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    Odds Against Tomorrow
    Odds Against Tomorrow
    Odds Against Tomorrow
    Audiobook10 hours

    Odds Against Tomorrow

    Written by Nathaniel Rich

    Narrated by Kirby Heyborne

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld. The business operates out of an empty office in the Empire State Building; Mitchell is employee number two. He is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming.

    As Mitchell immerses himself in the mathematics of catastrophe-ecological collapse, war games, natural disasters-he becomes obsessed by a culture's fears. Yet he also loses touch with his last connection to reality: Elsa Bruner, a friend with her own apocalyptic secret, who has started a commune in Maine. Then, just as Mitchell's predictions reach a nightmarish crescendo, an actual worst-case scenario overtakes Manhattan. Mitchell realizes he is uniquely prepared to profit. But at what cost?

    At once an all-too-plausible literary thriller, an unexpected love story, and a philosophically searching inquiry into the nature of fear, Nathaniel Rich's Odds Against Tomorrow poses the ultimate questions of imagination and civilization. The future is not quite what it used to be.

    Editor's Note

    The next disaster…

    Written after Hurricane Katrina but before Hurricane Harvey, Nathaniel Rich’s climate disaster satire feels, perhaps, too plausible. Capitalism and the climate go head-to-head in this frightening, manic read that does also, somehow, elicit chuckles (albeit nervous ones) with its wit.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 6, 2013
    ISBN9781452683119
    Odds Against Tomorrow
    Author

    Nathaniel Rich

    Nathaniel Rich is the author of the novels Odds Against Tomorrow and The Mayor’s Tongue. His short fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and VICE, among other publications. He is a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Atlantic. Rich lives with his wife and son in New Orleans.

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    Reviews for Odds Against Tomorrow

    3.5/5

    86 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5
      Gosh this was fun. It's been a while since I read a book in one sitting, and this was a great read. The writing is patchy in parts, but it's simply a fun story with creative characters and eerily familiar possibilities for anyone living in New York. Highly recommend for a casual read!
    • 4/5
      Rather than head in a more Foundation-esque direction, which would have been awesome, themes veered towards Parable of the Sower meets The Year of the Flood. Pretty good read.
    • 3/5
      Picked it up cheap after some good notices. I think of these kinds of books as 'investments'. It might have been something terrific or the author might turn out something consequential in the future. For now... meh.
    • 3/5
      This is an interesting literary apocalyptic novel. The main character is a futurist who predicts disasters, and then an actual disaster of extreme magnitude hits New York City. I liked a lot of the ideas here, and the depiction of a flooded, deserted, post-apocalyptic New York, but I'm not sure the author did a good job of tying the themes together or coming to a satisfactory conclusion. Tepid recommendation.
    • 4/5
      Middle of the road dystopian novel. Some new ideas about cause and survival. Can't let go of original idea even when it doesn't work. Not bad for an off-day read.
    • 4/5
      An entirely believable novel detailing a possible future as lived by Mitchell Zukor. Mitchell (does he have Asperger's autism?) has developed a very good livelihood advising businesses how to cope with future disasters. He is a genius at data collection and calculation of low probability events, and sure enough predicts (and lives through) two cataclysms, one in Portland, Or and the second in New York. All the while, he has an excruciatingly painful and interesting personal life which forces you to continue reading to find out what happens. I liked the book so much that I checked out "The Mayor's Tongue". Hope it as as good.
    • 5/5
      I don't usually post quotes from books, but I was hooked from the very first line so I feel the need to share it:The way other people fantasize about surprise inheritances, first-glance love, and endless white empyreal pastures, Mitchell dreamed of an erupting supervolcano that would bury North America under a foot of hot ash.Mitchell Zukor is obsessed with worst-case scenarios. They absolutely terrify him; everything from blizzards, tsunamis, and asteroid strikes to financial collapse, nuclear war, and world-wide pandemic. He deals with his fear by spending hours researching disaster and calculating the odds of its occurrence. His neuroses only intensify when, shortly before he graduates from U. of Chicago, the city of Seattle is demolished by a giant earthquake. A few months after college he is hired by an unusual consulting start-up in New York City devoted entirely to advising large corporations on potential disasters and what can be done to minimize damage. (If corporations can prove they tried to minimize damage then they can't be held liable.) Mitchell gets such a thrill (almost unhealthy) out of his job, and actually starts to feel happy and relaxed and safe. But what will happen to him if disaster actually does strike?There are a lot of themes going on through this book - obsession, fear, disaster, life in a cubicle vs. living off the land, New York City, Hurricane Katrina, etc. (The author used to live in NYC and now lives in New Orleans.) However, each theme is wrapped snugly around the main plot and there aren't too many tangents. I was engrossed from the beginning and never lost that feeling.The *only* thing I didn't enjoy about this book is that it was a little too "I heart NY" for me, if you know what I mean. Lots of name-dropping neighborhoods and streets that doesn't mean anything to me as a non-New Yorker. But this is definitely a book *about* New York and so I accept the "I heart New York"ness. I probably sound equally obnoxious when I talk about my city, but no one writes cool books about my city.The writing in Odds Against Tomorrow is great; intelligent but engrossing. The characters are practically tangible (including the City herself). The blend of literary fiction and speculative fiction is perfect. It's not a harsh mash-up, more like a river flowing smoothly into an ocean.Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      intresting book, not sure if I really like how the different story lines are merged into each other (personally I am not really fond of the pseudo psychological excursions into the meaning of fear). wish that the entire quantification of risk/consultancy story line would have been worked out a bit more.