Read Time: 2 Minutes
Syncing Forward, by W. Lawrence, is some incredible science fiction. Slow and deliberate, depressing but a story of hope. We follow Martin James, who, due to circumstance, finds himself slowed to 1/4000th speed of normal humans. Trapped in his own body, he can only watch as life churns by. His life, family, and friends are all moving forward while he barely ages an hour.
Lawrence paints a fairly bleak future for humanity, yet believable given a lot of what is going on in the world. Countries under siege, tearing themselves apart from within and through terrorism. Technology is bounding ahead, yet barely any time passes for Martin James.
He gets some brief reprieves from his stints of extreme slowness, always regretting it. His children become adults in a blink, his wife leaves him, people he knows and love die… and because he’s slowed down so much, so much of this crashes together, one event after another.
The narration by Will Damron was exceptionally good. Being a father of two kids myself, I could feel the pain of the main character as I imagined going through the hell he goes through. Damron’s pacing and the feeling he injected into the words all added so much heart to this story it was hard not to get a little teary-eyed at times.
Overall a good book. I’m not sure if I’m a fan of the ending (no spoilers) – it seemed a little… underdeveloped? Like the author was rushing to finish. A little more time spent, I think, could have improved this immensely. This is the only minor gripe I have with an otherwise great story.