Will Dando awakens from a dream one morning with 108 predictions 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 website with the help of his friend Hamza to 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 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 and the best manhunters 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.
| Amazon | Waterstones |
The Oracle Year
Charles Soule
The Oracle Year has a great premise and promises an action packed book of Will being on the lam. Unfortunately we spend a lot of the book doing nothing. There’s action that seems to be missing in some places as you feel like you’re being dragged through the book at a painstakingly slow pace. This pacing isn’t throughout but sometimes I felt like yelling at the characters to get a move on. There’s a lot of dialogue between characters to show the reader things rather than us actually being a part of whats going on, and I really wasn’t getting on with the book.
The characters themselves weren’t anything special, and I couldn’t feel attached to any of them. But they are clever and genuinely smart in their actions. At one point the government states that they expected Will to be shouting from the rooftops as a random New York crazy guy, but of course Will very cleverly made his own plan to stay anonymous. But even though they knew what they were doing, I didn’t see them as people with strong emotional connections – even during some of the more emotional scenes.
The ending is written well to help tie up the loose ends and answer any outstanding questions. Plus the plotline itself does seem very thought out and well written. There are a few instances that do seem like an over the top action move – like would that even happen in real life? But then again, nothing was overly dramatic and pulled you out of the story to question it too much.
I’m writing this review quite late, and honestly looking back at this book was difficult. It’s not a particular memorable read but that may be because it’s not one of my favoured genres? But then again when I tried to remember why Will got the predictions (which I think is a big question throughout) I can’t remember. And I know we do get told – I just have no recollection 4 weeks after reading the book.
So overall, it’s not a bad book at all – you could even say it was a good book. But it’s not a great book and it doesn’t leave you wanting more.
POSITIVES
+ Great Premise
+ Smart Characters
+ Loose ends tied up
NEGATIVES
– Pacing
– Lot’s of dialogue, not enough action
– Poor character development
I received The Oracle Year by Charles Soule from the publisher via Edelweiss. This is an unbiased and honest review
Comments
3 responses to “Uptown Oracle Reads… The Oracle Year”
Yaay I can now comment!! This does sound like an interesting read but I know what you mean about sometimes not remembered plots very well. It happens to me a lot! xx
So happy I figured it out! Thanks for helping 🙂 and I’m really bad at remembering plots unless it’s really great! xx
The plot itself sounds interesting but books that get off to a slow start are the worst!