FF: A few thoughts upon finishing (spoilers)

[Geoff]

Very interesting that a book with so much "hard" science winds up talking so much about morality, ethics, and spirituality all inspired by a discussion of theoretical Physics.

Now I can see how badly they botched the TV show (the book never even mentions the FBI and the only character of the same name in the book (Lloyd) is completely different.

I did enjoy the book it was a fun read/listen and felt short at times after finishing "A Dance with Dragons" which was such a chore at times.

[Ryan]

I think the best books brings the science, or the magic, home and address the moral ethical spiritual and even financial consequences of it no matter how "hard". I find it to be entirely realistic, because I think it is a concern in the actual practice of science and experimentation and also because it a book where we deal with people who are deeply effected by the flash forward and will respond to it on many levels including most importantly all of these and a thousand others.

also I agree I too love GRRM but its nice to have a quick, light read after such a behemoth.

my question is should I watch the tv show, I know that it will probably botch much of the book and charachters in adapting it, but is it good and worthwhile in its own right?

[Andrew]

I just finished this, and really enjoyed it being a shorter read (nice to see that % really tick down when you turn the light off at the end of the night).

Overall I enjoyed the book and main premise, with the associated questions it raised. I did find that I was a little cold to the characters (just didn't really seem to care much about them), and it was only really with Theo's later drama that I seemed to feel something. As mentioned in the other thread I did share the view that the science knowledge dumps felt a little lecture-y, and as others also contended didn't flow as nicely as I'd like.

[Andy]

I think at the end I took away a lot of what you have said before. Additionally I was thinking about the future, how would I react to a vision?

Some of the characters embraced their visions and became what they saw in the future. Other characters tried to fight the future to varying levels of success, in fact one character became his future by trying to fight the vision. That would seem to be the danger of future visions, does your future take your foreknowledge into account? That might have gotten a little too meta though, my apologies :)

[Stephen]

I have found all of Sawyer's books to be very enjoyable reads, and Flashforward was no exception. It is nice to have an author who is dedicated to using the Hard SF to great advantage in getting across thought provoking ideas.

While some of the science was very heavy, and bogged down parts of the story, I never found it to be hard to follow.

All in all a great book, and I can't wait to read more of Sawyer's writing.

[Paulo]

Finished the audiobook yesterday. I gave it 4 stars. Even though i enjoyed it a lot, i feel that Sawyer did not execute well some of the tension moments of the book.
There's absolutely no countdown in the book that isn't interrupted by (lots) of thoughts from the characters. One example, close to the end of the book: (view spoiler)[
Teo is driving a hovercar inside the CERN tunnel, carrying a bomb that will explode in less then 10 minutes. Also, there's a crazy armed guy pursuing and shooting him. Also, he knows that his flashforward pointed to him dying by gunshot on that same day. But he suddenly is lost in thoughts about if the armed guy's theories about the time displacement could be valid.
(hide spoiler)]
Without being spoilerish, I loved the moments when Sawyer's give us his vision of the future (future tech, politics, companies going broke, etc.) as well as the political discussions on the United Nations.

Overall, I consider it is a great idea for a book, with a not-so-great implementation of the idea.

[Geoff]

Ryan wrote: "I think the best books brings the science, or the magic, home and address the moral ethical spiritual and even financial consequences of it no matter how "hard". I find it to be entirely realistic..."

Ryan on the TV show. I actually liked it for the most part but the show has no resolution and the last episode really leaves the main character hanging In an almost literal way.

[Jlawrence, S&L Moderator]

I too enjoyed how Sawyer made the human impact of the flashforward 'visions' one of the book's central themes. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up the potential of the premise for me. The clunkiness of some of the writing and the fact that I found the characters not that engaging lessened the poignancy of their struggles with destiny, choice, spirituality, etc. Still, the book was intriguing and I'm glad I read it.

[George]

Just finished the audiobook version. I had purchased it in the middle of the TV series, not knowing how different the two were. Having finished the book I can say there is little connecting the two other than a weak resemblance of the glimpse into the future. The book actually turned out to be pretty good. The TV series was very disappointing, even more now that the book shows were they could have gone.

[Mathew]

I found the book to have an odd attitude about the scientists and world's reaction to the flashforward. This may be because it was written in a pre 9/11/01 world and the media wasn't quite as loony toons as they are now.

Besides some minor lip service about people being upset the reaction to the experiment killing 10's of millions of people for the most part is cool do it again we'll just make everybody in the world lie down this time.

What was also not well thought out was it seemed to me the entire world recovered in like 2-3 days and all public and commercial services were business as usual. Stop and imagine that almost every single car and truck on the road from around noon on a work day wrecked all over the United States and millions of people died. Just that alone would shut the country down for weeks let alone if the disaster included planes, people walking, climbing, swimming etc.

The book did not explore this near enough instead we get what I thought was several odd chapters on the inner dialogue of a stereotypical "nerd who has trouble talking to girls all his life gets the girl of his dreams"

Overall I did enjoy the book and I thought The author had some great speculative fiction for the 2030 timeline. I also thought he did a great job of writing 2009 tech considering this was written in 1999 he got many things close to what they are today.

[Lorenzo]

I just finished listening to the audio book and I liked the book but felt it was lacking. I also didn't like the ending... it was interesting seeing how the characters in 2030 and how the new future compared to the 2009 flash foward. But that second flash foward was so depressing...

[Ken]

Just like car chases are now considered passe in movies, I thought the chase and shooting in the tunnel got old and predictable.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I liked the concept but agree the writing, pacing, and conclusion weren't great.