For me, Robert J. Sawyer novels are either hit or miss. They're either incredibly brilliant and I can't turn the pages fast enough ("Rollback") or I can't wait for the final page to turn just to be done with the novel ("Homonids"). And I'll admit I picked up this one because ABC has put it on the fast-track for development for a potential TV series. One that could air after "Lost" and is being sold as a "companion" piece for one of my favorite TV shows.Being a book-snob, I knew I had to try the original novel before the series comes out, so I can spend hours boring friends and family about how the book is better. I've tried to get help for this condition, but so far, no luck.Thankfully, "Flashfoward" falls into the category of really good Robert J. Saywer novels. The premise is that on the day an experiment is conducted at the CERT supercollider, people experience a flash forward of thirty years into the future for two minutes. Everyone has visions for about two minutes of where they'll be and what they'll be doing thirty years hence. Then everything shifts back and we have to deal with the fallout and ramifications of things. The driving focus of the story is a mystery. One of the lead characters sees no vision of the future, but by talking to others determines he was murdered two days before the events everyone saw. He then begins to slowly try and unravel who killed him and why in an attempt to prevent that future from becoming reality.One of the many interesting debates in the story is whether or not the future is "set" or can we make changes to it. Two character are engaged, but in the future he sees himself married to another woman. So, should the two continue their path to marriage given than it appears things don't work out? Do we have free will? Is the timeline set or are there an infinite number of universes based on decisions we make today that change things in small but interesting ways? Or all we just robots acting out some grand drama and we have no control over our lives? Sawyer brings up these questions and some theories on the nature of time and free will vs determinism in a fascinating way. To counter the engaged couple, Sawyer gives us two scientists who have a vision of engaging in sexual intercourse at a lab during the flashforward. The moment is thirty years from now, but when they get back the two find each other, meet and begin a relationship. Will the passion still be there in thirty years or have they changed the future? Were they destined to meet? Did the flashfoward push them together sooner? The novel also brings up the interesting idea of if you know too much about your future, can that be a negative thing? One aspiring author sees himself in the future, working as a waiter and having never "made it" as a writer. Rather than toil, he decides his life is over and commits suicide. The novel also brings up that this happens to a lot of other people, many of whom lose hope over not seeing their dreams come true or the future as something that want to move forward to. Reading the novel, I can see the potential for a great TV series here and why it could be a good companion show for "Lost." You've got a diverse set of characters who are thrown together and must come to grips with a central mystery of what happened and why. There is a similar interconnectedness among the characters like we have in "Lost" as well. Will it work as a TV show if you remove or have to solve the "will I or won't I be murdered?" thread that drives the main plot? Yes, it could. While that plotline is sufficiently satisfying and drives the story forward, it's still the philosophical questions that Sawyer raises that really linger with the reader after the final page is turned.
There are so many ways I could pay tribute to this book (audiobook), which was an awful piece of writing, but an entertaining way to spend ten hours in a car.Perhaps a drinking game (NOT in the car):RULE: Drink every time a character is identified by his or her hair color.*RULE:Drink every time someone uses the word "indeed" in an internal monologue.RULE: Drink every time someone answers their own question within an internal monologue a la "Yes? Yes!" or "No? No!"RULE: Drink every time a character ruminates extensively to himself in between the numbers of a countdown.No? No. Maybe this would be better suited to a different list:Tips On Good Writing, the Robert J. Sawyer Way:1. Anything worth writing about is worth writing about in excrutiating detail. This includes bodily functions, routine tasks, and subway stations.2. The onomatopeia is your friend. Don't be afraid to let a bullet go "KABLAM!" 3. Any hackneyed action phrase worth using once is worth using once or twice more in the chapter. 4. Get creative! Why have a character simply smile when instead you can have someone "feel his features stretch into a grin"? After all, you don't just smile with your mouth. 5. Everything has a sound, so make sure to get those details in there. Hair rustles if you shake your head while lying on a pillow (maybe I need a new conditioner?). Shoes slap against stairs (at least mine do; I got them at Bozo's Clown Warehouse).6. Character development is crucial, and again detail is key. That's why you can't just have a character remember that he once ran a marathon. He should remember that he once ran from Marathon to Athens, a trip of precisely 26.2 miles, in a recreation of the famous historical run which gave marathon running its name.7. Don't be sexist! Women can be smart, too. They can be engineers and physicists. They are also scared of all male strangers, and keep their eye on the exits when talking to one.8. The future will be very different from now. It's fun to speculate on the differences both in passing comments, like mentioning how blue jeans will be out of style, or in expositional paragraphs. Preferably lots of them. 9. If you get bored identifying characters by hair color, you can identify them by eye color instead. Get it in there as soon as possible, even if it means having one character see another's grey eyes in a darkened tunnel from a distance of 50 metres.10. Every character should be from a different country. This is called diversity, and helps when you're trying to come up with hair colors and names.--Does the audiobook format make me more critical of an author's style, or do I always choose laughably terrible audiobooks? In either case, I was curious to read the book that inspired ABC's mediocre Lost-wannabe Flash Forward series, and figured it would help pass the time on a couple of roadtrips. It was a GREAT way to pass the time, since my sister and I spent the entire 10ish hours mocking it MST3K-style. *Bonus excerpt from the first chapter: "Lloyd Simcoe, a Canadian-born researcher, sat at the injection console. He was forty-five, tall, and clean-shaven. His eyes were blue and his crewcut hair so dark brown that one could get away with calling it black - except at the temples, where about half of it had turned gray."Two paragraphs later:"Seated on his right, in front of the detector console, was the master of the makeover herself, his fiancee, enginer Michiko Komura. Ten years Lloyd's junior at thirty five, Michiko had a small upturned nose and lustrous black hair that she had styled in the currently popular page boy cut."Next paragraph:"Theo had curly, thick, dark hair, gray eyes, and a prominent, jutting jaw."
Do You like book Flashforward (2000)?
I did enjoy this book, but I went into the book thinking it would be like the TV show; and hoped I would give me some closure. With this mentality it took me a while to get into this book. The book is nothing like the TV show. While the TV show was a fast paced, exciting show; the book was more a philosophical look at what life would be like if we knew our future mixed heavily with the scientific theories behind time travel. If you are going to read this book, you need to remember that it is nothing like the show. Only some character names and the flash forward concept are the same.
—Michael
I don't know what to make of this book. As a "science fiction" book, I think it failed. As a work of fiction about humanity and psychology, it wasn't all that bad. It definitely had some thriller elements to it, too, though those aspects felt unfinished at the end.First - the science fiction. I understand that Sawyer used a scientific event to create the Flashforward. But I think he could have used that without bringing in so much of the science into it. Every time actual physics was brought up, it took me out of the story. The descriptions felt like I was no longer reading the narrative, but had stopped to look up various physics principles in an encyclopedia or other reference book for a lay audience. The science parts felt unnatural, even when characters were discussing various particle physics principles with each other. The story would have been fine without being presented all of the physics details--ones that it seemed Sawyer didn't know much of himself, rather he was just regurgitating.Also, to be frank, though I don't know too many particle physicists, I did work with superconductors and in a lab that was researching quantum computing for my junior and senior years in college. None of the characters was believable from that respect, either--they weren't arrogant enough. While reading, I didn't actually end up caring for any of the characters. I didn't empathize with them, or share the same yearning they did to understand the Flashforward. I mentioned this in a thread in Sword & Laser, but I think that "knowing" that the event took the characters briefly 21 years in the future made me less interested in them from the start. All of the publicity for the book mentioned that key fact, that the event was a brief jump in time. Somehow, I think that if I hadn't known that, that I would have been as on-edge as the characters themselves, trying to figure out WHAT happened. Actually, I'm interested in the "why" which Sawyer glossed over with some broad-brushed science vocabulary. It's probably a good thing he didn't try to actually explain the "why," though I think it would have made the book more science-fiction-y.This book is divided into three parts: one right at the time of the event, one part in the near term after the event, and one part 21 years in the future--the point which the flashforward jumped to. I think if the second part had been better developed, if Sawyer had gone more into the psychological and geopolitical impacts of the event, and more on how people and countries reacted, this book would have been more interesting. Instead, it was touched upon so briefly that the final part felt phoned-in and cheesy. In all, I'm giving this book 3 stars for the ideas it started upon and its work as a thriller. I just wish it was more.
—terpkristin
One of those very rare cases where the tv show is better than the book.(IMO)I've discovered don't like Robert Sawyer's books.I had previous read his attempt at "intelligent design" SciFi book called "Calculating God" (which I *LOATHED*).However, the concept of this book was so interesting, I was intrigued. I enjoyed the TV show adaptation but wanted more answers, so I read the book.I had to force my way through it. I don't know why but I just don't like his writing style. I don't think it's just because there's a lot of physics involved, I'm able to read other SciFi that explores concepts that are over my head and I just sort of skim the science-y bit sand get the general gist.I don't like or connect with any of his characters. THe two main characters are two male physicists dealing with the outcome of their experiment & their future. One spends the whole book trying to figure out if he should marry someone if they may not stay together. Second guy spends a lot of the book trying to figure out why someone may wnat to kill him & lusting for first guys almost wife.I've been trying to put my finger on it, but I can't pinpoint it - but something about how the author writes his characters rubs me the wrong way. Making one of the main characters think about how he he has to be politically correct and call people melanin-Americans" (the kind of exagerrated over-correcting that in my experience, racist people use). The only people I hear talking about "politically correctness" are usually complaining about being "forced" to use polite terms. people that stress/emphasize the fact that they're using the "correct" terms. Then there are the depictions of people feeling 'yellow fever' & thinking about an "exotic" Japanese woman and repeated mentions of "almond eyes". I know there are people out there who are like that, & I don't have a problem with their representation. It felt more like 'here's how the author sees Japanese women' than, "author is writing a character that has these thoughts". Again, I can't really point to a specific sentence that proves it, it was just the feeling I got as I read the book.So go watch the tv adaptation which expanded on these ideas in a better way - then if you're still curious read the last section of the book.
—Kyra
