Rating: 
Summary: not all ha ha hee hee
Review: So, you start reading this book with your Douglas Adams head on. At least, I did. it's a bit sci-fi, you see, but with comedy asides. It's not until you get about halfway through that you realise you actually care about the characters in a way that you wouldn't normally, it they were only there for comedic effect. As soon as this happens, you will find yourself unable to put this book down, as it gives the most accurate description of dreaming that i have ever read. This book lulls you into a false sense of security, but don't be fooled, it has very dark moments. Also, as the book is written in first person, as soon as you have a plot premonition, you are admonished by Stark, the main character, for missing the bigger picture. Fantastic book, great author. Read all his stuff. ("Spares" next, if i were you)
Rating:
Summary: Not for those who seek happy ending!
Review: Starting with very original ideas the author takes us to a new Earth where hi-tech and violence intermix together to provide a futuristic story.
It starts with promising prolong that somehow keeps you tuned up through the first half of the book. Through out this first half, Michael Smith builds very interesting and deep characters. Each of these characters has his/her own complicated personality and life story. Except of few unreasonable facts - that I could not really accept - the story builds good tension and is mind provoking. Then, somewhere around the middle of the book Michael Smith makes a sharp turn and changes this sci-fi story to something more like 'Alice in Wonderland'. I found this very annoying and hard to accept. Still I kept on reading as I was really attached to the characters and HAD to know their destiny. This book deserves two stars for the plot and two stars for Michael Smith's polished, unique and fun writing style. Ideas are clearly conveyed, human life and survival is always at the center of events and day-to-day thoughts are brilliantly woven into the story line (in a rather compelling way)!
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant but flawed
Review: The first half of _Only Forward_ was one the most engrossing pieces of science fiction I've read in many years. Unfortunately, Smith wasn't able to keep up the pace -- and I found the second half of the novel be extremely disappointing. [WARNING, plot spoiler follows] Smith's world of the Neighborhoods is a wonderfully compelling place, but I found his excursion into the dream worlds (Jeamland) was rather uninteresting in comparison. IMHO _Only Forward_ would have been a stronger novel if he had resoloved the plot using only the framework (characters, principals, geography) of the Neighborhoods. Likewise, he could have written a separate novel solely based on the premises of his Jeamland without the need of creating the world of the Neighborhoods. I look forward to reading the other novels of Michael Marshall Smith, though. He's the most original voice in science fiction that I've come across in years.
Rating:
Summary: Can you call this a book?
Review: The first part of the book is good, when Stark is looking for Alkland, but when Stark decides that Alkland has a problem with his dreams the book is boring and so it keeps till the end, how can a person write so many words and don't say anything? I don't know why I finished this book, but I did. Sincerely, this book is a waste of time.
About the future? This book doesn't have anything about that, everything happened in Stark's dreams and in the dreams there are no future, present or past.
Rating: 
Summary: Sheer Genius
Review: The man is a genius. Only Forward, Spares, One of Us - three masterpieces, powerful beyond my ability to describe. These books are catharsis in print form. Hilarious, horrifying, complex, brilliantly inventive, staggeringly horrifying, and, finally, deeply affecting. Smith moves beyond genre. This isn't just SF; this is literature.
Rating:
Summary: What a book...
Review: The wonder about this book is that Stark tells you a story, and you don't realize it's a lie. But the farther into the book you get, the more he changes the original story he told--until he replaces it completely, but you don't notice because you're that caught up in it. It's an architecture of falshood, and brilliantly done--unique, and by turns fascinating and painful. It's a story that goes from humor to tragedy in the last thirty pages, and redeems itself in a nonchalant fashion, so smoothly that it's happened before you realize it.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, some fiction worth it's weight in gold
Review: This book has it all, humour, drama and vivid imagery. What makes this book one of my top five favourite of all time (apart from the original black cover if you are lucky enough to get it) is how completely you are drawn into a fictional world that is completely unique. This book touches a nerve in each one of us, because although the book is surreal, we can see a little bit of ourselves in every character. BUY IT
Rating:
Summary: Only Forward is brilliant new sci-fi
Review: This book is a true *modern* sci-fi masterwork. MMS rides a fine line between silly and scary. Every time you begin to write elements of the book off as banal, he comes back with something that makes you realize he is serious. The pace of the book will leave you out of breath: it is like riding a motorcycle through a gunfight while listening to heavy metal. There are parts where I laughed out loud, parts that genuinely made me cry, and parts that really made me reexamine the technology and attitudes of the world around us.
Rating:
Summary: Surreal land of Dreams
Review: This book is an awesome experience into a world divided into Neighborhoods that fit any need you can imagine. Smith takes you on a journey through Jeamland, the place where you dream. This is Michael Marshall Smith's best work ever. If you liked either One of Us, Spares, or any of his short stories, this is a highly recommended read.
Rating:
Summary: Have to read this ...
Review: This book, along with Vurt by Jeff Noon, is so fast paced that if I put it down, it would run away. Set in the near future, Stark, hero or anti-hero ... make your own mind up, gets mixed up in some pretty weird folks. From mobsters, syndicates to walking nightmares ... he bounces through the book at break neck speed, more by chance, a dash of luck and a lot of fast talking. It almost reads like an old detective book, but spiced up with cyber punk cool. You constantly wonder what Stark is going to get in to next ... DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK !!
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