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My 2 eurocents
Of all the topoi in SF, time travel is one of the most used (and abused). From the eponymous Time Machine to a modified DeLorean DMC-12, to a quantum foam which makes me roam between universes, we have seen a wide spectrum of means of transportation along the time axis.
In this novel, Sawyer provides us with someting new: the consciousness did travel, while the body stayed home. Good idea, indeed.
Generally speaking, the theme of time travel, even in this particular form, always brings questions, to which the writer is supposed to give answers. Is the future fixed/predetermined? Do we really have free will? Can the past be changed? And, of course there is always place for paradoxes: if a future discovery is patented now, who's the creator? Where the idea come from?
Of course none of these is a must have element in a time-travel story, but IMHO these questions have to be dealt with in a way or another - even if the focus of the story is not in the time travel itself, and it's rather in the action of escaping from a T-800 Terminator; otherwise it always give the feel of a lack of solid grounds.
RJ Sawyer covers the topic in the dialogs between scientists, where he gives the reader a couple of good cues ("if I was aware of the Flash Forward in the future, I'd been reading stock market outcomes"...). The answers are given vehemently, brought by death: Dim's suicide in praise of free will; LLoyd's choice of mortality (another topos itself, fallen from german skies...); the guy trying to destroy the LHC while attempting to create a Pauli principle for consciousness effect...
The one way travel in the future albeit temporary, exempt the author from dealing with most paradoxes: you see just one of the possible future, and in that future you don't have knowledge of present leap - meaning, of course, that it can't be your actual future...
The world-wide time travel, another good idea itself, brings up a lot of new themes, ranging from social issues to religions, and here is where the novel lacks, giving the impression that the author does not dare to delve into such sensible subjects, and he just skims over them giving the reader the bare minimum (and possibily something less).
About the two-dimensionality of the characters, I just quote what have been told here, and, like others, I'm also a bit disappointed by the ending.
I can't evaluate the style of writing on an informed basis: I'm not skilled enough in English. But I did read the book easily, and I resorted to the dictionary only a couple of times, having a seamless reading experience, which I enjoyed.
Bottom line: some very good ideas, with a weak story to carry them on.
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