The Oracle Year

By: Charles Soule

Narrated by: Charlie Thurston

Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's Summary

From best-selling comic-book franchise writer Charles Soule comes a clever and witty first novel of a 20-something New Yorker who wakes up one morning with the power to predict the future - perfect for fans of Joe Hill and Brad Meltzer or books like This Book Is Full of Spiders and Welcome to Night Vale.

Knowledge is power. So when an unassuming Manhattan bassist named Will Dando awakens from a dream one morning with 108 predictions about the future in his head, he rapidly finds himself the most powerful man in the world. Protecting his anonymity by calling himself the Oracle, he sets up a heavily guarded website with the help of his friend Hamza to selectively announce his revelations. In no time global corporations are offering him millions for exclusive access, eager to profit from his prophecies.

He's also making a lot of high-powered enemies, from the president of the United States and a nationally prominent televangelist to a warlord with a nuclear missile and an assassin grandmother. Legions of cyber spies are unleashed to hack the Site - as it's come to be called - and the best man hunters money can buy are deployed not only to unmask the Oracle but to take him out of the game entirely. With only a handful of people he can trust - including a beautiful journalist - it's all Will can do to simply survive, elude exposure, and protect those he loves long enough to use his knowledge to save the world.

Delivering fast-paced adventure on a global scale as well as sharp-witted satire on our concepts of power and faith, Marvel writer Charles Soule's audacious debut novel takes listeners on a rollicking ride where it's impossible to predict what will happen next.

©2018 Charles Soule (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews

"Narrator Charlie Thurston carefully leads the listener down the story's path with subtle intonations suggesting that our hero is never quite sure he is doing the right thing....  From the author of Marvel comic series such as Daredevil and She-Hulk, this is outstanding work that challenges the listener's idea of right and wrong." (AudioFile)

Wish it were more

I was excited about this, because it was highly rated through the "book of the month" club. . I kept waiting for this book to get better, but if anything, it just got worse. Predictable, one dimensional characters. Also dragged on way longer than it needed to. I thought the pacing was terrible. I would not recommend using a credit for this, maybe check out at your local library. Left unsatisfied and disappointed.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Oh so good!

Cryptic from the beginning, I was hooked from page one. Definitely a good story. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

interesting but weak ending

it was an interesting, somewhat predictable story. The ending could have been stronger. Overall, can't beat it up too bad.

Surprisingly good

The first chapter is shit (and maybe the ending a little cliche), but the rest of the book is much better than I expected, to be honest.

Great Story Line That Kept Me Guessing

The novel had a slower start for me trying to figure out the significance of the information that you have been given but that really resonates with the character and his same situation of having information but not knowing its significance or how he was to use it. This book kept me guessing on an overall plot line but also kept me entertained with in the smaller individual characters story lines.

Great Book

This book was given to me by my best friend and I was skeptical about it. I was very pleasantly surprised when I read it. The story had me from the beginning and it made me make time to finish it as quickly as possible. It was a great story from beginning to end with no lag at any point.

Started out Good but ends flat

Fun story but a bit to lite and unbelievable. Seemed like the story would end with a mystery solved but instead ends stupidly.

A different kind of crystal ball

Filled with wit, charm, intrigue, mystery and sass this audiobook will leave you satisfied. I think there is something for everyone but this reads like a “guy” book with a totally different type of “superhero”. I was hooked from the start and kept wanting to find out more about the Oracle and how this would play out. Fair warning there are several instances where politics and religion play a crutial role in this story but the author does a good job of coupling those with other mainstream issues too. I mean, c’mon if anyone reading this could tell me that they wouldn’t put their predictions on the internet to make money, then you are a better person than I. In several other reviews it has been noted that the characters are flat, however, I think the author gives the characters some good depth and you get to see how they change from the start to the end of the book. For this type of story the characters were given enough depth for you to care about how things turned out for them. I am a sucker for black ops and secret off-the-book missions storylines so I enjoyed that part of the story. One thing I felt as if the story dragged at some of the middle points but picked back up near the end. Stick through the middle part because to see how everything comes together at the end is definitely worth it. The narration was done quite well. This was my first performance by Thurston and he brought a lot to the book. His character voices were on point and easy to differentiate between characters. He even does a convincing aging woman’s voice too. Predictions…good, mystery…good, sass…good so what is not to like. Give this one a try I think you will come to enjoy it.

What would you do if you knew

A very interesting premise - what happens when you know 108 facts about the future? The story follows this problem that Will Dando has. It does it in a compelling manner and always entertaining. The suspense is solid and the conclusions are logical. The knowing of the future doesn't make you an oracle - only telling someone does.

Complete, single, solid read

It was a great tight story with enough fast paced storytelling to keep you reading but not a lot of extra details that get you lost. Very well read and a simple enough book that lets you escape into a relatable story.

A gripping story.

I really enjoyed this. The Oracle Year has a great premise that of a young guy mysteriously receiving 108 predictions about the future that start to become true. And the storytelling holds up to the interesting premise. We're genuinely sucked into the the lives and story of the characters and the pace of the storytelling compels you to want to discover more of the fate of 'The Oracle' and how things play out.
It's great to discover a story that has such a different premise to everything else out there. Charles Soule's style gives the story a great pace and supports the suspension of disbelief perfectly in a gripping adventure.
The reading of the story only grated on me in parts. I'm not a fan of some of the voices put on by the narrator but that's more a personal preference and I know it helps to identify the characters speaking. But the breathy voice whenever a woman is talking and the hilarious Dick Van Dyke-esk British sailor accent took the edge off the overall performance.
Knowing Charles as a comics writer some of these comic storytelling elements snuck in early on in the story. It's easy to slip into exposition via the characters speech. When you have the breathing space in a novel you can just to explain this to the reader and render the dialogue more natural, but this only occurs a couple of times early on. I didn't notice it so much later.
I'll totally be recommending this book and look forward to discovering more of the the writers work.

If I Could See The Future

If I could see the future I probably wouldn't have finished this book because although it starts very well it's downhill from about two hours in.

Let me make my own prediction. You WILL be disappointed by the ending.