Science Fiction: better not to know

In a dream, a man is given 108 accurate predictions about the near future-but no forewarning of the disaster that awaits him. Everyone knows that if someone should appear from nowhere and hand you a magic lamp, you better think very carefully before you rub it. This is the problem confronting Charles Soule's hero in "The Oracle Year" (Harper, 402 pages, $21.99).

Will is a struggling musician, struggling because although he's good, he's not New York good. One night, he has a dream in which he is given 108 predictions about the future. And they start coming true. Some of them are trivial: a surprising turn-round in a football game, the number of babies to be born on a particular day in a Texas hospital, a hold-up at a given time at a particular...

3rd April 2018