The Oracle

A Novel

By: Ari Juels

Narrated by: Colin Martin

Fears of a weaponized blockchain become reality when a software developer races to deactivate the rogue smart contract targeting him for assassination.

Life is comfortable for a prominent, if schlubby, developer at a New York City blockchain company. That is, until FBI Special Agent Diane Duménil seeks his help against a bewildering threat: The Delphians, worshippers of the god Apollo, have launched a rogue program on a blockchain. It’s offering a crypto bounty to assassinate a European archaeology professor.

The developer brushes off the danger until he learns the next target: himself.

Mythical antiquity collides with a near-future cyberworld as The Oracle’s unassuming hero and his FBI partner race against time to dismantle the Delphians’ murderous blockchain software. Theirs is a whirlwind tale of oracles ancient and modern, vanished antiquities and conjured crypto billions, cybercriminals and digital idealists—narrated by a cynical hero normally more concerned with dark chocolate than the consequences of the technologies he’s pioneering. What happens when the crypto ideals of privacy and truth might cost human lives—especially your own?

©2024 Ari Juels (P)2024 Skyhorse Audio

Critic reviews

"Ari Juels is a brilliant researcher at the forefront of understanding cryptography and what it means for our ability to trust each other and what we see in the world."—Vitalik Buterin, inventor of Ethereum

"Ari Juels’s foresight regularly makes me wonder if he himself should be considered an oracle. His novel The Oracle makes it clear that the interaction between blockchains and AI creates a powerful force for how the world will work."—Sergey Nazarov, cofounder and CEO, Chainlink Labs

"At once a fun read and witty primer on the tech and moral quandaries of the blockchain universe. The Oracle is a rare treat."—Martha Pollack, president, Cornell University

Interesting, but mediocre

The blockchain parts were interesting, the art/greek crossover started weird, but got more manageable as the story progressed. the random references in the book to unrelated things was frustrating. authors commentary on the #metoo movement in the beginning of the book is problematic. other oddities like this took away from the main story.