Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2011
560 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
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 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.
"A nicely different approach to the apocalyptic novel from the author of The Terror; try it." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. Simmons keeps the action moving briskly and smoothly, despite the novel's length." - Publishers Weekly
"Flashback is at its strongest when its lurking societal doomsday treatise is kept in the background and Bottom's effort to solve the mystery - and survive solving it - is kept to the fore. Fortunately, that accounts for most of the novel, making Flashback worth the read..." - BookPage
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest. Since his first published short story won the Rod Serling Memorial Award in the 1982 Twilight Zone Magazine Short Fiction contest, Dan Simmons has won some of the top awards in science fiction, horror, fantasy, and thriller genres, as well as honors for his mainstream fiction. He lives along the Front Range of Colorado.
Dan Simmons won the World Fantasy Award for his novel Song of Kali. Notable books include the Hyperion series (four science fiction novels) (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion,and The Rise of Endymion) and more recently Illium and Olympos
In 1995, Dan's alma mater, Wabash College, awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contributions in education ...
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