Genre: Sci-Fi, Alt History
Reviewer: KA
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About The Book
September 11th, 2001. What if you could see disaster before it struck – but no one believed you?
Forecast is a pulse-pounding speculative thriller that catapults you into the mind of Roland Bishop, a weatherman living in Jersey City in 2001, whose life becomes shattered by a freak lightning strike.
Suddenly cursed—or gifted—with visions of impending violence, Roland Bishop is thrust into a race against time as he glimpses a catastrophic plot unfolding in the shadows of New York City and the United States. Haunted by guilt, hunted by forces he can barely comprehend, and armed with powers he never asked for, Roland must decide: will he risk everything to change the future, or let fate run its course?
With the clock ticking toward September 11th 2001, Roland’s journey becomes a mind-bending battle through fractured realities, shifting timelines, and impossible choices. Guided by his fiercely loyal psychiatrist and a skeptical detective, he faces a terrifying question: can one man rewrite history, or is destiny unbreakable?
Step into the storm with Forecast, where visions of terror and the power of lightning force Roland Bishop to risk everything. This gripping blend of supernatural suspense and alternate history will keep you questioning: can one man truly change the course of the future?
The Review
In many ways, 9/11 fills the hearts and minds of people of the 21st century the way that the Titanic disaster fascinated people in the 20th. It was such an immense disaster that affected so many people, and it was surrounded by stories of utter tragedy and survival, with a ribbon of hope threading through the despair of the day.
I was eager to read Forecast because of this intriguing premise: what if an everyday person was granted the knowledge about the tragedy in advance, and the power to stop it?
In Forecast, Roland Bishop realizes that his choices can change the outcome of the future. Ever since he was struck by lightning, he is haunted by glimpses of the future and terrifying images of an impending disaster. With the help of his psychologist, Dr. Penny, he slowly learns how to navigate his powers, hoping that each vision and action can lead him to the means to stop what is coming.
Along the way, his life becomes tied to Mohammed Atta, one of the main terrorists involved in the 9/11 plot, which complicates his mission. As he jumps from timeline to timeline to uncover the information he needs to stop the disaster, the reader follows along with a growing sense of unease and urgency as time counts down closer and closer to the dreadful day.
One of the ways that the author heightens this tension is by strict adherence to the frustratingly low-quality state of technology in 2001. Readers expecting the ease of a text message or a Google search are out of luck; the main characters have a landline and a Nokia phone and nothing else to communicate with.
Even Roland’s miraculous survival of the lightning strike, an event that would be guaranteed to go viral across today’s social media apps, is completely unknown even one city over. Roland has local celebrity status as both a weatherman and a lightning strike survivor, but goes completely unrecognized throughout the book. Even when he goads others into recognizing him, time and again, his miraculous survival never registers in the memory of those he speaks with.
Forecast brings the world of the early 2000s back to life, creating a vivid and compelling “what if” timeline of that dark day of American history.
5 stars.
The Reviewer
KA Masters [she/her] is an ace author who writes queer fairy tales and historical fantasy. Although she believes that every good story needs elves and / or explosions in them, her most recent publication, “Sappho in Violet and Gray,” sadly does not include either. You can read more about her on her Goodreads Author Profile K_A_Masters.
