MobileRead Discussion: Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer (spoilers)

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Well, I thought this week's was the best yet. A big turning point in Mark and Olivia's relationship and a couple of bombshells.

It's on Hulu, but if you're skipping episodes you're going to be really confused.

I've got two episodes in my Hulu queue to watch. Apparently I already TiVo two other shows in the same time slot that I rate higher.

BOb

[mores]

I'm surprised. There are threads talking about squirrels, avatars and other crap that span pages and pages and pages and ... and here, where it counts, the replies trickle in, and half of them are not even on topic (this is about the b.o.o.k., not the t.v. )

Maybe I just expected more from a "book club" in a forum with the most literary people I (virtually) know.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by mores

I'm surprised. There are threads talking about squirrels, avatars and other crap that span pages and pages and pages and ... and here, where it counts, the replies trickle in, and half of them are not even on topic (this is about the b.o.o.k., not the t.v. )

Maybe I just expected more from a "book club" in a forum with the most literary people I (virtually) know.

Perhaps it's just the nature of this book - there isn't quite enough to discuss. As for myself, I read it early and quickly forgot most of it.

Edit: a set of 'book club questions' might have helped the discussion along.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Ea

Perhaps it's just the nature of this book - there isn't quite enough to discuss. As for myself, I read it early and quickly forgot most of it.

Edit: a set of 'book club questions' might have helped the discussion along.

Someone here posted a list of questions somewhere. I was going to use them... but neglected to. Perhaps I can dig them up and add them to this thread.

BOb

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Someone here posted a list of questions somewhere. I was going to use them... but neglected to. Perhaps I can dig them up and add them to this thread.

BOb

http://www.sfwriter.com/rgff.htm

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by mores

I'm surprised. There are threads talking about squirrels, avatars and other crap that span pages and pages and pages and ... and here, where it counts, the replies trickle in, and half of them are not even on topic (this is about the b.o.o.k., not the t.v. )

Maybe I just expected more from a "book club" in a forum with the most literary people I (virtually) know.

Well, it wasn't a very good book. I think it only got chosen because of the TV show.

Maybe next month will be better.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

http://www.sfwriter.com/rgff.htm

Well, taking up question number 2: "If you were in the same situation as Lloyd and Michiko, knowing that twenty-one years down the road you would no longer be together, would you go ahead with the planned wedding? If you were in the same situation as Theo's brother, Dim, and discovered that your dreams were never going to come true, what would you do?"

What I would do is not jump to conclusions. I'd probably assume that I was with another spouse because my first one had died after a long and happy marriage, and in Dim's case I would assume that I was working in a restaurant because I was doing research for my next best-selling novel.

But I'm an optimist.

But that's what got me about this book: All the characters make these huge illogical conclusions from a *2 minute* glimpse *21* years from now. I wouldn't care *what* I saw, if I knew I was still going to be alive 21 years from now I'd whoop and holler with joy.

But that's just me.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by khalleron

... I wouldn't care *what* I saw, if I knew I was still going to be alive 21 years from now I'd whoop and holler with joy.

But that's just me.

Yes but would you become reckless with your known invunerability?

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yes but would you become reckless with your known invunerability?

Um, I'm kinda reckless now.

You only live once, better make the best of it.

[Trono]

But that's what got me about this book: All the characters make these huge illogical conclusions from a *2 minute* glimpse *21* years from now. I wouldn't care *what* I saw, if I knew I was still going to be alive 21 years from now I'd whoop and holler with joy.

But that's just me.

Weeell - this was not how I experienced it. IMO all these reactions was the strong point of the plot.

Like many others here, I got excited about the first part of this book. The plot/idea was great, and I especially liked how it got ME thinking about different aspects of the "glimps" into possible futures.

The book introduced some very interesting new perspectives:
First - the collective/communal perspective: So many, and wide ranging, effects on the society as a whole that I didn't think of myself.
Second - the individual perspective: As is questioned above - what would MY reaction have been...?

Unfortunately I agree with all you guys who found that the book lacked so much regarding the characters and plot development. So, over all, I found it thought provoking, but still a disappointment...

[kennyc]

And in related news :

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09...-Dropping-Bird

"Is Douglas Adams scripting the saga of sorrows facing the LHC? These time-traveling Higgs-Boson particles certainly exhibit the sign of his absurd sense of humor! Perhaps it is the Universe itself, conspiring against the revelations intimated by the operation of CERN's Large Hadron Collider? This time, it is not falling cranes, cracked magnets, liquid helium leaks or even links to Al Qaeda, that have halted man's efforts to understand the meaning of life, the universe and everything. It now appears that the collider is hindered from an initial firing by a baguette, dropped by a passing bird: 'The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant overheating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.'"

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...shuts-down-lhc

[DoctorOhh]

The reason I enjoyed most of this book was because it was a refreshing hard science Sci-fi story. The science was consistent within the reality of this book and the various comments dismissing the science mostly compare apples and oranges. The problem here is that this is science fiction and engaging in any constructive criticism about the science is futile even laughable.

Admittedly the ending trip through time wasn't the best string to tie this story up with but did provide an interesting stepping point to what could have been a future series. Placed a century or more down the road with some of the same characters. Of course that series has already been written hasn't it?

[mores]

[OT]Aren't eBooks wonderful? I was just sitting there, munching on my saussage, when my eyes passed a book on our wall that had an american flag on it. I was pondering about the stars and the stripes when something hit me - there's this passage in Flashforweard that mentions a new american flag. So, open the ebook, press cmd-F, and presto. Try that with a paperbook without taking a day of vacation, or two[/OT]

Isn't it rather unusual for someone to have a flashforward, with all the associated confusion and shock, to remember EXACTLY how many rows of stars there were on the american flag and how many stars each row contained?

[Ea]

Originally Posted by mores

Isn't it rather unusual for someone to have a flashforward, with all the associated confusion and shock, to remember EXACTLY how many rows of stars there were on the american flag and how many stars each row contained?

It felt a bit forced to me.

[pilotbob]

CERN is up to full power:

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/Press.../PR07.10E.html

Our Flashforward will be pretty soon now I guess.

BOb