While science fiction authors hardly ever claim that their novels are genuine predictions of the future, a certain degree of plausibility is necessary for their work to have longevity. After all, science fiction is an exploration of an imagined future and all its wonderful possibilities. Flashforward, originally published in 1999, is a fun romp through a world of big science, but its discredited premise and its Hollywood ending mark it as a dated effort from a thoughtful author.
Mr. Sawyer's book imagines a future -- now our past -- in which the Large Hadron Collider avoids its numerous, technical glitches to, moments after activation, discover the famed Higgs boson, or God particle. But though this is a cause for momentary celebration, soon disaster strikes in the form of a strange, temporal dislocation which transports the sum total of human consciousness 21 years into the future. For two minutes, everyone alive in 2009 experiences themselves in 2030, save for those whose future selves were either asleep or dead. These unfortunates experience nothing. When the event concludes and everyone returns to their 2009 selves, they carry with them personalized memories of the two minute glimpse of the future and, as a consequence, history is rewritten. Much like Back To The Future, humans now have some idea of what they'll be like in the future which causes them to effect changes in the present, changes designed to either encourage or avoid that future reality. Will these individual efforts to improve upon personal destiny brighten the future, or will they merely succeed in throwing the world into a chaos for which no one could have possibly prepared?
Mr. Sawyer does good work here. His thoughtful ruminations concerning the nature of human life are as admirable as his communication of the various, conflicting theories about the nature of our universe is edifying. Unfortunately, his decision to marry these fascinating, philosophical meditations with the thunderous explosions and overwrought plot twists of a Bruckheimer film left me dizzy and disappointed. Mr. Sawyer tried to have his cake and eat it too, to amalgamate heavy science and Hollywood with the aim of producing a product with both gravitas and sensationalism. This alchemy, however, fails to take and leaves Mr. Sawyer with two halves to two different books. Not that Hollywood minds. Television studios have been quite interested in taking his projects to the silver screen. But those of us who read him in hopes of being enriched by the experience are left out in the cold.
There's substance here, but an absurdity of a final act robs it of its impact. (2/5 Stars)
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