Odds Against Tomorrow

By: Nathaniel Rich

Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld. The business operates out of an empty office in the Empire State Building; Mitchell is employee number two. He is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming. As Mitchell immerses himself in the mathematics of catastrophe - ecological collapse, war games, natural disasters - he becomes obsessed by a culture's fears.

Yet he also loses touch with his last connection to reality: Elsa Bruner, a friend with her own apocalyptic secret, who has started a commune in Maine. Then, just as Mitchell's predictions reach a nightmarish crescendo, an actual worst-case scenario overtakes Manhattan. Mitchell realizes he is uniquely prepared to profit. But at what cost?

At once, an all-too-plausible literary thriller, an unexpected love story, and a philosophically searching inquiry into the nature of fear, Nathaniel Rich's Odds Against Tomorrow poses the ultimate questions of imagination and civilization. The future is not quite what it used to be.

©2013 Nathaniel Rich (P)2013 Tantor

Critic reviews

"It is almost impossible to read this novel without indelible images of Hurricane Sandy coming to mind. The novel succeeds on its own terms in envisioning such a disaster in terrifyingly visceral terms. And Mitchell's intensely fraught journey from man of intellect to man of action is one the [listener] will not soon forget." ( Publishers Weekly)

"Let's just, right away, recognize how prescient this charming, terrifying, comic novel of apocalyptic manners is...Rich is a gifted caricaturist and a gifted apocalyptist. His descriptions of the vagaries of both nature and human nature are stark, fresh, and convincing, full of surprise and recognition as both good comedy and good terror must be." ( The New York Review of Books)

"This literary thriller is blessed with a propulsive plot, macabre humor, several richly developed characters, and serious ethical and philosophical issues, all lightly clothed in skillful writing. Highly recommended." ( Booklist)

Dystopian Sci-Fi that putters out at the end

What would have made Odds Against Tomorrow better?

A better story-line. I avoid sci-fi and dystopian stories, but this one somehow made it past the radar. Not exactly sci-fi, but the monster hurricane that destroys NYC is close. (Hurricane Sandy was a blinking neon sign throughout.) Most of the book had an active plot-line that kept you engaged, until the last quarter, when it petered out. Protagonist is an uninteresting, unpleasant and unlikable person with little character development. I don't know what the point of this book is, or what message the author was trying to send.

Has Odds Against Tomorrow turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yes, once I figure out what the genre is

What does Kirby Heyborne bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I don't know, I didn't read the physical book

What character would you cut from Odds Against Tomorrow?

Mitchell, the protagonist

Any additional comments?

Avoid. I may ask for a refund.