Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith: May 2004 Book of the Month Discussion

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by SteveDallas

It wasn't clear to me that *all* the countries had... just England. But you've got a good point...

I very vaguely remember a point where Stark says the whole earth is like that, and that even off-earth colonies were using the neighborhood system.

I didn't mind the ending... I thought the whole use of Jeamland throughout the book was already bringing in a "fantasitic" element, so I didn't feel the stuff at the end really turned into genre-jumping.

The jump, to me, happened about halfway into the book when Jeamland was introduced. Before that point, only the behavior of cats was bordering on the fantastic - then again, cats are strange in real life anyway.

You're right this book is not a case of really serious genre-jumping, but it still had a big change halfway through. The book took a turn I wasn't too interested in. I still give the book high marks because it was good on so many other points.

[SteveDallas]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast
I very vaguely remember a point where Stark says the whole earth is like that, and that even off-earth colonies were using the neighborhood system.

I could have missed it... I recall a phrase to the effect of " . . . back when people used to visit other countries."

[Clodfobble]

What caused the neighborhoods to close in on themselves? When Stark talks about his childhood, neighborhoods hadn't developed yet. Countries don't just fall apart into city-states. The author intentionally left this a mystery, but did he leave clues? I didn't pick any up.

Ok, I was reading it pretty late, so maybe I completely misunderstood... But my impression was when they first went into Jeamland, they stayed for a relatively long time, and since time works differently there, when they "punched" back through to the City they didn't recognize it as "home" at first because it was so far in the future that everything was totally different. Basically I got the impression that the Neighborhoods hadn't developed in such a short time, it was just that they'd been gone so long.

And I agree with Slarti, I liked the first half of the book way better than the second, but overall it was still good enough to get an approval rating.