Book Review Wednesday: Flashforward (Robert J Sawyer) 4 stars

I first heard about this book when the series based on it came out. I stopped watching after a couple episodes because it didn’t seem to be going anywhere, but the idea behind it was interesting.

All across the world everyone blacks out for two minutes, seventeen seconds. Millions die as you can imagine. Cars veering off roads, planes crashing, people falling down staircases. But what’s more interesting is what most of those who survive experienced in that time. For that short patch of time their consciousness got to see out of the eyes of who they’d be in twenty years.

In the series things changed around a bit. The characters saw less far ahead, and no one seems to know what’s behind it. In the book our characters trigger the event by running an experiment to try and create a higgs bosen. They don’t know how their experiment triggered it all to happen, but find out through some detective work in the book. I didn’t watch far enough to see if they discovered some whys and hows in the series.

This wasn’t a perfect book, but it was very good. The characters had depth, but weren’t as deep as they could’ve been. It was neat to see how the world dealt with their glimpse into the future. I liked the science. There are some interesting hypothesizes about time that provided something nice to wrap my brain around.

The plot is interesting, but not edge of your seat kind of stuff. I’d say the best thing about this book is the idea. The science used to explain the idea is also up there. Everything else is good, but not brilliant. So, this is a good book, but not one I’m going to rave on about and say everyone should read. Just scraping four stars.

If the idea intrigues you enough to read it, go ahead. Don’t expect perfection. Expect an all right book, and you and said book should get on fine.

For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337132.Flashforward

Advertisement

Book Review Wednesday: All Our Yesterdays (Cristin Terril) 5 Stars

This was quite possibly my favorite read of the year. It’s definitely up there among the top ten.

Five stars, no question. This has cool time travel with science behind it that didn’t contradict itself. We get some interesting ideas of how time travel might work, how it would relate to the theory of relativity, and a great hypothesis about time having a sentient aspect to it. Our characters are varied and deep. Their relationships to each other are interesting.

We also get to see the future and past versions of some of the characters. I can’t get over how fascinating it was to see the similarities and differences between them. They’re four years apart, but they’ve changed so much. It makes me wonder how much I’ve changed in recent years.

Anyways, before we go further, let’s look at the blurb:

What would you change?

Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.

Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present—imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside.

Marina has loved her best friend, James, since they were children. A gorgeous, introverted science prodigy from one of America’s most famous families, James finally seems to be seeing Marina in a new way, too. But on one disastrous night, James’s life crumbles, and with it, Marina’s hopes for their future. Marina will protect James, no matter what. Even if it means opening her eyes to a truth so terrible that she may not survive it… at least, not as the girl she once was. Em and Marina are in a race against time that only one of them can win.

All Our Yesterdays is a wrenching, brilliantly plotted story of fierce love, unthinkable sacrifice, and the infinite implications of our every choice.

Cool idea, check. Deep, complex, and consistent characters, check. Brilliant plot, check. Heart-wrenching everything, check.  Believable world, check. Plus there are a lot of themes running through this book about morality. Should you kill the few to save the many? What does it take for a person to be considered evil? Because that’s the thing. There are no evil characters in this book. People do things that can be considered evil, but everyone thinks they’re doing the ‘right thing.’

This is one of those brilliant books that shows very clearly that everyone is a hero. Even the villains are heroes in their own minds. It’s all left quite open as well, so we’re not told that our guy’s side is the right one. They believe it’s the right one, but I imagine if we were on the other side their conviction would be just as strong. This book left me with a lot of thoughts, and tons of feelings.

The words kept me gripped from start to finish, so go read it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13514612-all-our-yesterdays

Book Review Wednesday: Viral Nation (4 stars)

Finished this review on wednesday and clicked publish, but it’s only showing as a draft. Weird. Anyways, here’s last wednesdays review in case you haven’t read it.

A more unknown book this time. Only 206 reviews on goodreads. I hate risking reading a bad book because I have a disturbing compulsion to finish the book, and if I don’t like it, that’s a really sucky process. Anyways, the ratings were decent, and its a dystopia (my ultimate love), AND it stars an autistic main character!

Since I happen to be autistic, I love coming across a good book with a well written autistic character. This was one of them. Here’s the blurb:

After a virus claimed nearly the entire global population, the world changed. The United States splintered into fifty walled cities where the surviving citizens clustered to start over. The Company, which ended the plague by bringing a life-saving vaccine back from the future, controls everything. They ration the scant food and supplies through a lottery system, mandate daily doses of virus suppressant, and even monitor future timelines to stop crimes before they can be committed.

Brilliant but autistic, sixteen-year-old Clover Donovan has always dreamed of studying at the Waverly-Stead Academy. Her brother and caretaker, West, has done everything in his power to make her dream a reality. But Clover’s refusal to part with her beloved service dog denies her entry into the school. Instead, she is drafted into the Time Mariners, a team of Company operatives who travel through time to gather news about the future.

When one of Clover’s missions reveals that West’s life is in danger, the Donovans are shattered. To change West’s fate, they’ll have to take on the mysterious Company. But as its secrets are revealed, they realize that the Company’s rule may not be as benevolent as it seems. In saving her brother, Clover will face a more powerful force than she ever imagined… and will team up with a band of fellow misfits and outsiders to incite a revolution that will change their destinies forever.

Things I liked about it:

The idea. Basically it revolves around a time portal that stays exactly two years ahead of present time. People go there, bring back information and try not to mess things up too much and change the future. Not totally original, but interesting anyway.

Clover. The author seems to get that people with autism are varied, and capable of all kinds of things neurotypical people do, including relationships, but sometimes in a different way. I liked that most if not all of Clover’s big issues with her autism weren’t from her autism, but from how others treat her because of it. Clover can function pretty much ‘normally’ with a few minor changes to her environment such as having her service dog around. But do people want to allow these changes that barely even affect them? No way! It has some good parallels with discrimination issues in our world.

West. You really feel for the guy. He just wants to do what’s best for his sister, and ends up sacrificing his own future to do so. No one understands Clover the way he does, not even their father, so he’s basically the only one really there for her. I really liked Clover and his relationship.

Secondary characters: Most of the secondary characters are well fleshed out. The only niggle I had with this was Jude. He’s a more prominent character with an interesting back-story, but there were times when I felt I should know him a bit better. It’s a small thing that I was mostly able to push to the back of my mind while reading.

Timey whimy wibbly wobbly: The two year loop is complex. You know something from the future you can change the present, and it doesn’t always go the way you expect. It’s hard to tell sometimes if you’re changing something for the better or not. This book gets into some of those ideas that make your head spin. This can be good or bad. Personally I love that kind of mind bending stuff and wanted more of it, but some may not like being led to ideas that make their brains do gymnastics.

Things I didn’t like:

Some parts of the plot: Overall I liked the plot, but there were some areas when I thought the author could’ve made more excitement out of the situation. More risk, more close calls, more action. Most of the time the characters were running and hiding, which was OK, but I wish they’d been forced into the offensive more.

Overly convenient: Some plot points seem to make things too easy for the characters. I wanted more struggle, more pain. Yes, this may make me a bad person. Loose threads: This may be addressed in later books, but there were a few of these. The ending: It kind of didn’t. I was expecting some big finale, but it just trailed off. That said, I found the book interesting enough for a read, but the ending did disappoint me.

Four out of five stars. I’d call this book flawed, but worth a read, particularly if you like reading about autistic characters. And in case you want to read more reviews about this book, here’s the link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15985355-viral-nation