cover image The Future Is Yours

The Future Is Yours

Dan Frey. Del Rey, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-15821-0

Two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs discover that the future is in flux in this tightly braided if slightly overwrought tech thriller from Frey (The Retreat). Ben Boyce finds the investors that enable his business partner Adhvan Chaudry to build his dream: a quantum computer entangled with its future self, able to communicate from a year ahead. Success and security concerns spoil the party, though, as the two move in different directions over ethical questions about how to use their glimpses into the future. Ben wants a seat at the techie billionaire table and is willing to compromise his morals to get it, but Adhvan is concerned when the future the machine shows them starts to change as they get closer to bringing their invention to market. Frey folds in a good amount of suspense by shaping the narrative around Ben’s testimony before a congressional committee set to decide on the legal and ethical implications of the technology, tantalizing readers with statements and documents that slowly reveal Ben and Adhvan’s past. Adhvan’s climactic solution for Congress’s hostility to their company is a bit of a deus ex machina, but even in the bombastic finale the character dynamics ring true. Sci-fi fans are sure to be entertained. [em]Agent: Zoe Sandler, ICM Partners. (Feb.) [/em]