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Future In Doubt
Future In Doubt is a standalone speculative time travel science fiction thriller, set in the modern world, with elements of mystery and romance. Perfect for teens, young and older adults.
A freshly engaged young couple full of boundless optimism, drive, and talent have their love ripped apart through a chance encounter with a dying man who claims to be from the future.
Before he dies, the man warns Essie and Jonah about a coming global disaster – even giving a specific date – and declares that they alone are the only hope left to stop it.
Essie believes the dying man. Jonah does not. And because Essie believes him, she throws away her promising career and the life she and Jonah were preparing to build, all in the far-fetched and probably futile attempt to stop a looming disaster she knows almost nothing about.
But Essie’s tireless commitment, courage, and flair for the dramatic propel her to do and learn whatever it takes to discover the meaning behind the clues given by the dying man. She faces nothing less than convincing the entire world that life as we know will be destroyed if they don’t grapple with what she comes to believe is the cause of civilization’s destruction.
But what if she’s wrong? Even if the dying man was from the future, what if Essie misinterpreted what he told her? And what about Jonah and her flailing love for him? When Jonah’s hard-driving boss begins pressuring him to silence Essie’s efforts, she realizes Jonah’s company has something to do with the coming disaster.
Essie’s journey leads her to pits of utter loneliness and despair, media mockery, online ridicule, and threats on her life as the date of the predicted cataclysm draws near. With Essie driven by rising desperation and a shadowy and uncertain grasp of what's true as she stands alone against disbelieving, ridiculing humanity, Earth's future totters on the brink.
With thrills, fun surprises, betrayals, and twists amid the withering dying bonds of love, Future In Doubt is written in a cinematic, crowd-pleasing, and fast paced style that will entertain and satisfy broad swaths of readers.
From Reader's
"Daniel Magill has a lot of different plates spinning in his novel Future In Doubt, but does incredibly well in making sure none of them are toppled prematurely. What I love most is that we do not definitely know as readers if Essie is right on the earthquake prophecy, and Magill takes us along for a prepper's dream ride as she dives head first into it. We know what is happening with Jonah and some of what Randolph is up to, but it's always a click or two behind any revelation—with excellent twists served up even after. There are some legitimate scumbags in the story and Essie is well and truly
on her own, building her up as a persistent and strong female protagonist. Magill has a handle on what relationship fallout looks like and, better still, how relationships might be rebuilt. The writing is clean and tight, and the entire time-travel element is very creative."
A freshly engaged young couple full of boundless optimism, drive, and talent have their love ripped apart through a chance encounter with a dying man who claims to be from the future.
Before he dies, the man warns Essie and Jonah about a coming global disaster – even giving a specific date – and declares that they alone are the only hope left to stop it.
Essie believes the dying man. Jonah does not. And because Essie believes him, she throws away her promising career and the life she and Jonah were preparing to build, all in the far-fetched and probably futile attempt to stop a looming disaster she knows almost nothing about.
But Essie’s tireless commitment, courage, and flair for the dramatic propel her to do and learn whatever it takes to discover the meaning behind the clues given by the dying man. She faces nothing less than convincing the entire world that life as we know will be destroyed if they don’t grapple with what she comes to believe is the cause of civilization’s destruction.
But what if she’s wrong? Even if the dying man was from the future, what if Essie misinterpreted what he told her? And what about Jonah and her flailing love for him? When Jonah’s hard-driving boss begins pressuring him to silence Essie’s efforts, she realizes Jonah’s company has something to do with the coming disaster.
Essie’s journey leads her to pits of utter loneliness and despair, media mockery, online ridicule, and threats on her life as the date of the predicted cataclysm draws near. With Essie driven by rising desperation and a shadowy and uncertain grasp of what's true as she stands alone against disbelieving, ridiculing humanity, Earth's future totters on the brink.
With thrills, fun surprises, betrayals, and twists amid the withering dying bonds of love, Future In Doubt is written in a cinematic, crowd-pleasing, and fast paced style that will entertain and satisfy broad swaths of readers.
From Reader's
"Daniel Magill has a lot of different plates spinning in his novel Future In Doubt, but does incredibly well in making sure none of them are toppled prematurely. What I love most is that we do not definitely know as readers if Essie is right on the earthquake prophecy, and Magill takes us along for a prepper's dream ride as she dives head first into it. We know what is happening with Jonah and some of what Randolph is up to, but it's always a click or two behind any revelation—with excellent twists served up even after. There are some legitimate scumbags in the story and Essie is well and truly
on her own, building her up as a persistent and strong female protagonist. Magill has a handle on what relationship fallout looks like and, better still, how relationships might be rebuilt. The writing is clean and tight, and the entire time-travel element is very creative."
276 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2026
About the author
Daniel Magill
1 book7 followersI began writing screenplays in the early 2000s. I spent years reading books, attending conferences, getting mentored, and paying for coverage. I entered and advanced in several contests.
But the film industry changed, and I realized it was very unlikely I'd ever get anywhere. So in 2022, I pivoted and started writing novels.
Future In Doubt is my debut novel. I worked for years on the screenplay for this, and converted it into a novel more recently.
It's a sci-fi thriller with time travel set in a fictional present day.
War Virus, my second book, launches what will be a lengthy series.
It's a galactic war space opera unlike anything ever written. No alien invasions. No magic. Just two human civilizations fighting for 500 years, full of hate and vengeance.
But what if the heart of just one man were to transform and see this war for what it really is? Book 1 begins the epic saga in darkness.
Look for more War Virus books in the coming years, and more standalone novels too.
I hope you'll follow me on here and join my author newsletter - the Magill Storyteller - through my website!
But the film industry changed, and I realized it was very unlikely I'd ever get anywhere. So in 2022, I pivoted and started writing novels.
Future In Doubt is my debut novel. I worked for years on the screenplay for this, and converted it into a novel more recently.
It's a sci-fi thriller with time travel set in a fictional present day.
War Virus, my second book, launches what will be a lengthy series.
It's a galactic war space opera unlike anything ever written. No alien invasions. No magic. Just two human civilizations fighting for 500 years, full of hate and vengeance.
But what if the heart of just one man were to transform and see this war for what it really is? Book 1 begins the epic saga in darkness.
Look for more War Virus books in the coming years, and more standalone novels too.
I hope you'll follow me on here and join my author newsletter - the Magill Storyteller - through my website!
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 1, 2026
A dying man from the future collapses into a freshly engaged couple’s life, names a date for the end of the world, and tells them they are humanity’s last shot. She believes him. He doesn’t. She throws her career, her reputation, and the life they were building into a dumpster fire because a stranger handed her a prophecy. He stays employed. His boss starts looking at her like a problem to be managed. The internet does what the internet does. The clock keeps ticking.
That is not a book description. That is a movie trailer that wandered into KU and refused to leave.
Strange Girl has seen this type before. High-concept time-travel thriller. Cassandra girl versus a planet of rolled eyes (yes, know your Greek mythology). Love rotting in the background while civilization teeters. Today’s specials are all on the board: cinematic, crowd-pleasing, fast-paced, twists.
A premise this loud can be dangerous when the execution is sharp. So the only question left is whether Daniel Magill earned it.
Knives out. Cookies ready.
PLOT
Newly engaged Essie and Jonah stumble into a dying man who claims to be from the future. Before he goes, he warns them of a coming global catastrophe: earthquakes, the planet’s magnetic field, and the usual “you are the last hope” package. Essie locks onto the Traveler’s words and will not let go. Jonah would rather protect the life they just promised each other.
As she keeps digging, a conspiracy theory starts to take shape. How deep does the rabbit hole go? Is Earth actually in danger, or is Essie’s imagination vivid enough to torch her future with Jonah over a dying sentence?
Engagement plus family disappointment plus sudden external doom is a solid conflict machine. The book has a pulse. You can follow it. You always know what Essie wants and what it is costing her. That is not nothing.
CHARACTERS
Essie is the one player carrying this thing. Attractive, smart, resilient, iron-willed, no-quit. That stubbornness is the heart and soul of the story. When the book lets her push—keep digging, keep standing there after the room has already decided she is unhinged—she feels like a person, not a plot delivery system.
The supporting web is sketched efficiently enough: Essie and Alice, Essie and Jonah, Essie and her dad. Those relationships have a shape. They just do not always get the precision the premise is asking for.
PROSE
This is where the autopsy gets less cute.
The prose is frequently purple, repetitive, and self-consciously “literary” in the worst way. It tells you the emotion and the significance instead of letting either one emerge. It over-explains. It leans on a stock metaphor and then explains the metaphor.
Opening paragraph, pure throat-clearing:
“There’s nothing more fragile than anticipation. Hopes crumble. Dreams die. And they die with far more ease than when they emerge from their seed to blossom and sprout. The seed scatters in the wind…”
That is a sunrise quote graphic. Soft font. Fake fog. “Keep growing ” under a stock sprout in the caption, and the seed still will not sit down. Abstract. Generic. The garden lecture runs for multiple sentences before we even meet Essie.
ISSUES/SAVAGE-BUT-FAIR
The writing is often bloated, clichéd, tell-heavy, and tonally inconsistent.
“Jonah had been longing to be with Essie tonight. The months of buildup, the days of waiting since he proposed. And now this. Essie felt the same way. But the whole mood had been ruined.”
That is not storytelling. That is a newsletter.
Character work also keeps grabbing a sledgehammer when it needs a scalpel:
“Baffled. Confused. Angered. Grieved. Jonah bowed his head. He couldn’t find a single word to say. He couldn’t even look at her.”
That does not heighten the emotion. It just sounds like the book is trying very hard to have one.
Clichés and overwriting pile up:
- “cusp of entering full adulthood”
- “escaped the clutches of childhood”
- “optimism of youth cascaded from her countenance”
- “irresistible smile declared ‘look out!’ to the world”
- “flare for performance” (*flair*)
- “uncontrollably ebullient”
- “eternal moment of bliss”
This is not prose. This is a graduation-card factory that got into the thesaurus and refused to clock out.
Nobody talks like this. Nobody thinks like this. “Optimism of youth cascaded from her countenance” is what happens when a sentence puts on a blazer and asks to be taken seriously. The smile does not need to declare “look out!” to the world. The world did not ask. And “uncontrollably ebullient” plus “eternal moment of bliss” in the same book is how you turn a wedding toast into a hostage situation.
Then the smile gets its own essay:
“A great smile isn’t just lips and teeth… They touch the soul…”
If a smile is that powerful, show it hit Jonah once and move. Authorial intrusion stops a scene cold. It does not deepen it. Telling over showing is rampant. We are constantly informed that Essie is joyful, confident, optimistic, and that her smile touches souls.
Some awkward POV moments left me staring at the page. The narration oscillates between slightly elevated third-person and near-omniscient summary that keeps stepping in to interpret:
“Jonah felt the flush of challenge coarse through his extremities. That slight fear mixed with excitement, like you feel right before jumping out of a plane to go skydiving.”
Yes. Exactly the way I feel every Tuesday when I go skydiving. Relatable content.
And when Jonah goes line dancing to get his mind off the apocalypse:
“The music blared and… Horned taxidermy trophies watching from the wood-paneled walls, so enamored they too wanted to come to life and rampage through the dozens of revelers.”
Stuffed deer and bears clocking the vibe and considering a mosh pit. Whose head are we in? Jonah after too many beers, or a narrator who got bored and invented a haunted Cabela’s?
Then, after we have already watched a sequence play out, we get the recap:
“First, he got to see Essie again for the first time in years. Then, in the same moment, he betrayed her, perhaps more viciously than at any other time. After that, he got his job back with a signing bonus. And right after that, his conniving boss made a huge error, and Jonah discovered Randolph had the cylinder from the man in the alley.”
Hello, we were there. Front row seats. Nobody asked for the post-game show.
CONCLUSION
Future in Doubt is a good premise. It has a pulse, basic narrative drive, and a clear setup for conflict: engagement, family disappointment, sudden external catastrophe. It lands a few clean, specific images—the engagement ring and what it is supposed to mean, the graduates clustering around a phone when the bad news hits, Jonah moving his own diploma to make wall space. Those land better than the abstract philosophizing. Essie has the strongest back in the book. Her courage, tenacity, and resilience feel genuine.
The execution does not keep up. Too much telling. Too much padding. Too much narrator jogging onto the field to explain the feeling you already saw.
This is the KU version of a summer popcorn movie: catchy conspiracy in the middle, just enough romance to keep the room seated, a pretty and stubborn heroine you want to root for—if you do not look too hard at the sentences. Look at the sentences and the profundity starts sounding like someone trying very hard to sound profound about youth and hope.
I do not review the idea, I review the book. The idea slaps. The book is competent enough to follow and sloppy enough to notice.
That is not a book description. That is a movie trailer that wandered into KU and refused to leave.
Strange Girl has seen this type before. High-concept time-travel thriller. Cassandra girl versus a planet of rolled eyes (yes, know your Greek mythology). Love rotting in the background while civilization teeters. Today’s specials are all on the board: cinematic, crowd-pleasing, fast-paced, twists.
A premise this loud can be dangerous when the execution is sharp. So the only question left is whether Daniel Magill earned it.
Knives out. Cookies ready.
PLOT
Newly engaged Essie and Jonah stumble into a dying man who claims to be from the future. Before he goes, he warns them of a coming global catastrophe: earthquakes, the planet’s magnetic field, and the usual “you are the last hope” package. Essie locks onto the Traveler’s words and will not let go. Jonah would rather protect the life they just promised each other.
As she keeps digging, a conspiracy theory starts to take shape. How deep does the rabbit hole go? Is Earth actually in danger, or is Essie’s imagination vivid enough to torch her future with Jonah over a dying sentence?
Engagement plus family disappointment plus sudden external doom is a solid conflict machine. The book has a pulse. You can follow it. You always know what Essie wants and what it is costing her. That is not nothing.
CHARACTERS
Essie is the one player carrying this thing. Attractive, smart, resilient, iron-willed, no-quit. That stubbornness is the heart and soul of the story. When the book lets her push—keep digging, keep standing there after the room has already decided she is unhinged—she feels like a person, not a plot delivery system.
The supporting web is sketched efficiently enough: Essie and Alice, Essie and Jonah, Essie and her dad. Those relationships have a shape. They just do not always get the precision the premise is asking for.
PROSE
This is where the autopsy gets less cute.
The prose is frequently purple, repetitive, and self-consciously “literary” in the worst way. It tells you the emotion and the significance instead of letting either one emerge. It over-explains. It leans on a stock metaphor and then explains the metaphor.
Opening paragraph, pure throat-clearing:
“There’s nothing more fragile than anticipation. Hopes crumble. Dreams die. And they die with far more ease than when they emerge from their seed to blossom and sprout. The seed scatters in the wind…”
That is a sunrise quote graphic. Soft font. Fake fog. “Keep growing ” under a stock sprout in the caption, and the seed still will not sit down. Abstract. Generic. The garden lecture runs for multiple sentences before we even meet Essie.
ISSUES/SAVAGE-BUT-FAIR
The writing is often bloated, clichéd, tell-heavy, and tonally inconsistent.
“Jonah had been longing to be with Essie tonight. The months of buildup, the days of waiting since he proposed. And now this. Essie felt the same way. But the whole mood had been ruined.”
That is not storytelling. That is a newsletter.
Character work also keeps grabbing a sledgehammer when it needs a scalpel:
“Baffled. Confused. Angered. Grieved. Jonah bowed his head. He couldn’t find a single word to say. He couldn’t even look at her.”
That does not heighten the emotion. It just sounds like the book is trying very hard to have one.
Clichés and overwriting pile up:
- “cusp of entering full adulthood”
- “escaped the clutches of childhood”
- “optimism of youth cascaded from her countenance”
- “irresistible smile declared ‘look out!’ to the world”
- “flare for performance” (*flair*)
- “uncontrollably ebullient”
- “eternal moment of bliss”
This is not prose. This is a graduation-card factory that got into the thesaurus and refused to clock out.
Nobody talks like this. Nobody thinks like this. “Optimism of youth cascaded from her countenance” is what happens when a sentence puts on a blazer and asks to be taken seriously. The smile does not need to declare “look out!” to the world. The world did not ask. And “uncontrollably ebullient” plus “eternal moment of bliss” in the same book is how you turn a wedding toast into a hostage situation.
Then the smile gets its own essay:
“A great smile isn’t just lips and teeth… They touch the soul…”
If a smile is that powerful, show it hit Jonah once and move. Authorial intrusion stops a scene cold. It does not deepen it. Telling over showing is rampant. We are constantly informed that Essie is joyful, confident, optimistic, and that her smile touches souls.
Some awkward POV moments left me staring at the page. The narration oscillates between slightly elevated third-person and near-omniscient summary that keeps stepping in to interpret:
“Jonah felt the flush of challenge coarse through his extremities. That slight fear mixed with excitement, like you feel right before jumping out of a plane to go skydiving.”
Yes. Exactly the way I feel every Tuesday when I go skydiving. Relatable content.
And when Jonah goes line dancing to get his mind off the apocalypse:
“The music blared and… Horned taxidermy trophies watching from the wood-paneled walls, so enamored they too wanted to come to life and rampage through the dozens of revelers.”
Stuffed deer and bears clocking the vibe and considering a mosh pit. Whose head are we in? Jonah after too many beers, or a narrator who got bored and invented a haunted Cabela’s?
Then, after we have already watched a sequence play out, we get the recap:
“First, he got to see Essie again for the first time in years. Then, in the same moment, he betrayed her, perhaps more viciously than at any other time. After that, he got his job back with a signing bonus. And right after that, his conniving boss made a huge error, and Jonah discovered Randolph had the cylinder from the man in the alley.”
Hello, we were there. Front row seats. Nobody asked for the post-game show.
CONCLUSION
Future in Doubt is a good premise. It has a pulse, basic narrative drive, and a clear setup for conflict: engagement, family disappointment, sudden external catastrophe. It lands a few clean, specific images—the engagement ring and what it is supposed to mean, the graduates clustering around a phone when the bad news hits, Jonah moving his own diploma to make wall space. Those land better than the abstract philosophizing. Essie has the strongest back in the book. Her courage, tenacity, and resilience feel genuine.
The execution does not keep up. Too much telling. Too much padding. Too much narrator jogging onto the field to explain the feeling you already saw.
This is the KU version of a summer popcorn movie: catchy conspiracy in the middle, just enough romance to keep the room seated, a pretty and stubborn heroine you want to root for—if you do not look too hard at the sentences. Look at the sentences and the profundity starts sounding like someone trying very hard to sound profound about youth and hope.
I do not review the idea, I review the book. The idea slaps. The book is competent enough to follow and sloppy enough to notice.
February 27, 2026
Future In Doubt immediately and excellently builds the characters into a world that is brimming with promise and lives full of bright expectations. However, when one incredible event interrupts their idyllic present, engaged couple Essie and Jonah are torn between keeping the pieces of their lives together while grappling with the impending doom that threatens the entire planet. Author Daniel Magill delivers a taut thriller on the level of novelist Michael Crichton. But Future in Doubt succeeds on a higher level by presenting a story populated with realistic, dimensional characters caught up in the action. The reader watches as relationships crumble under the weight of the situations, elevating the tension and giving the reader a real connection to root for (whereas characters in Crichton novels tend to simply be masters of ceremony for delivering the needed exposition and explanation for the plot IMO).
Future in Doubt is definitely recommended for anyone seeking a engaging, twisting, and high-stakes thriller that is both mysterious and thought-provoking!
Future in Doubt is definitely recommended for anyone seeking a engaging, twisting, and high-stakes thriller that is both mysterious and thought-provoking!
May 22, 2026
When asked, 'Are you ready to risk your life for the survival of humanity?' many will answer in the affirmative. But if you ask them whether they are ready to become the object of mass ridicule and humiliation, the black sheep of their own family, the bearer of a social stigma, a fool in the eyes of their partner—the number of brave souls will thin out.
Essie, the heroine of this unusual science-fiction novel, refuses to forget what she saw and pretend that 'everything is fine.' She lays everything on the altar of truth: her union with a man she once loved, who has now defected to the enemy camp, her brilliant career prospects, and simply her reputation as a rational human being. With no bravado. With no feminist slogans. She is not a soldier, a spy, or a scientist. Her field is as far from saving the world as humanly possible, and her goal, prior to her terrifying encounter with the Time Traveler, had been a happy marriage and a comfortable future.
She chose to step in.
I'm a sucker for prey-to-hunter transformation, and I was thrilled to see where the story was going. To see a young woman become a pain in the ass for a dangerous corporate experiment was beyond satisfying.
Other characters' performance is also quite plausible. The plot twists are difficult to predict. And while the novel's start felt a bit drawn-out to me, from the moment of the Time Traveler's death onward, the story unfolds quickly enough to keep our interest from fading, yet not so fast as to strip us of the scientific justification for the threat looming over humanity.
Future in Doubt is a smart sci-fi thriller you will absolutely want to re-read over time.
Essie, the heroine of this unusual science-fiction novel, refuses to forget what she saw and pretend that 'everything is fine.' She lays everything on the altar of truth: her union with a man she once loved, who has now defected to the enemy camp, her brilliant career prospects, and simply her reputation as a rational human being. With no bravado. With no feminist slogans. She is not a soldier, a spy, or a scientist. Her field is as far from saving the world as humanly possible, and her goal, prior to her terrifying encounter with the Time Traveler, had been a happy marriage and a comfortable future.
She chose to step in.
I'm a sucker for prey-to-hunter transformation, and I was thrilled to see where the story was going. To see a young woman become a pain in the ass for a dangerous corporate experiment was beyond satisfying.
Other characters' performance is also quite plausible. The plot twists are difficult to predict. And while the novel's start felt a bit drawn-out to me, from the moment of the Time Traveler's death onward, the story unfolds quickly enough to keep our interest from fading, yet not so fast as to strip us of the scientific justification for the threat looming over humanity.
Future in Doubt is a smart sci-fi thriller you will absolutely want to re-read over time.
April 28, 2026
I won this in a giveaway
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews