November 2, 2020
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. Agent: Zoe Sandler, ICM Partners.
November 15, 2020
The rise and fall of two best friends-turned-tech entrepreneurs, whose invention of a time machine promises to disrupt the internet, industry, and everyone's lives. Frey, a screenwriter and author of an audiobook, The Retreat (2019), imposes an important constraint on his protagonists, Adhvan "Adhi" Chaudry and Ben Boyce, creators of a company called The Future. The Future's Prototype device can access the internet of exactly one year into the future, providing a glimpse into events yet to unfold. The catch is that whatever information the Prototype transmits is written in proverbial stone: Nothing can be done to change it. The novel strikes a particularly haunting note when Ben and Adhi first wrestle with the implications of their invention. When attempting to prevent a gruesome murder, the two of them wind up complicit in the crime. Later, a research associate learns about his own impending death, self-medicates to treat the fright, overdoses, and dies. But rather than explore the potentially terrifying results of a machine that can obliterate free will, Frey's story quickly sinks into a drama of techno-capitalists fighting over how many billions to sell out for and when: The Future attracts venture capital, Google offers a buyout, Ben and Adhi suffer a falling-out. Unfortunately, the tight focus on the co-founders' friendship forfeits the unimaginable potential of such a technology. A promising SF premise sputters into a story of Silicon Valley back-stabbing.
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