Customer Reviews

Forward to Camelot

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a history buff -- but a JFK buff, too. I approached reading this book with the knowledge that it is fiction, yet the REAL LIFE characters living and breathing in these pages made me constantly pinch myself to pull me back into reality. And the reality is that we still ask the questions "who killed JFK?" and "what would the world have been like had he survived?" This book goes beyond answering those questions. It brings to life people we never got to know, takes us into the world of 1963 Dallas and leads us through one heart-stopping adventure right after another as Cady and Lee work together, in an unlikely pairing of heroes, to keep President Kennedy safe. I noticed the plot deals with three of the conspiracy theories in circulation, that it explores the (strong) possibility of Oswald's innocence and that it gives us what we never got to have: A real look at a living, breathing President John F. Kennedy after November 22 -- and beyond.

This book had the right combination of awesome time travel adventure teamed up with a topic that is surrounded by so many questions you can't help but keep on reading. I loved the strong main female character who does not realize her own potential until she is in the thick of things. I loved the confidence the male characters had in her ability to be who she was and take care of business. The time travel circle of events was incredible and well thought out. This would make a great movie!! I went out right away and rented JFK again just to complete the learning experience. I am now interested in watching 13 Days again. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a great time travel history lesson.

I'm not usually one who enjoys fiction, but this book grabbed me based on the subject, and the rare use of JFK in a science fiction.

I'll just say this was a real page-turner, a quick read because it was so historically accurate & detailed along with being incredibly exciting as to the fictional plot.

Best book I've read out of the 50 or so that I have read over the last 12 months. Not giving away any plot details here, only recommending that you should definitely get this. It will be one that you will revisit repeatedly, AFTER the first complete read, late at night. I've read it twice through and am not finished!

Author 2 U Review:

FORWARD TO CAMELOT by Susan Sloate and Kevin Finn

Time Travel had never really been on my mind, but when I read the synopsis of this novel, it surely intregued me. To go back to the 60's and change history as we knwo it, from the assassination of JFK to the cuban missle crisis, and to the cold war.
Cady Cuyler took her life into her own hands when she agreed to take this trip of a life time, meet people we've only read about in history books, and help rescue President Kennedy. She is a heroine not just for our time but also to look up to for the future generation.
The constant action in this novel has kept me on the edge of my seat, but the ending was unfortuned for Lee Harvey Oswald in my opinion. I wanted him to live so desperately after he had fought so hard and risked his life so many times to safe President Kennedy.
I'm looking forward to reading more books with the main character of Cady, and hope the movie will be just as exciting, for I would definetely go see it.
Petra Lozano
Author 2 U Books

From the surprising, disorienting beginning through to its brilliant epilogue this book grabs you and won't let you go. I defy you to put it down once you've got 2 pages in! I was hooked straight away and I was not even that interested in JFK (being a Brit and more concerned with the controversies around the death of Princess Diana) and the conspiracies surrounding his death. This book has piqued my interest in him and his so-called assasin Lee Harvey Oswald. The book romps along at an amazing pace - and I could easily see this being made into a fantasticly tense thriller by Hollywood. It offers a controversial view - but keeps alive the debate around the mystery and is especially interesting as we have just passed the 40th anniversary of the event itself. My favourite part is the epilogue - some fascinating insights into how life in America could be so different if this murder had never taken place.
Try it and see for yourself!

I bought this book as a kindness to the author, who is a member of one of my mailing lists. Thus, I felt compelled to read the entire book in order to give it a fair review. While I enjoyed one small part of the book--when the main character, Cady, becomes a telephone operator in 1963--most of it was slow-moving and silly. Watch JFK become an action hero! Watch Lee Harvey Oswald become an action hero! Of course, what can you expect about a book which states that "Oliver Stone's JFK is simply the best film ever made about those six crucial seconds in Dallas." I lived through the sixties, which was often a painful experience. The epilogue, which lets us know how much better the world is because JFK was saved (which is not giving anything away--it's stated on the front cover), gives us a trivial view of the "better" world we would have if he hadn't been assassinated. I recommend that you avoid buying this silly book and spend your money on something well-written by any of the proven science fiction authors whose work you'll find in magazines like Analog, Asimov's SF, and the Magazine of SF and Fantasy.

Susan Sloate and Kevin Finn have created a masterpiece. The painstaking reseach for this book gives you the feeling that you have time travled back to that awfull fall of 1963. Our heroine Actress Cady Cuyler is lured into recovering a bible that has a long lost hisory not just to the American people, but has a direct connection to Cady that could answer some questions about her father who disappeared at the same time as the Kennedy was assassination.

You'll find yourself unable to put down this page turner, on the chance that the next page is not to be missed. Because the next suprise appearce of a chacteror or of an event will keep you on the edge your of seat.

The're are some real belly laughs. There has to be, can any of us truly handle a reality where their are only 3 tv stations or in a big city maybe as many as 5. With the last two only showin "I Love Lucy reruns or cartoons (think Happy Doowd) No High-Speed internet, as a matter of fact it there is no internet. And cell phones forget it. The phones only had dialing system or an operator(that right! A real live person to get a number for you and even connect you for free!) Aquanet for hairspray, and don't ever leave the house without nylons and a garter belt to hold the nylons on. (forget Leggs panty hose they weren't invented untill women's lib)

While our heroine has an amazing task ahead of her she handles the situations with a little (a lot) of help from Lee Oswald. Remeber the definition of fantsay is the suspension of belief. And we never did hear his side of the story. Remember his quote to the press "I'm just a Patsy" I don't know if Oswald was one of the most evil man of our time or a hero. But these authors are so good at what they do that in the end you find your self wondering What If....

This is history at it's finest. Teaching you history lessons while keeping you entertained. Plus showing all of us that wanton blood shed is not the way to change history. Peacefull conversation and compromise are the answer. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Despite all the obstacles put in her path Cady not only jumps them faster than a athlectic sprinter. She triumps where others would fail. And the same can be said for this book. I am looking forward to Caddy and friends next adventure.

Believable characters have their shot at making a difference when they are thrust into pivotal historical moments. The sense that the reader is really plunged back into the sixties era is bolstered by solid research behind the action. The exploration of the president's character is multi-faceted and sure to foster reflection about his legacy. Apart from its merits as a thoughtful book about our national character, it is a page turner that the reader will put down only with great difficulty.

FORWARD TO CAMELOT is an old-fashioned, plot-heavy novel with a fabulous premise, interesting twists, thoroughly accurate history, and terrific characters. It's one of those `can't put it down' books you simply HAVE to finish -- you HAVE to know how it all turns out.

The basic premise is that of an actress from the year 2000 who abruptly loses her longtime soap opera acting job but is offered a new one the same day, only this one is an expedition back in time, to November 22, 1963, to retrieve the now-priceless Bible owned by JFK that was used to swear in his successor, Lyndon Johnson, aboard Air Force One that tragic afternoon and immediately afterward was lost. The actress, whose own past contains references to the same event, finally agrees to go, believing that she might be able to change at least part of her unhappy present by journeying to the past.

But once in the past, her perceptions are rudely jolted: People are not what she thought they were, and a dark and frightening mystery is unfolding around her, leading up to the day of JFK's visit to Dallas, when she finally faces up to her own responsibility to try to save him from assassination. Only one person can help her in this almost-hopeless quest: The mysterious Lee Harvey Oswald.

This novel really grabbed me by the throat. If you have any interest at all in JFK's assassination, it will do the same for you, but frankly, you don't need much more than an appetite for mystery and thrills to become involved in it. It builds from the early sections, where we meet the actress, a most appealing character, to the time travel itself, to Dallas in 1963 and the growing mystery, and explodes in action and tension when we reach November 22nd. It is nothing less than a roller coaster of surprise and emotions.

Main characters include JFK himself, Lee Harvey Oswald (both a lot different than I'd imagined them), Jackie Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson, with cameo appearances by other famous figures (I won't give it away). Suffice it to say, I was hooked; I couldn't stop reading; and I would unreservedly recommend this novel to anyone. It's that good.

I especially loved the epilogue, which describes the changes in the world and our culture because JFK (yeah, okay) doesn't die in Dallas. But how that happens, and how we as Americans change for the better, is a story you've GOT to read. Read it now. You'll love it.

I recently read Forward To Camelot and loved it. I do not usually read books of this genre, nor do I read books in first person, but this one intrigued me. The plot read smoothly and grabbed you from the onset. I didn't feel, as most often happens in first person books, that I was only getting one person's point of view. In this book, every one had a say, in addition to the "I" of the main character. All of the characters, supporting and main, had real depth to them. I found the history in the book to be really well researched. The authors obviously did a lot of work researching the storyline. What I personally liked best was the fact that the characters were so human, complete with all the human faults and frailties. The book also upheld the idea that heroes are human too. This book had enough action in it to be a great movie and enough well-written plot to be a great read. I hope to see more books by these authors. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in politics, history and human nature.