If I had read this book 25 years ago, I probably would have been much more impressed. Now, I found it quite outdated, and the narrative thread and the main characters themselves are successfully killed by the author's petty details. Something unprecedented has happened, and he's indulging us with the reluctance of an old bachelor to get married. And so, page after page… Otherwise, it started promisingly – a scientific experiment to obtain the Higgs boson at CERN leads to an unexpected result. ...

I don't know why I waited so long to read another book by Robert J. Sawyer. I really enjoyed *The Terminal Experiment*, and *Flashforward* kept me glued to the pages from beginning to end.The story is set in 2009. At CERN, an experiment is conducted to demonstrate the existence of the Higgs boson. The experiment not only fails, but it has a completely unexpected side effect: all humans experience a blackout for about 2 minutes, during which they have visions of themselves in the year 2030.Those ...

A challenging thought experiment!Like Schrödinger's Cat, Flashforward is a confounding, challenging, magnificent thought experiment that is, at once, breathtakingly simple and yet staggering in its possible scope and ramifications.Lloyd Simcoe and Theo Procopides (a pair of brilliant Canadian particle physicists ... hip, hip hooray!) are hot on the trail of the elusive Higgs Boson and the Nobel Prize that would almost certainly follow in the wake of success. To say that their experimental set up...

“There were, of course, cries of outrage in the press—editorials about scientists messing with things humans were not meant to know about.”Ah! Where would we be if scientists didn’t mess about? But who is to say what things humans weren't meant to know? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein implies that Victor Frankenstein messed with things humans weren't meant to know about, and broken necks ensue. Flashforward takes the opposing view: scientists need to experiment (mess about) for the sake of progress....

This is a tough one to rate. The TV show was SO much better. I picked this up because I was obsessed with the Flashforward TV show from a few years back, the one that got cancelled after just one season. The premise was just so captivating: everyone on Earth blacks out for two minutes and sees a vision of their own future. They get a glimpse of exactly what they'll be doing six months from then, which leads the characters (and us viewers) to endlessly debate whether the future is set in stone or...

Two minutes and seventeen seconds. A small amount of time for most of us, but within the confines of Robert Sawyer's fantastic science fiction novel *Flashforward*, 2:17 becomes more than a number; it becomes the insight into what the future holds. You see, 2:17 is the amount of time humanity checked-out. All seven billion. As you can guess, chaos ensued if you were one of the unlucky ones awake at the time. Planes crashed. Cars drove themselves. I can only guess what that unlucky skydiver exper...

Wow, where do I even begin?As much as it pains me to say, *Flashforward* is just…poorly written. Robert J. Sawyer somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with a plot that practically writes itself: a deep dive into the chaos and consequences if all of humanity suddenly glimpsed their future.His (and there are many) tangents were incredibly distracting. He felt the need to share such vital information as: all VCRs in Europe display "REW" for rewind, regardless of the local language; a mi...

Book vs TV series: review (mostly) written in 2010The only thing this shares with the TV series of the same name is the concept of everyone in the world simultaneously blacking out for two minutes, during which they have a “flashforward” of their future. In the TV series that is 6 months hence; in the book it is just over 21 years hence, so the implications are very different. (However, the second series, which was never made, was going to have a 20-year jump.)ConceptIt’s a fantastic premise and...

I could pay tribute to Robert J. Sawyer's *Flashforward* in so many ways. Let's just say the audiobook was an awful piece of writing, but an entertainingly bad way to spend ten hours in a car. Perfect for a long road trip! Or, 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...

For me, Robert J. Sawyer novels are either a hit or a miss. They're either incredibly brilliant, and I can't turn the pages fast enough (like with "Rollback"), or I can't wait for the final page to turn just to be done with the novel (like with "Hominids"). And I'll admit I picked up "Flashforward" because ABC put it on the fast track for development as 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 s...