Breaking News of Tomorrow keeps readers guessing—both about the site itself, and about the morality and cause-and-effect of Mike’s engagement with it. Mike starts to see the site as the work of a deeply connected hacker, but his fiancée Jenn thinks it's actively evil. Mike ignores her concerns, studies the site's predictions, and develops an algorithm that makes an enormous amount of money, occasionally feeding Sorrow information that helps make the predictions come true, which leads to a dizzying set of questions regarding cause and effect with this information. Mike's ambitions lead him to make bold moves in an effort to become one of the world’s richest and most powerful men—at the price of possibly losing Jenn, and of making powerful enemies.
For all the excitement of the premise and wealth of convincing detail, the end, where Mike at last meets the site’s creator, is confusing and somewhat rushed. The dialogue that drives the story feels a bit stilted at times, though Chirashnya gives his characters vivid personalities and backstories. Still, Chirashnya's attention to detail and willingness to take an idea to its logical extreme creates a scenario where a good person goes down a path of ethical corruption, where the world becomes a series of transactions engineered for maximum efficiency.
Takeaway: A smartly plotted thriller of seeing and betting on the future.
Comparable Titles: Tim Tigner’s Stolen Thoughts, Douglas E. Richards’s The Immortality Code.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B
Marketing copy: A-
