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The Man Who Saw Seconds

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The Man Who Saw Seconds

By: Alexander Boldizar
Narrated by: Christian Leatherman
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About this listen

 Winner of the Locus Award and CIBA Mark Twain grand prize, The Man Who Saw Seconds is a gripping speculative fiction thriller, blending absurdist satire and adrenaline-charged suspense, about a New York man who can see five seconds into the future—which changes his life forever; perfect for fans of Rob Hart and Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time.

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

Preble Jefferson can see five seconds into the future.

Otherwise, he lives an ordinary life. But when a confrontations 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. 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 breathless thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page, The Man Who Saw Seconds explores the nature of time, the brain as a prediction machine, and the tension between the individual and the systems we create. Alexander Boldisar provides an adrenaline-pumping read that will leave you contemplating love, fear, and the abyss. Absurdist Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Military Satire Science Fiction Thriller & Suspense Time Travel War & Military Fiction New York Exciting Witty

Critic reviews

"Narrator Christian Leatherman takes listeners through the convoluted story of Preble Jefferson, a man who can see five seconds into the future. A filmed encounter with the police on a New York subway sees Preble dodge a bullet, only to have that bullet strike another officer and lead to a massive police shoot-out. Now aware of Preble’s abilities, multiple government agencies make the mistake of going after him and his family, underestimating whom he will let fall to keep his family safe. Leatherman captures the audiobook’s expository style with a conversational delivery that keeps listeners on their toes throughout the story’s twists and turns."
All stars
Most relevant
I gave this a try despite the star rating, which on closer inspection is skewed unfairly by a single review, the content of which is speculative.

This book is one of the best science fiction books I’ve read in years. I’ve read or listened to a huge number and this one stands up with the best of them.

Pros-
•It’s interesting, fast-paced and offers a unique and fascinating plot.
•The character development of the main character is good. You can see how he changes over time and the impact of his choices.
•The concept at the heart of this story is woven beautifully into the narrative. I don’t want to give anything away but the interplay between physics, neuroscience, psychology, metaphysical philosophy and geopolitics is brilliant.
•The complexity of morality and the avoidance of the false-binary of good vs evil is perfectly balanced.
•The narrator captures the pace and emotions very well. He has a great range and brings the different characters to life.

Cons-
•It ended too soon!
•The young boy was a little annoying at times.
•The moral “break” that the main character experiences was congruent with the events in the story but might have been explained more. Perhaps with a greater context (from his earlier life etc).

Overall. There is so much more that could be explored in this universe. What happened to the main characters? How did the son develop? Are there others with the same skill? If so why?

I sincerely hope that the author is writing a sequel (and many more!). This is a great novel based on a great idea and is performed very well.

I strongly recommend this book.

Excellent, Wonderful Sci-fi

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Fantastic dark satire. combines a perfect balance of pace, philosophical depth and detailed scientific understanding

absolute barnstormer

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When a well managed book promotion reaches a certain threshold of sales and benign reviews the snowball effect occurs. The momentum accelerates as other well known and successful authors join in. It isn’t duplicity, just the emperor being given imaginary clothes. Then come prizes and another success is chalked up for the publisher, with the author presumably revelling in the praise he knew he deserved. The book is essentially science fiction and a thriller. Unfortunately although presented with gritty reality as well as extreme violence (including torture) it has time shifting or distortion as the central theme. The problem is that this is a practical impossibility for simple physical reasons. Einstein’s work on quantum physics proved that time is indeed perceived to proceed at different rates by observation from positions accelerating away from each other (time dilation), and also the mysterious effect of quantum entanglement (“spooky action at a distance”) neither of which I understand. Time shifting is and will remain a fantasy. But the hero of the book is given this ability, apparently through a spontaneous genetic mutation. Several of the other characters are also unrealistic because they have superhuman abilities. In a different way this applies to the young son of the hero who is portrayed in a nauseatingly sentimental way, at length. The author fairly obviously also allows his personal interests to be part of the hero’s make up, such as an obsession with knowing a lot about coffee and drinking a large amount of it. No spoiler alert necessary as all that needs to be said is that the storyline is overblown and unbelievable. Once I got the pattern of the layout I managed to complete the book by listening to the beginning and end of chapters and skipping through the middles with some fast forwarding. I am confident I didn’t miss anything of consequence. I hope I have been of some help to the many people like me who have to put a lot of effort and time into finding a really good book to listen to.

Disappointing and irritating

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