Mild Spoiler Alert!

Far Forward, a book by independent author C. F. Waller, was published last month on Amazon.  I noticed a post about it in a Facebook group, and one sentence in the description captured my attention: “Awakening on a lazy Saturday morning, Anna Katz is greeted by an older version of herself making a pot of coffee.”  I love time travel stories, as they provide for wonderful opportunities for self-reflection, and I love puzzles; it is therefore no surprise that I decided to give this book a try!

I have to confess however that I almost immediately put the book away after reading only a few pages because of the graphic violence depicted.  But I was intrigued by the relationship between said violence and the abovementioned descriptive sentence, as well as the quality of the writing.  So I decided to give it another chance and forged ahead.

I am glad I did.  First off, the violence at the beginning of the book is as graphic as it gets.  Then there is the fact that Far Forward’s fast pace, various twists and turns, and unique definition of time travel, kept me reading long into the night.  I liked how the author worked in things like the extinction of the dinosaurs into his story.  I especially liked the character’s self-reflection, made in light of her meeting various versions of herself, of which I wish there had been more.  And while there were some mistakes (mostly typos), the writing flowed easily.

The story is a little hard to follow at times, as it is a little confusing determining when the character is dreaming from where she is now.  I also don’t like that the punch line in the description above, regarding the main character meeting an older version of herself, happened almost halfway through the book.  However, Far Forward is, in my opinion, still worth reading, and I am happy at the hint, at the end of the book, that there just might be a sequel in the works.