The Oracle Year (2018) by Charles Soule – Book Review

I first got introduced to Charles Soule’s writing after reading Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith (2017) so I guess my expectations were high for his debut novel, The Oracle Year (2018). Unfortunately, not only did the book not meet my expectations but shattered them.

The plot follows a guy named Will Dando who wakes up one day to realize he can see the future. And then he and his friend Hamza Sheikh create a website where they post these predictions. This leads to both of them making deals with major companies and subsequently having confrontations with the United States government.

The start is quite promising and I would say that I enjoyed reading the initial half of the book but the middle is so boring that it almost made me put down the novel. When the second half of the yarn started, a lot of random events started occurring which led to the storyline going all over the place.

Besides the preacher Hosiah Branson, no other character stood out for me. The case of religion versus divination was interesting, and if Soule had expanded upon that aspect of the narrative, then this tale might have turned out to be better overall.

In the end, The Oracle Year is nothing but a below-average attempt at a debut novel. Maybe Soule is better suited to writing comics and also at managing the creations of other artists like he did with the must-read Darth Vader comic.