of the whole exchange.

Overall, three and a half stars, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this author.

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The story of two friends who build technology that can see into the future -- and then see the future possibly fall apart as a result. Full of surprises and twists and turns, this is a book that you'll want to read all in one sitting.

This was such an interesting and thought-provoking story! At first I had a harder time getting into this story because of the style it was written in. But once I got used to it, I found it worked really well with the story.

I also had a harder time connecting with the characters. But, I think some of that might have been because of how the story was told. Because it was told via text messages, emails, and other written documents, it was harder to really get into the character's heads. After a while, I started to figure out the characters better, but it took a bit.

That being said, I still really enjoyed this book! The concept was so interesting and really got me thinking. Time travel/predicting the future isn't always my favorite themes in a book, but I thought the way it was handled in this book was well done. It made sense and felt a lot more realistic than some other stories.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of speculative science fiction. It's not as action-packed and exciting as some stories, but I really appreciated how thought-provoking and engaging it was.

The concept of The Future is Yours is actually really cool concept. Being able to see one year into the future on a computer is a pretty cool idea. I can see so many tech companies fighting over something like this. The book actually brings up a lot of good points on some of the disadvantages of what having something like this could mean, but I could still see so many people buying a product like this.
The story is such a quick read and keeps you wondering what is going to happen next. However, I do kind of wish that the story didn't focus on the business aspect of the computer rather than just focusing on a character and what having this product could mean for that character and those around them. I think that would have made the story line a little bit more interesting even though it does kind of capture you attention in this aspect.
The characters are actually really well developed despite that you're getting their perspective through emails and text message. Dan does a great job getting them to pop even though this isn't your typical formatting of a book!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this title at all - it's my first experience with the author, but the premise sounded quite intriguing. Adhi and Ben are roommates at Stanford - both scholarship students and both share some interests in common, despite their major personality differences. Their bond, though, is strong - and Ben supports Adhi's genius, and his dissertation thesis in quantum computing that allows for data to travel in time. This ends up becoming the foundation of their start-up, succinctly titled: The Future. They plan to sell special computers that allow users to see one year into their futures.

The unconventional format of the book itself - through emails, text chains, blog posts with memes, and Congressional hearing transcripts - really adds to the fun (and plausibility) of this one. The multimedia approach with plenty of namedropping and product inclusion really makes this feel immediate and real and not like science fiction at all. Though, like all books dealing with time travel, there are some headscratching gaps that you have to set aside, but overall it's very well done! It's impressive how much the relationships shine through the various formats. It just feels fresh and unique! I am definitely curious to check out more from Frey!

This is sci-fi at its simplest.

There is literally no world building, as the story takes place in 2021. It’s told entirely in texts, emails, blogs, etc., making it super easy to tear through quickly.

Two Stanford grads create a computing system that can connect with itself in the future, thereby letting them “see” what will happen before it happens. The enthusiastic Ben wants to market the technology to the public, and become the next Steve Jobs. Yes, he intends to make billions… but not by using it to play the stock market, because he wants fame and glory, too.

Then the inevitable troublesome issues start coming up: can the future be altered? Does just knowing the future make it inevitable, or changeable? Does knowing, in fact, cause these future events to happen? And ultimately: is it possible to send more than just data back?

Our two main characters, Ben and Adhi, have differing views on these issues, and on the morality of using their technology. As their views diverge further and further, so does their friendship and the world around them.

Since this story takes place in our current world and time, it is also peppered with plenty of pop culture references – especially, but not only, sci-fi ones. We see the dilemmas presented be compared to those faced by previous fictional characters such as Kirk & Spock, The Doctor, and Rick Deckard.

If you knew those characters by name, you would probably enjoy this book!

This book comes out today, February 9, 2021. I was able to read an ARC through Del Rey Books and Netgalley.

For fans of "Recursion" and "Dark Matter" by Blake Crouch - get ready for "The Future Is Yours" by Dan Frey! This was such a fun read told entirely through emails, text messages, blog posts, etc. I was afraid that would make it hard to follow the details of a sci-fi but it just made it read that much faster.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

The Future Is Yours is a fantastic book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it's a fast and compelling read. I didn't know much about it going in, but found the choice to tell the story solely through emails, texts, transcripts and articles to be perfect for the story. Even without direct dialogue or traditional narration, you were able to get a complete sense of who these characters where.

I don't read a lot of science fiction but since this is rooted in a world that is essentially our own it presented many interesting ideas and dilemmas.

This is a book I'd highly recommend.

This book is a fascinating exploration of what it might mean to know your own future, and that of the world, with absolute certainty. Adhi and Ben, best friends since their days of being social outcasts at Stanford (one, too smart, the other, too brash, and both way too poor and too brown), have created a machine that can look into the future of the internet, and tell you anything the internet knows at that time. The possibilities for their machine and the startup based on it seem endless - until quite suddenly it becomes clear that they are actually singular. As events literally inevitably spiral out of control, Adhi and Ben correspondingly begin to fall apart. While the story touches on the global consequences of absolute foreknowledge, it remains grounded in the friendship between the two protagonists, and whether or not that friendship is capable of saving the world.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This was probably one of the more unique books I've ever read in terms of style. 'The Future Is Yours' is told through a series of emails, texts, and dictations from a Supreme Court case. You don't really find out why until after the end and I was actually surprised as to how important the format actually was. I completely enjoyed how the two main characters, Ben and Adhi, were both morally grey at times. They both made decisions that were questionable and for their own benefit. I think it is a lot more fun, especially in science fiction books, when there isn't any perfect angel-type character that plays into the trope of only being the voice of reason. I loved how their relationship did evolve throughout the book because it felt more natural.

One thing I love about the sci-fi genre is that it does make you think. This book definitely made me wonder what I would do if this technology existed. Ben and Adhi created a tech called "The Future" that can see one year into the future by connecting to itself at that time point. Of course this leads to a lot of moralistic type questions and what it can and can't actually be used for. It was definitely one of those books that makes you question while at the same time being entertaining. Overall, I highly enjoyed this book and I absolutely loved how it ended.

So......who wouldn't want to see one year in to the future? Stock prices, lottery numbers, and whether you are still married are all things you would know. The first two would be of no benefit as everyone would have access to the same information. At least that is the plan when Ben and Adhi start working on The Future. And, I will say right here, Adhi did the work. Ben got funding and did the promotion stuff but Adhi did the brain stuff. And, as is the case a lot of the time, they got equal credit. That never makes sense to me! But, back to the book. The story is told through letters, texts, and newspaper articles. This method keeps the story moving at a quick pace. Character development is not a strong part of the story, despite attempts to include it. The reader learns enough to complete a 4th grade biography project on the main characters, but that is about all. The ramifications of the machine is the main focus of the story, as it should be and Mr. Frey gives us some interesting and fun little turns as The Future makes its way to market. As long as you don't let yourself get bogged down in tech details or try and actually solve the whole issue of being able to manipulate a future you know about, this makes for a fun read!

Dan Frey's The Future Is Yours is a novel that merges mystery and time travel together for one massive science fiction novel.

Friendship can change the world. That is what they say. However, this omniscient 'they' probably didn't see this twist coming. Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry have been best friends since college.

That part of the story is nothing new, not really. However, through technology and intelligence, they've been given the opportunity to get a glimpse into the future. One year into the future, to be exact.

They didn't hesitate. They jumped down that rabbit hole, and it changed everything. Not just their lives, but the lives of everyone around them.

“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.”

Honestly, I'm a bit torn about The Future Is Yours. On the one hand, it is certainly one of the most unique novels I've read in quite some time. On the other hand, I really did struggle to find that emotional connection with it and the characters.

The Future Is Yours is told through alternative writing styles. By that I mean it's mostly made up of e-mails, transcripts, text conversations, blog posts, articles, the works. It's a clever concept, and one that I've only seen used a few times here and there.

In a way, I really did love the writing format for this story. It fits so perfectly! It makes the focus all about the science and what was done. It removes the human element in a way, and forces a step back. In that sense, it feels almost empirical. Something that fits rather nicely here.

But it does come at a cost. Naturally, it's harder to get into the narrative for Ben and Adhi. It's hard to know whether we should be invested in their stories, and harder yet to cheer for them (or to hate them).

Ironically, I'm not so certain that's a bad thing, in this case. Hence why I'm so torn. I almost feel like that distance was intentional here, playing a very important role in the way the entire story unfolds over time (see what I did there?).

Regardless, I do think that The Future Is Yours gave me a lot to think about, and for that alone, I really do appreciate taking the time to read it.

(4.5/5 stars. My review will be posted on Thoroughly Modern Reviewer on publication day at this link: https://thoroughlymodernreviewer.com/2021/02/09/the-future-is-yours-dan-frey-review/)

I often find epistolary novels to be a bit hit or miss. Sometimes, they get too bogged down with exposition and never manage to coalesce into anything compelling. Other times, there’s not enough exposition, and the reader is left flailing about, trying to catch up with what’s going on. Modern epistolary novels have the additional problem of feeling gimmicky—Romeo and Juliet retold through text messages will always feel like a cash grab. These kinds of books walk a fine line between being enjoyable and unbearably kitschy. Luckily, "The Future is Yours" perfectly walks that line. It utilizes its various textual sources not as a gimmick but as a way of further exploring its themes. There’s a transcript of a congressional hearing that acts as a throughline for the book, allowing various congresspeople to interrogate Ben about the various potential ethical and societal issues that might come with using the technology his company’s created. There are news articles gathered from the novel’s future, elaborating on the societal reaction to the technology being widely available. What results is a book that doesn’t just feel like a gimmick. All of the in-universe sources feel grounded in the world Frey’s created. Each piece coalesces into a story that feels like it couldn’t have been told any other way.

A lot of praise should be directed towards how well Frey structures the book. It would have been very easy to overload the reader with too much exposition at the beginning of the book—like including an in-universe biography of the characters or something like that. But that’s not what Frey does here. Instead, we learn background information about the characters and the world as they become relevant. The plot is conveyed naturalistically through the characters’ communications—research reports handle explaining how the technology works, emails between the duo and their business partners explain how the business works, etc. The whole thing results in an experience unlike any other. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that someone has gathered all of these documents together and is presenting them in a way where each one builds off of the previous ones. For a book that’s about time travel, there’s a surprising amount of linear storytelling that happens. As you read the book, Frey lays out all of the information in such a way that you can kind of predict where the story is going—but not in a disappointing way. The book never feels derivative or too predictable. Instead, everything just feels fully developed and well-explored. The ideas explored within "The Future is Yours" aren’t ones that have been previously explored, which is why it is sometimes easy to see where things are going. But the way they’re explored in this book feels wholly unique and I was enthralled from beginning to end.

The book’s greatest strength is probably its characters—specifically how realistic they feel. From page one, Ben and Ahdi feel fully formed and three-dimensional. Naturally, much of this is due to great swaths of the book being comprised of communication between the two characters, in the form of emails and text messages and research reports written by one to the other. Through these writings, Frey expertly brings readers into the minds of these characters. We understand who they are, what they want, and why they want it. Their realness helps keep the book grounded, which helps the broader sci-fi elements land better. And the more we get to know the characters, the easier it is for us to guess what they’re going to do. Again, this ability to predict aspects of the story never feels disappointing. After all, the book is largely about the inevitability of the future and whether or not it can be changed. Frey simply explores his characters so well that it’s easy to understand their mindsets. And when you understand a character’s mindset, it can be easy to predict what they might do. And, honestly, there’s a lot of satisfaction to be had in making predictions that end up being correct. I adored getting to know these characters in such a deep way. For as much as the book is about the technology created by these two friends, it’s even more about their friendship—how it leads to this incredible invention and how that invention impacts their friendship.

Epistolary novels often feel very slow, bogged down by lengthy diary entries or letters. The lack of traditional prose in those novels ends up creating a more lethargic feeling. "The Future is Yours," however, is comprised of a variety of sources, all of which are mostly short. This brevity helps establish the kind of faster pace that you might find in a prose-based novel. In all honesty, I didn’t find myself missing the prose at all. This isn’t the kind of story that needs a bunch of lengthy passages describing characters’ feelings, or exactly what a room looks like, or exactly what is happening in any given moment. Instead, Frey allows the various pieces of writing to establish all that needs establishing. The congressional hearings provide a narrative backbone, the emails and text messages provide the dialogue, the longer blog posts and news articles provide the backstory, etc. The variety of sources largely bridges the gap left by the lack of traditional prose and it’s amazing how none of this ends up resulting in a slow, boring book. I breezed through this book because Frey kept cutting between the various pieces of writing, interweaving between the various sources as needed. There are moments of exposition, moments of philosophical discussion, and moments of tension and excitement, but none of these outweigh each other. "The Future is Yours" is perfectly balanced, with pacing that could rival any of the best prose-based thrillers.

All in all,"The Future is Yours" is a fantastic read. It’s immediately captivating, holding the reader’s attention from its first page to its final one. The characters are fully-formed, with each of them possessing believable backstories and relationships that carefully unfold over the novel’s length. By writing an epistolary story, Frey invites his readers to feel like they are part of the book. Reading "The Future is Yours" is like getting to be in the world of the story. Readers get to read these documents and experience the book’s events from the vantage point of one living it. The pacing is strong, with Frey cutting back and forth between various pieces of in-universe writing. The ending is a little abrupt, though, and quite likely too ambiguous for many readers. But the rest of the book more than makes up for this. At the end of the day, if you’re into near-future sci-fi thrillers, "The Future is Yours" is the book for you.