Book Review: Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer

With the excitement of the new series on ABC I figured I would pick up this book and give it a try. The tv series is great. However, I passed over buying this book before because it did not catch my interest. Despite the fact that I am big Sawyer fan I found this book a departure from some of his better works.

This novel is another philosophitisation of the concept of time travel. *SPOILERS AHEAD* What would happen if every human being on the planet saw a probable future of themselves twenty one years in the future? Sawyer takes the concept and pushes it through the minds of basically two top Nobel winning physicists. The results are mixed. The characters never truly grabbed me. I found myself quite uninterested in them and their futures. They came off a bit like bastards to me and that never really left me by the end of the book.

The philosophy musings of the book were top notch as one can expect from any Sawyer novel. However, the structure of the book really never gave me a feel of excitement. Even in the final fight/struggle scene. In sincerity, I don't think CERN was the proper place for the book to take place. The mystery was never there of how this happened or why it happened. The characters were rarely if ever in a truly panicked state over the whole situation and were a bit to self centred for my liking. The way the TV show does the flashforward phenomenon is better because there is more suspense and more mystery to the whole situation.

Not to say that this book was absolutely horrible. Simply not Sawyer's best effort. I think the fact that he was writer in residence at CERN for a time really made him feel (or was) obligated to make a book about it. It really limited his ability to go where he could have or wanted to go with the flashforward. However in the end the book is a worthy read, simply less worthy than most of his other works.

Rating 7 out of 10