"They were attempting to recreate create energy levels that hadn’t existed since a nanosecond after the Big Bang, when the universe’s temperature was 10,000,000,000,000,000 degrees."

Experiments with light # 27. Geilston Bay, March 2013.

Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer

Look, this isn’t a well-written book. I shall list some of the challenges: leaden characters; pedestrian dialogue; impenetrable digressions on the nature of physics; and an approach to female characters and their motivations that make me wonder if the author has ever spoken to a woman. It is a testament to the appeal of that central narrative premise that I enjoyed it so much.

That premise? Picture this: a pair of brilliant physicists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, utilising the world’s largest particle physics laboratory in the endeavour to isolate the Higgs boson elementary particle (at least, I think that’s what they were trying to do, I forget). Anyway, at the very moment that they fire up the Large Hadron Collider to smash that boson, everything stops.

For the next two minutes and seventeen seconds, every person on Earth blacks out. Cars and planes crash, people fall downstairs to their deaths, others smash their heads into their desks or the ground as they suddenly drop without warning. In the blackout period, many people experience an interlocking mosaic of visions that turn out to be a glimpse of the future twenty-one years from that moment. Some don’t see anything.

From here, several narrative arcs evolve. We have huge questions that relate to the implications on our understanding of space and time: is the future fixed and predetermined? What becomes of free will? Is there only one dimension or – as predicted by string theory – are there additional dimensions that might be detected?

Alongside this are the more prosaic questions that emerge from the event: can our brooding lead physicist overcome the traumas of a cold and bitter childhood and find love at last? Will his brilliant and driven junior partner be able to solve the mystery of his own murder that he knows will happen twenty-one years hence? When will that freckly young bloke finally get to see that other sexy scientist lady without her clothes on? Did I mention that the book’s approach to women was somewhat retrograde?

So a lot of stuff happens, with plenty of hackneyed dialogue and a lot of adverbs flung about with abandon. There’s a lot of internal rumination (to minimal productive resolution) from our leads. I appreciated the effort made towards the female of the species (women can be smart too, particularly those of beguiling and mysterious Asian backgrounds). However, getting some feedback from a woman might have helped soften some of the edges (“Hmmm, do you think that ALL men casually reflect upon their past encounters with sex workers when they’re considering future romantic relationships?”).

Yet, I enjoyed it. If you find the concepts of interest and are happy to run with some weak writing and heavy science, this could be the book for you!

⭐ ⭐ 1/2

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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