Awakening from a dream with more than one hundred predictions about the future in his head, an unassuming Manhattan bassist becomes one of the world's most powerful men and hides his identity behind an online persona that is targeted by greedy corporations and dangerous enemies.
When the narrative really gets going, it moves with suspense and well-coordinated attention. The pacing slows during sections in which Will attempts to deal with his knowledge, but these are mostly present in the first two acts. The story maintains momentum as people around the globe first react to the Oracle with wonder, and then fear and anger. And herein is Soule’s greatest victory: The riots for and against the Oracle, the government operations, the religious sermons and the attempts to prove the predictions wrong all feel grounded and born out of a fully aware, digital world. Soule, a well-loved comic book writer of Daredevil, She-Hulk and Star Wars, has delivered a realistic meditation on the consequences of being different
The Oracle Year raises many questions, but adds constant twists of plot. Where did those predictions come from? Were they sent by a genie? Or a demon? If you’re told what you’re going to do in advance, can you just refuse to do it? If it happens anyway, are we looking at providence? Someone, or something, must have had a plan.
In Soule’s latest writing adventure, Will Dando is an average guitar player in New York—struggling to get by, occasionally assisted by friends—until he wakes from a dream with 108 predictions about the future in his head ... Will and his friends struggle to unscramble the pattern to the prophecies, including a few cryptic ones, while they attempt to evade an assassin grandmother, and the entire world panics about a warlord with a nuclear missile. Soule’s background in comics shows in this dark, rollicking tale.
