Book Review: Flashforward by Robert Sawyer

I was looking for a new TV show to watch as I am almost up to date with Eureka and Leverage and Burn Notice. I remembered that there was a show FlashFoward, which had really good commercials last year so I started to do a bit of research. What I found out was that the show lasted only for a year and that the synopsis didn’t appear too interesting. However, I also learned it was based on a book, Flashfoward, by Robert Sawyer and the synopsis of that seemed really interesting. Interesting enough for me to download a mp3 of it and put it on the iPod, and I am glad I did.

I like science fiction. When I was a kid, I did read it a bit and enjoyed it. However TV sci-fi (ScyFy?) provided me with a steady source of science fiction, like Star Trek. Movies like Star Wars also feed this. My all time favorite movie is “The Forbidden Planet” so it was not a stretch for me to think that I might enjoy this book.

A quick summary; Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland do an experiment and the entire world experiences a glimpse 21 years into the future. This sets up a look at how the lives of several people are changed, the world itself is changed, and the fact that the future is not immutable. There is politics, relationships and intrigue. I found myself rooting for specific characters, which means I had bought into the whole process. They repeat the experiment 21 years later and we are given a glimpse of the universe millions of years in the future. This is where the only problems that I had with the book occurred as it seemed to fall into the weird music/flowing images/odd circumstances formula that often abounds in this genre. It is as if the author could not figure out how to end it so he went with the “dream sequence” like Kubrick’s 2001.

One thing still puzzles me. Why would TV executives take a good book with a great hook of an idea, and so change it and reduce it to pabulum on the small screen. This had potential and just missed the target.

By the way, I found this book similar in nature to Michael Creighton’s Timeline, where scientists conducting an experiment, go back in time to Medieval France.

Overall I liked the book. I am giving it 3 Penguins…

I wish it had not go so formulaic at the end but I feel that anyone who likes science fiction would really enjoy it and those who like fiction in general would find it interesting as well.