Flashback

By: Dan Simmons

Narrated by: Richard Davidson, Bryan Kennedy, Joe Barrett

Length: 21 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn't care: they're addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom's wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he's lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result.

Nick may be a lost soul, but he's still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor's son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation that is turning away from the future to live in the past.

A provocative novel set in a future that seems scarily possible, Flashback proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers.

©2011 Dan Simmons (P)2011 Hachette

What Happened to Dan Simmons?

Disclaimer: Dan Simmons is in my top 5 favorite authors. He still is, but....

The Hyperion Cantos was amazingly inventive. Illium and Olympos are my most recommended novels, after anything by Ian M. Banks, of course. I enjoyed the heck out of Darwin's Razor, even if it was not science fiction. But Flashback is like sitting down with your favorite uncle and finding him missing more than a few screws. Simmon's ignorance of economic reality and the state of Earth sciences is mind boggling. I know we are asked to separate the politics of the characters portrayed from the political beliefs of the author, but please. Gushing over Las Vegas and the ultra wealthy, with the moral superiority of gambling and sex trafficking, while Santa Fe is the mobster capital of North America? Please.

TL/DR A humanities professor whose career was created by the nation's educational priorities in the liberal arts spends an entire novel whining about entitlement programs. Simmon's previous novels show why our initial investment in his career was a worthy endeavor. Now he kind of spits in our face.

Disappointing

What disappointed you about Flashback?

Dan Simmons is an great storyteller; The Terror is one of my favorite books. However, in Flashback he made the unfortunate decision to shoehorn half-baked rightwing talking points into an otherwise solid narrative. Throughout the story, characters break into extended monologues tracing this or that sorry state of affairs back to some liberal policy.

It's perfectly natural for an author's political opinions to inform his or her work. But the exposition was awkward, and way too long. If I want to listen to long-winded, poorly-informed zealots, I'll visit my inlaws.

Has Flashback turned you off from other books in this genre?

No

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Yes

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment.

Any additional comments?

I don't care for multiple narrators reading one story. Also, the man reading the flash gang chapters was incredibly annoying.

Much less than I would expect from the author

I seldom return a book but after 4 hours or listening, this was so dull, so dry, so bereft of anything like a gripping story, I just could not continue. I love audiobooks and found myself making excuses not to listen.

Prejudice and right wing bias overwhelms the story

Overtly displayed Anti-Japanese and Arab xenophobia make this book one I just can't get through, which is a shame, since it otherwise seems to be developing into something interesting. The performance is fine, though the protagonist voice is a bit strange - rather whiny it seems to me. Switching narrators bugs me a bit - I'm usually ok if a man reads the men and a woman the women - but I see no need for multiple male narrators.

Not worth the credit

I didn't make it past 1hour. I was so looking forward to another Joe Barrett narration, but whoever of the narrators starts off, is very obnoxious and pompous voice. Couldn't get into the story at all, although, it sounded like an exciting one.

Not so great.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of the narrators?

I think R. C. Bray might do good with this.

Any additional comments?

This was a good idea that was poorly executed and made worse by incompetent readers. I wanted so much to like this but two-thirds of the way in I gave up. I might try it again when I forget how bad it was, but as of now I can't finish it.

This is not a detective story

Because it spends too much time fixated on right wing doomsday predictions coming true. I thought I never get tired of world building but this one I did. It is way too full of racist, biggest, and xenophobic comments about the world which the characters live in, and remember that it is a detective story.

A terrible book

An unoriginal story reminiscent of the movie Strange Days with a cliche sad sack lead character navigating an 80’s TV movie dystopian alternate present. Add to this a host racial cliches, an awful plot and pages and pages of right wing Fox News drivel and you have a book written by a competent and often entertaining writer who tried to reach too high and ended up with nothing to show for it.

Great story but full of racial stereotyping and slurs

I love all Dan Simmons so am willing to cut him some slack on this book maybe but without giving it away I think it is charged with conservative fear monger scenarios and blatant racial slurs. Climate change isn’t real Muslim religion is evil and they take over and destroy all good assuming white people. One of the characters who is black is referred to as nigger brown which really says it all about this book. If you like Dan Simmons do yourself a favor and skip this book or else you may not like him anymore or at least hope this book doesn’t reflect his true character

Waste of Time & Money

The narration is good but the writing is taken straight out of the Fox News, Daily Stormer, Breitbart, Glenn beck, and Alex Jones playbooks and is poorly dressed up as a Mystery and Sci-Fi novel. So if you get your “news”and world views from these sources then this book will be right up your twisted alley. If you do not fall into the ever growing category of the afore mentioned thanks nonetheless to books like Flashback then do not waste your time and hard earned money, just turn on Fox News or the like and get your dose of bigotry for free.