Robert J. Sawyer: Flashforward

[starrysky]

Just finished reading it---<flashforward> by Robert J.Sawyer, which has been transformed into the recently broadcasting american drama : flashforward , with huge changes about the plot compared to the original book.

So has anyone read this book yet? The quantum physics ,future changing, and also time displacement inside the book are so intriguing. What's your opinion about this book and the time placement tricks using inside it?

 

[sparkchaser]

Never heard of it but the wiki entry sounds interesting.

 

[starrysky]

Hehe, i watched the drama first, found it kinda intimidating, and then searched out the original book, which was a quick read.

 

[lnm]

I just finished reading it last week and I enjoyed it. The depth of the characters and the relationships between them was not really its strong point but all the good science talk in it was pretty interesting.

The many world interpretation Vs. TI, The Physics of Immortality, Minkowski's cube, the Ebenezer effect and all the rest of quantum physics in it i really enjoyed.

I thought a few things didnt add up, like how long it takes for people to realize how easy it is to prove if the future is fixed or just a possibility. Something which the TV show has not changed. On the show, on top of how far after the flashes it happens, it seems to me almost ridiculous that the cop committed suacide to prove that the flashforwards are just possible futures. Specially considering they only saw like six months into the future instead of 20 something years. If he saw his hands on the vision (which he did), cutting a finger off would of sufficed.

 

[starrysky]

Yeah, i love that book much too, especially its intriguing plot about Lloyd's second vision that he would still be alive with a special material as his body watching the planet's life path from blooming to perishing, which did take me by surprise.

Oh, and the related physics thoughts have interested me a lot too, such as the quantum physics, their discussions about time replacement, history rewritten.

And i have just finished watching the first episodes of season one of this tv show, which ended up on that cop's eagerly investigation about his own appearing doomed death within six months, and it seems that the whole thing is developing right towards what the first vision has represented, such as the wife's potential cheating on his husband, and the whole time-replacement investigation. If that cop will kill himself to verify the authenticity of the first vision or theory of unchangeable future in that show, yeah , then this tv show has indeed changed a lot compared to the original book, inside which it is the scientist theo's brother who has killed himself because of despair based on the second vison that he would not make a successful writer 20 years later. And it is the scientist theo instead of that cop who did not have a vision. Hmm, i am just wondering where this tv show is going, as it seems expecting to get out of the original book's plot development path.

 

[jhorton]

I'm late to the party but I just finished reading Flashforward a couple of weeks ago. I thought the originality of the storyline (the consciousness of the entire human race forwarding 20 years in the future) to be its strong point, though it stretched the science at times.