The Man Who Saw Seconds

by Alexander Boldizar

Preble Jefferson can see five seconds into the future. When government agencies become aware of his skill, Preble will do whatever it takes to protect his family.

Winner, 2025 Locus Award for best science fiction book of 2024
Winner, CIBA Mark Twain grand prize winner for best satire of 2024
Finalist, Foreword Reviews for best thriller of 2024
Finalist, Eric Hoffer Award
Locus Magazine Best Science Fiction of 2024
"10 for 2024" Year-End Best Books List

“One of the most dazzling and inventive [books] I’ve read in a very long time—a novel I continue to describe as indescribable. Boldizar has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Heller and Stephen King, and that says much of what you can expect when you enter the world of The Man Who Saw Seconds. I’ve now read the book twice, and I can’t decide if it’s a thriller, a farce, a political commentary. I don’t know what it is other than I love it.”
—Jim Fusilli, Writers at Work

“The Man Who Saw Seconds is an action thriller that is genuinely thrilling: the pacing is perfect, and the stakes ratchet up in a horrifying, relentless, and seemingly inevitable progression...I hope this can be genre-spanning, and that it gets the attention it deserves from every awards list, science fiction and not.”
–Locus Magazine

“A wildly ambitious masterpiece of speculative fiction that fires on all cylinders. With its blend of audacious ideas, blistering action, emotional heft, and sparkling prose, it instantly establishes Alexander Boldizar as a major voice in sci-fi. Highly recommended for readers looking for a thrilling yet cerebral experience that pushes the boundaries of the genre and the mind itself. A bold, visionary triumph.”
–Hidden Sci-Fi

"This is a book of cinematic velocity and frequent, dark satiric impact. Think of it as a brilliant exercise in multi genre collage, a mash-up of some of the best elements of the thriller, the novel of ideas, anarchism, philosophy and quantum theory."
—Vancouver Sun

“Wickedly smart, outrageously funny, and unsettling in its accuracy. The satire is pointed, and the action is non-stop. Think: Elmore Leonard meets Nabokov, Michael Crichton meets Vonnegut, Carl Hiaasen meets Joseph Heller. And it has what is probably the best gunfight in literary history. But this book is more than a fast-paced satire. It’s a warning for America, for the world, really. And, at its core, it’s a poignant love story. The Man Who Saw Seconds is destined to be a classic and, with it, Boldizar’s place as one of literature’s most important satirical writers is assured.”
—Kevin Winchester, ‍Sunflower Dog

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Thriller, Time Travel, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Speculative Fiction

325 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2024

About the author

Alexander Boldizar was the first post-independence Slovak citizen to graduate with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. Since then, he has been an art gallery director in Bali, an attorney in San Francisco and Prague, a pseudo-geisha in Japan, a hermit in Tennessee, a paleontologist in the Sahara, a porter in the High Arctic, a consultant on Wall Street, an art critic out of Jakarta and Singapore, and a police-abuse watchdog and Times Square billboard writer in New York City. He now lives in Vancouver, Canada.

‍Boldizar’s writing has won the PEN/Nob Hill prize, a Somerset Award for literary fiction, and other awards, including a Best New American Voices nomination. His novel, The Ugly, was a best-seller among small presses in the United States with several “Best Book of 2016” awards and lists. He has a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, is a founding director of a charity that brings circus to youth in at-risk communities, and was once challenged to a leg-wrestling contest by the founder of The Onion.

Reviews

[E.R. Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Man Who Saw Seconds is a tightly-wound but thoughtful thriller written with verve and a commitment to thoroughly explore its intriguing notion. The protagonist, Preble Jefferson, can see five seconds into the future. Boldizar doesn’t just use this as a plot device, he explores the idea and examines the many ways this affects the character and his relationship to the world. While much of the book is awash in edge-of-your-seat energy, we also get a philosophical discussion of the ramifications of this quirky idea. A great read with a truly unique feel.

[Linzie (suspenseisthrillingme) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Preble Jefferson can see five seconds into the future.

Otherwise, he lives an ordinary life. But when a confrontation with a cop on a New York City subway goes tragically wrong, those seconds give Preble the chance to dodge a bullet—causing another man to die in his place.

Government agencies become aware of Preble’s gift, a manhunt ensues, and their ambitions shift from law enforcement to military R&D. Preble will do whatever it takes to protect his family, but as events spiral out of control, he must weigh the cost of his gift against the loss of his humanity.

A cat-and-mouse game that will keep you on the edge of your seat, The Man Who Saw Seconds offered up quite the philosophical exploration on what it means to be free. While there were more unnecessary details than I would’ve liked, including acronyms and military jargon that went well over my head, the overriding plot kept me flipping the pages. Going back back and forth between fast-paced and overladen with facts, I did find myself skimming quite a bit, though. Perhaps, however, I just walked a bit too far outside of my wheelhouse in terms of genre. A sci-fi thriller that had an almost spy craft edge, it doesn’t happen to be one that I dive into often. Just the same, if you’re looking for a book that is thought-provoking but also quite the rollercoaster ride of suspense, I suggest giving this one a try. Rating of 3 stars.

Thank you to Alexander Boldizar and CLASH Books for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

PUB DATE: May 21, 2024

[Yvonne Tunnat · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author Alexander Boldizar used to be a lawyer, which explains the details about american law that are important while the plot moves forward. These facts usually are provided by the protagonist's best friend Fish. In my opinion, Fish is one of the greatest and coolest supportive characters in a novel I read during the last years.

Preble lives an unobtrusive life with his wife Jane, his son Kaspar, and some friends, like his best friend Fish, who is a lawyer. Preble's hobbies are chess and boxing and he earns a decent living with gambling.

Preble has the ability to look five seconds into the future. He has to actually look at it, can test possibilities and then know how they would come out. It's not a long window maybe, but he has trained himself to use it well, thus, there is a lot he can do with it. It started with his puberty and does not always work, some very emotional states might prevent him from "seeing", but mostly, it works.

However, he cannot see stuff coming which is farer in the future. That's why he finds himself in a conflict with two police officers in the subway. He is taking up two seats with his chess bag. It's a trifle, really, in Europe, you see that all the time. I do not know about New York, but the reaction of the police officers seems a little too much. Nevertheless, Preble and the officers do not get along at all. As they demand to look into the bag, Preble refuses on principle, thinking about his friend Fish:

"Fish always said that if only people with severed heads in their bags claimed their rights, then pretty soon those rights would be gone."

One word follows the other, it escalates, the officers feel threatened, and they carry guns and start to use them.

Preble, being able to see the next five seconds into the future, cannot be hit, he always evades the shots, but this leads to the officers hitting each other instead. Support is called and in the end, more than a dozen officers try to shoot Preble down, hitting each other instead. He is able to get home, but of course, his face was recorded by the security cameras, so he debates first with his wife, later also with Fish, what to do. Because his wife Jane and his best friend Fish are the only ones who know about his ability - yet.

That's the point at which I started to learn a lot about American laws, mostly through Fish's words, who is a lawyer. For example, the "felony murder rule", which, according to Fish means: "If someone dies as a result of your committing a felony, then you're guilty of murder."

The question is: Was Preble committing a crime not letting himself be shot?


The bigger problem, of course, is that one of the people in charge, Bigman, sees the security video of the shooting and knows Preble must have special abilities. He quickly knows what Preble would be capable of - and that makes him very fearful.


First, Preble decides to turn himself in, but that quickly goes very bad. Fleeing is not really good, either, as Bigman is determined to catch Preble.


Not only is there much suspense in the novel (there are times, where I just could not put it away), it also has great emotional moments, especially when it's about Preble's relationship to his son, Kaspar.

Not only is Kasper well-written (he's only three, but a smart three-year-old, still believable), the emotional bond between Preble and Kaspar also is greatly written, both ways. As a parent, I could totally feel for Preble. Kasper feels very authentic to me and so does the father-son relationship. They have great moments in a more quiet part of the novel.

"Kaspar was in kid heaven - hunting and fishing with Preble, gardening with Jane, and all of them reading together at night."


Science: Physics and biology
Although they talk a lot about biology, which is used to try to explain the main character's (Preble) ability, but I doubt the novel's topic really is biology.

The quotes at the beginning suggest it might be more physics, and so does the punchline. As I won't spoil the ending, you'll have to trust me here.


Nevertheless, the scenes in which medicine experts try to figure out what's different with Preble's brain are intellectually stimulating and I do not want to miss them. Anyway, there might be something different biologically with Preble as well.

I did not know that our human brains actually predict the future, even if it's only half a second or so. But we do that via anticipation, for example, when we catch a ball, we'll just calculate where the ball might be at the time we will have to catch it.


There's more of it, and some talk about what might be different about the main figure, Preble Jefferson, to enable him to see more of the future. Even if this might touch physics more than biology. Either way, this is a science fiction novel and it should be translated to German to be read widely by our science fiction fans.



It's hinted at things Preble could be doing with his abilities, like working in a lab, cutting all the dead ends while seeing which experiment will go well and which will not. Much stuff to steal from for others to write other great novels about this idea, look from another angle.

Plus, there are frostbite issues which are really gross. I liked that, and plus, it's important for the story.

The premise of the story
There are many superhero stories around, especially movies. But what would really happen if a person with superhuman powers emerges? There is a reason to hide one's powers, and a good one.

Preble is more a threat for most people than anything else. Although he has no ill intentions at the beginning of the novel , this changes as his family is endangered.

It's a very sad story in many moments, but I appreciate how the plot evolves and it seems necessary in retrospect, as it's highly credible that it would evolve just like this.

Some plottwists may not be very american-friendly, as a European it's easy for me to digest. There are also some very cool telephone calls between Preble and the Russian president. (The Russian president is not the one in our current reality and neither is the American one.)

Nevertheless, the premise is:

Don't be fearful, you'll do evil things.


Sounds banal (which is true for every premise, if you really cook it down), but it's a great showing how Fearfulness can end. As some people in charge are fearful of what Preble might be capable of, they do evil things, really evil things.


Not being fearful (for which Preble's son might be the best example) can bring very good things. But this might be another premise for another novel. The next one maybe, Alexander?

To put it more in big letters:
This novel shows how to make monsters.

The punchline is great!
If you are used to prose like this, you might guess it early on, like I did on page 195. Nevertheless, it's still fun to read! And very, very thrilling.

It tends to be a bit more political as my usual comfort zone, but I could take it, as it felt well thought through. Much more than that Nicolas Cage movie, Next, which is based on a PKD-Story (I know the movie, not the story yet).

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 1 out of 5]

Make It Make Sense
Review of the CLASH Books eBook (May 21, 2024) released simultaneously with the paperback & audiobook.

She’d once asked him, “How can a man who can see the future make so many mistakes?”

This is a postcard from Outlier Island 🏝️📨📬.
I took a chance on this one from indie publisher CLASH Books as the premise did seem intriguing. It sounded like it took inspiration from both Philip K. Dick and Stephen King. From the former's novella The Minority Report (1956) & the short story The Golden Man* (1954). From the latter's novel The Dead Zone (1979). In other words, it is about someone unique and who can see the future and is hunted by other humans / governments in order to be either destroyed or utilized.

From one foolish encounter on a New York City subway, the lead character has to go on the run with his family. His nemesis in the American National Security Agency (NSA) has realized his future seeing power and is determined to hunt him down. It all leads up to a crazed apocalyptic conclusion.

All this from a guy who can only see 5 seconds into the future? Somehow from what seems to me to be a relatively minor power, the character is somehow able to access any phone number, hack any computer, determine any password later on in the book. The 5-second window lets him dodge bullets because he can "see" where the bullets will be when they arrive. Somehow this allows him to cause various cops and soldiers to shoot each other? It just doesn't make any sense.

In between the frenetic action scenes there are long respites of discussions about morality and space-time. Those did bring up some concepts and words which I had never previously heard of such as Laplace's Demon, sesquipedalian, chresmomancy and cephaleonomancy. So there was that.

Unfortunately it all ends in a scenario requiring an Unsatisfactory Ending Alert™.

Footnote, Trivia and Link
* I realize that the link to the book doesn't explain the short story, so you can find that at its Wikipedia entry here (Spoilers obviously).

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexander Boldizar approached me with this book, hoping that I would find the same hype that others had lauded on his publication. I agreed to give it a try, open to see if it sparked the same excitement. The premise is something that clearly interested me, though delivery does not always ensure success. The accolades that Boldizar has amassed are impressive, though these people are likely seeing something I did not.

Preble Jefferson enjoys a fairly normal life in New York City. At least that is what he would like to believe. He has a power completely out of his control and which proves to be both a blessing and a curse. He can see five seconds into the future!

A skirmish on the subway leaves a handful of cops shot and recorded proof that Preble could foresee the bullets flying. This alerts the nefarious agencies of the government to Preble’s abilities and makes him a wanted man. A manhunt to locate Preble Jefferson ensues, less due to the legal implications of the shooting and more for how to harness his abilities for military abilities the US could utilise.

While many are searching for Preble, there is an internal struggle at play. The cost of protecting himself from the spotlight must be balanced with how to keep his family from being scrutinised. Preble worries that this power could fall into the wrong hands, but must also admit that helping his country is woven into his psyche. What choice to make is neither clear nor simple. Boldizar delivers a thought-provoking story that could easily impress the reader.

The premise of any story is offset by its delivery. One must also realise that one reader’s addictive thriller is another’s time devouring read. While I am impressed with the glitzy awards Alexander Boldizar had for this book, I cannot (and will not) let them blind me from having my own views. I found the narrative moved with ease and the characters proved believable, though neither were able to substantially capture my attention. The plot was transitional and appeared to work well, though nothing gripped me and shook me to my core. I admit, if a book does not pique my attention in the early pages, it is not likely to do so as time passes. I will let others laud and praise Boldizar for this book, as it simply did not do it for me. The unfortunate thing is that I cannot put a finger on why, which helps no one to concretely know if they ought to steer clear!

Kudos, Mr. Boldizar, for a valiant effort!

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of books bill themselves as high-octane; not all of them live up to it. This book would not let up, right up to its thrilling and shocking end, and is genuinely one of those books I wish I could read again for the first time.

Some guy, Preble, is sitting on the subway when two cops approach him. He’s on some “Not today, Satan”; and, you see, Preble was born with a special gift: he can see a few seconds into the future. So he’s fairly confident that he can deal with the cops. But what plays out in the next short while leaves nineteen cops shot; Preble is unarmed, but he’s used that gift to defend himself. The story would more or less end there, except someone—the Assistant Director of the NSA—sees something unusual in the CCTV footage from the scene, and has a hunch about Preble.

Although at the beginning of the story Preble is simply the victim of unfortunate events, he snaps when his family—in particular, his son—is threatened. This becomes the story of one man—superhuman, admittedly, or no longer human at all, something that’s intriguingly explored in the novel—against the System; except, as always, the System is actually one obsessed man with the might of Government behind him.

There are lots of moral questions: how far will Preble go? How much does he owe others, beyond his family—the rest of humanity, in fact? I think Boldizar resolves all of those questions really neatly. While there are pages of philosophy as Boldizar works through the very concept—the fiction—of time, ultimately The Man Who Saw Seconds is greater than the sum of any of its parts. It’s a super fun, fast-paced read with a warm heart: Preble’s love for and protection of his son.

Boldizar has delivered one of my favourite reads of the year. I look forward to reading it again. Many thanks to CLASH Books and to Edelweiss for early access.

[TheBookWarren · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️¼ — 4.25 stars

The Man Who Saw Seconds is one of those rare novels that arrives with a premise so clean, so instantly intriguing, that you almost feel the author daring you not to tear through it in a single sitting. And truthfully? I nearly did. This is a slick, sharply engineered thriller built atop biting, elegant prose—the kind that snaps with confidence yet never forgets the emotional stakes beneath all the perpetual momentum.

Our protagonist is wonderfully realised, easily the most compelling element of the book. His backstory is layered without ever feeling laboured, & the author does a terrific job mapping the sliding-door moments that shape him long before his strange gift emerges. He feels lived in—a man with history, hurt, & layered with just enough moral ambiguity that his later choices, while rapid, aren’t entirely unimaginable. But the same depth doesn’t always extend to the supporting cast. Several of the subsidiary characters exist mainly to move the plot along, lacking the dimensionality the story’s high-concept engine deserved.

And here is where the novel stumbles just enough to cost it a higher rating. The escalation comes fast—too fast. The main character’s ability to see a few seconds into the future is fascinating, but the book treats it as a near-omnipotent superpower. In a matter of chapters, a previously law-abiding man is functioning more like a supervillain, outmaneuvering elite agencies and “large forces” with an ease that stretches credulity. A five-second window shouldn’t guarantee dominance over the Secret Service, SWAT-level responses, or hardened operatives, & the narrative occasionally leans too hard into this convenient invincibility. Those leaps, exhilarating as they sometimes are, come at the expense of realism—and ultimately shave off what could’ve been a 5-star experience.

Still, the tension is exquisite. The pacing is relentless in the best sense—propulsive, breathless, almost unputdownable. The stakes compound with near-mathematical precision, and even when I questioned the plausibility, I never questioned whether I wanted to keep reading.

The ending, too, is superb—clever, thematically resonant, and emotionally weighty. Yet for the protagonist, it lands in a slightly too-grey zone, a shade of ambiguity that may divide readers. For me, it was powerful but left a faint itch of dissatisfaction.

This indeed was a riveting, high-concept thriller that nearly achieves greatness—and still delivers a hell of a ride, despite aforementioned leaps in logic that to me feel a little bit silly and that shattered the 4th wall. But there is no doubt this is a great bit of thriller-sci-fi that engages the reader, invests us in the plight, the fight & wraps up with some pizazz.

[Martin Ott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A split-second decision can change a life, but you have never experienced it snowball the way you do in Seconds, a fast-paced speculative novel by Alexander Boldizar. A man who can see seconds into the future has an incident with police that forces him to use his powers to save himself. Once exposed, he becomes public enemy number one and the government kidnaps and threatens his family. Bad idea to escalate a conflict with man who has studied martial arts and chess, with the ability to literally dodge bullets. No novel in recent memory answers the question as convincingly: “Will I risk destroying the world to save the people I love?” Boldizar raises stakes to world-tipping proportions and I literally lost sleep turning pages to discover what happens next. Seconds is a science fiction tour de force.

[Kate Hergott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an action packed thriller that will have you contemplating the deeply nuanced question of what it means to be good or bad, while simultaneously challenging the structures and protocols that make up the US government.

Preble Jefferson can see 5 seconds in the future, but that doesn't stop him from letting a situation escalate with a power hungry cop on his subway ride home - after all, if we don't protect our freedoms as citizens, won't they just slowly erode until no freedoms remain? The situation spirals into violence, but Preble escapes multiple officers and bullets, barely making it out with his life. Now he's a wanted man who made a fool of the NYPD, but all he can think about is getting to his wife and son and protecting those who matter most to him.

Meanwhile, NSA agent "Bigman" sees the footage of Preble dodging bullets and knows he is a direct threat to national, and even international, security, and makes it his mission to detain and eliminate this "terrorist" at all costs.

What follows is a high octane cat and mouse game between Preble and Bigman - but it's hardly a fair fight when Bigman has all law enforcement agencies on his side. As Preble does everything he can to protect his family, and Bigman pulls out all the stops to wrangle who he sees as a threat to all of humanity, Boldizar forces the reader to confront the notion of bending morality to fit motivation and the perils of government employees rigidly following protocols.

This book hade me on the edge of my seat while also challenging me with uncomfortable truths about the way humanity can justify actions on both personal and macro levels.

[Reader Views · Rating 5 out of 5]

Preble Jefferson has two thalami, an occurrence that had never been experienced or recorded. The thalamus is the sensory relay station of the brain, taking in sights, sounds, and touch; it plays a crucial role in consciousness and motor control. While there is much neuroscientists don’t know about the thalamus, Preble Jefferson is aware of the unique abilities his having two thalami has presented. Having trained himself to see five seconds into the future, his brain is able to encode billions of possibilities to see the outcome five seconds before it happens. Jefferson’s ability makes him a threat should his talents ever become known.

Living his life in relative shadows, Preble spends his days playing chess with Hungarian Robert Legmegbetegedettebbeknek, otherwise known as Fish. That is until one night, on the train home from another chess match with Fish, two police officers approach him for taking up two seats on an otherwise empty train. In a moment he later regrets, Preble doesn’t immediately relent, and a series of events unfolds that he can never undo.

Alexander Boldizar uses a genetic anomaly to craft an extraordinary thriller. An otherwise ordinary man, who just wants to lead a normal life with his wife and child, is sucked into a government conspiracy with no foreseeable way out. “The Man Who Saw Seconds” closely resembles a Marvel-esque film, but without the super suit and team of others possessing superpowers. Preble Jefferson is alone in his determination to save his family. Relatable, with a believable twist on science fiction, Boldizar creates a read that leaves us all wondering who exactly might be living along the fringes of society.

From the train encounter to the very last sentence, Alexander Boldizar’s “The Man Who Saw Seconds” flew by as my own mind worked out the probability of others with this genetic anomaly possibly living in the real world. Boldizar uses the game of chess as a tangible and relatable comparison to the mind of Preble Jefferson. As the game unfolds, and the events play out, Preble is already two steps ahead, until the game gets too far out of control and the possibility of returning to normal life becomes a distant possibility. The government villains, good guys, and foreign leaders caught up as the game unwinds create an exciting and extraordinary read. Boldizar truly captivates and intrigues readers with this latest work.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impossible to put down. Gripping from the start, and an ending I was NOT prepared for!! Mr Bolidizar has a fan for life, and I really hope to see a sequel(?)!!

[Neihls Jacobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Man Who Saw Seconds is so much the perfect summer read that it reminded me of the time I learned how to barefoot waterski on a small lake in Northern Ontario.

From the moment I said “hit it” I was up on two feet and quickly assumed a stiff seated posture and braced my feet against an insistent laminar flow of lake water. This was the pace of the first eight chapters. It's got the pace and first-person action of a Lee Child Jack Reacher story, the man-vs-establishment-vs-man tension of Serpico, and the central sci-fi device that lets you plunge as shallowly or as deeply as you like.

Once I was comfortable with the parameters of my precarious perch, I afforded myself some range to experiment with the sensation on the soles of my feet, try steering a bit, and entertain the volley of tips and jokes from my family in the cockpit. In a lyrical interlude, Boldizar explores biological materialism steeped in the melancholy of parental devotion that left me feeling like I had when reading McCarthy’s The Road.

Seconds doesn’t relent for too long, though, as it steers us into a constricted bay, where a barefoot waterskier has to decide… attempt a difficult high-speed turn, or let go of the boom and sink into a foot of clear water over fathomless strata of decaying vegetation and loon shit. Seconds takes us headlong into that bay, considering physics, family, society, and having to live with our own stupid rash decisions.

Jump in, the water's fine!

[Anita George · Rating 2 out of 5]

After 3 weeks and getting only halfway through, I'm putting this aside. It's not poorly written and the author does well at creating suspense, but I have major difficulties with the main concept. I just don't understand how seeing 5 seconds (at most) into the future serves as an advantage and makes one a major threat to one's country. Apart from being able to step aside the second before something was about to hit you (not something that happens frequently) the only advantage I can think of is in casinos (the main character's main source of income), but even there, the advantage wld not be as huge as the author claims. You'd know when to hold in blackjack and you'd know if an opponent in poker is about to beat you so cld fold and save the cost of a final bet, but the character makes his money on the slots and roulette and I just can't see how a 5 second glimpse into the future works there. Plus other plot points really strain belief. A government operative suspects--and merely suspects--that he can see a few seconds into the future, so threatens to waterboard his 3 year old son unless he turns himself in? Seriously? And the amount of money, effort and manpower devoted to hunting the main character based on a mere hunch that he may be able to see a few seconds into the future beggars belief. I'm quite happy to suspend disbelief in novels, but this seems completely untethered from reality.

[Lia Preyde · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just not it for me. Overcomplicated military jargon and oversimplified physics. The premise is extremely cool, but inconsistently executed. For example, loved the explanation as to how the five second advantage helped narrow down the odds with roulette but how in the hell does it make him successful at slots? And absent a situation where all of the cops were constantly surrounding him in a circle formation, how does dodging the bullets shot AT HIM turn into the cops shooting each other?

I also hate, HATE, when authors can’t pull off a realistic way that a young child speaks. And waterboarding a three year old? Like ya, give our protagonist something to rage over, but the government ordering the Guantanamo-style torturing of a toddler over a suspicion that his dad can see into the future? Nope.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an SF near-future thriller by a writer from the Slovak Republic. It, surprisingly for me, won the Locus Award for best SF novel this year. I read it as a part of the Buddy reads for July 2025 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group.

The protagonist of the novel is Preble Jefferson. He has a unique gift – to ‘see’ a few seconds in the futures (plural!) and choose the optimal one. This allows him to be very good in something short-term, like chess boxing or blitz chess. Alas, it isn’t helpful at all in matters that take longer.

The book starts with one of such matters, which changes Preble’s life: following the views of his immigrant anarchist lawyer friend on whether to allow the police to provide an unlawful search, he denies his permission. While formally right, it just ticks the cops the wrong way and they draw guns, trigger-happy and ready to shoot. And shoot they did, but the 5-second future view allows Preble to dodge the bullets, while cops aren’t that lucky. What follows is more and more cops entering the scene and starting to shoot. 700 bullets later, there are more dead and wounded NYPD best than after 9/11 and while Preble hasn’t fired a single shot, she is turned public enemy #1. Moreover, a person from one of the USA's many security agencies, after watching the videos of the shooting, understands that such an 'ordinary' man can reach and kill or kidnap anyone, including the US president, so such a potential threat should be eliminated in advance.

The rest of the book is an attempt by Preble to return to his old quiet life with his wife and son, while security agencies of not only the USA but China and Russia, try to get him or at least block others from getting him. As the story progresses, it turns more and more bloody.

It is an interesting (if unrealistic) premise, and there are both rubber science attempts to support the possibility and (much more interesting) thoughts on how such a person can affect both his close ones (e.g. diffuse a conflict before it starts) and the world in general.

There are things that I’d changed, a smaller death toll for sure and less glorification of russia (just a few sentences in the whole book but still), but the book had left me thinking and I love when books do that.

[Thomas I · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazingly entertaining book! I thoroughly enjoyed it - so much so that I missed getting off the express bus one day coming home from an office day. Had to wait ages to get a bus back the other way but I didn’t mind!

Despite all the action, this book had plenty to say that made me think much more deeply about perception, intelligence, ballistics, motivation, and world politics than your typical action-thriller.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile]]

DNF at 50 pages in

Unsurprisingly, not for me at all.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wild, shoot-em-up that has elements of a spy novel, elements of science fiction, and an exploration of the tangled web of bureaucracy that precariously holds large governments together.

This is a lot of fun to read. Fast-paced and suspenseful, even the parts in the woods of rural Canada.

Highly recommended.

*One unusual thing to note is that it might be troubling for those not from North America with the use of government-related acronyms and initialisms that so many anglophones love. (DARPA, CIA, NSA, etc.) I had no trouble with this, but I know many of my neighbors in Europe will have to do some googling.

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't even put into words how much this book moved me. I haven't read an epilogue that made me cry before

[Kryssi D'Eredita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great concept; poor execution. This was not at all the book I thought I’d be reading, which was a disappointment. And then the author would go off on tangents that were not necessary and could’ve been shortened considerably. He starts off able to see 5 seconds into the future- pretty cool, but the farther into the book we go, the more he seems to be able to do and know everything - ridiculous. Then the ending. Sheesh.

[Jay Tate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful. I can’t understand the 4 and 5 stars from immediately after that was published. This was bad on every level. I started skimming early, then progressed to skipping whole pages. I rarely throw out the one star, but I was given no choice.

[Jill Rey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Preble Jefferson has two thalami, an occurrence that had never been experienced or recorded. The thalamus is the sensory relay station of the brain, taking in sights, sounds, and touch; it plays a crucial role in consciousness and motor control. While there is much neuroscientists don’t know about the thalamus, Preble Jefferson is aware of the unique abilities his having two thalami has presented. Having trained himself to see five seconds into the future, his brain is able to encode billions of possibilities to see the outcome five seconds before it happens. Jefferson’s ability makes him a threat should his talents ever become known.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until I read the afterword, this book seemed strange. And I’m not the kind of person who reads afterwords. So let me give it to you straight.

The. author is from one of those Slavic countries that flamed briefly as independent kingdoms, then were subsumed into Yugoslavia, then split again, albeit in the crucible of civil war. But then he came to the US, went to Harvard Law, and changed professions a dozen times since. I’m not sure he ever practiced law. He’s a black belt in two or three exotic Oriental combat sports. Then his young son was kidnapped, although the son was recovered safely and swiftly. Finally, in the middle of writing this book, and trying to write an ending, his wife died after a long bout with cancer.


Are you with me? This guy is pissed-off. I’d guess his mood when drafting this was—the world owes me.

Others here say the writing is too convoluted. Or that the lengthy explanations set into dialogue. Nonsense. And I particularly don’t understand the last point, because good action suspense stories use dialogue, not description, to play out the plot.

Ok, when reading this, I found it helped to be an engineer. And to be a lawyer. Fortunately, I’m both, but the Science Fiction device introduced almost immediately “takes time to absorb” (giggle snort).

There were some improbable moments, almost all of which involve the lead character’s lawyer and chess partner, a guy named Fish. If the old movie trope “he knows too much” ever were needed, it’s here

All that being said, I liked it. It does bog down in the middle. The author over-complicates matters without adding sufficient body-count to carry the suspense forward.

But the beginning and the end are spectacular. The end, particularly, which gives me the opportunity to note the author is male and virtually all characters are male. So will chicks like this? Yes. The one woman character, the wife of the protagonist, feels real. A person not consumed day to day by the consequences of her husband’s abilities, until those consequences began to consume her and their young son.

Is the action realistic? Not really. There’s no way a third party, and his lawyer, with a Russian FSB agent (“But Mr. President, he’s gonna see the big board!”), could make it to the White House Situation Room, six stories down. But this is one-gimmick SF: if you accept that gimmick, the action flows from it. Until it becomes a repeat of “Fail Safe.”

And it is suspenseful. I started questioning the CHOICES the protagonist made early on, but that made it all the more interesting.

I don’t know anything about the author, save what I mentioned above. I think he lives somewhere in Asia and works in an art gallery. Which is too bad—this book could use one sequel.

[Sedona McNerney · Rating 4 out of 5]

another book club pick complete! probably would have given this a 3.5 if i could have. wasn’t the biggest fan of the way it all ended and it escalated into the plot much more rapidly than i expected (there was little to no build in the first chapter). but i like the subtle anarchist undertones and the philosophical ponderings of good vs. evil and what not. wasn’t a book i thought i would normally pick up but after reading it i can see how it fits in with some of my regular taste!

[Martha Steele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too many fight scenes and intrigue, I'm not a fan of that but the concept is brilliant. This will make a great movie

[Spartacus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seeing 5 seconds into the future seems more plausible than saying the government would water board a toddler, which is among the really crazy conspiracy minded bits in this book. Too ridiculous and no sympathetic characters to root for in this silly book.

[Brian Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this, started out pleased but soon became bored by the fight scenes and Preble's whiny self talk. Also, when I come across a grammatical error, it gnaws at me. This one chewed my arm off. One star deduction for bad editing.

[SteveRv · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the first half of the book but it spent so much time meandering I just lost interest and finally I just skipped to the end. I think that was a smart decision.

[Doug Branscombe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting premise, unbelievable far fetched storyline

[Samantha Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eye roll please