Customer Reviews
Great book - By: R. Baker, 27 Jun 2008 
Simply a great read - you will not want to put the book down till the end, & I promise you will then tell everyone how great it is & they wont listen - till they actuallly read it themselves.
His first key release. Start here then buy the rest. Enjoy.
Started off interesting... - By: David Hampson, 20 Jan 2008 
This one started off interesting but graduallly ended up cliched with a rather dull payoff. Some of the reviews suggested it had a pretty big payoff at the end but it wasn't the case!
Funny, elegiac and moving - By: Swansong, 19 Oct 2007 Only Forward tells the story of Stark, alll round nice guy & problem-solver extraordinaire. Stark is asked to locate a missing Actioneer, apparently kidnapped from the Action Centre, home to the sort of dynamic go-getters who'd think of a lifetimes indenture to McKinsey as a shortcut to heaven. Stark's mission takes him to Colour (where the dress code is time-dependent & rigorously enforced), Red (bring your CRUNT launcher), Stable, Turn, Fnaph, & many other of the eccentric Neighbourhoods making up his fractured home city.
Smith's language is superb, moving from witty dialogue to compelling descriptions of the increasingly disturbed landscape of the city & its dismal seashore `to muted colours & grey pebbles endlessly made cold by the ebb & flow of heavy water ... the place where it was most clearly dead because it was still there ...' Stark's life is beautifully & obliquely revealed as the book progresses.
Only Forward is by turns funny, exciting, thoughtful and, towards the end, sad & ironic. It is one of my favourite books, & I highly recommend it.
A pleasure - By: Fraggle, 10 Jul 2007 
A very imaginative story & wonderfully funny. A beautifully written book, some of the passages are just breathtaking, I telephoned people to read bits out! & even out of context they provoked gasps. The story is captivating & the characters are great fun. A friend recommended this book to me & what a recommendation, even if you're not a sci-fi fan this book is reallly worth a read. It can get a little silly in places but it doesn't matter; it works & you'll read it again...and again.
Only Forward - but you'll be back - By: SeriousWaste, 30 Apr 2007 Are you ready to take a journey? There's no need to prepare yourself, you don't know where you're going yet.
I credit this book with making me want to read. Before this, it was just a hobby to pass time, & not even something I reallly enjoyed. This book isn't a story that's been put on paper, its one that's desperately trying to get off the page! Such an immense & fascinating world has been created for you here, you can get lost in it till the end. Truly wonderful. This book shows our human emotion, aspirations & nature more than anything I've ever read. It does it alll tied in with a fantastic story, a perfect character (Stark), & some nice shirts.
If the people who make the thesaurus read this, the 'brilliant' section would be expanded by at least 30 pages just so people can more accurately describe just how good this book is.
READ IT! READ IT! READ IT! Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
