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Forward As Always

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Mysterious fires and relentless storms wear down an already dwindling population, but as the fires grow more focused and destructive, a young messenger is compelled to seek out answers that have been hidden from him for twenty years.

When I saw the smoke rising again, I knew it was him. Because he always waited for the storm before setting another fire. He wanted us terrified and restless.

But he didn’t account for our maxim, the three words that made us Galilieans. We endured because of those three words.

It was the same reason Raindrop and I always followed the smoke. Despite Luminator Eloanne’s warnings, I couldn’t let it keep happening.

She was still looking for survivors like me—anyone who would bite down on the world and never let go—who would scratch and crawl and dig and hold on, even as it all burned.

They were out there. We only had to find them.

375 pages, Hardcover

Published October 29, 2024

25 people are currently reading
246 people want to read

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Olan Rogers

2 books34 followers

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5 stars
32 (44%)
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20 (27%)
3 stars
18 (25%)
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2 (2%)
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
Profile Image for Rachel Rogers.
9 reviews5 followers
November 13, 2024
My opinion could be view as bias being married to one of the authors but as an avid reader I give this book a 4.5-5 ⭐️

This book explores some great classic sci fi themes without being trope or cliche. I truly felt like all the characters experiences and emotional reaction were grounded and so related on a molecular levels, even Clark. They did a fantastic job of showing the world building through Giaus’ experience of the world instead of some long winded explanation at the top.

The character were so gosh dang lovable even the ones rough around the edges. I can’t wait to read more of this story of survival. Forward as always.

Profile Image for Andrew Ziegler.
307 reviews7 followers
December 27, 2024
I have been, I guess you would say, an ardent or fervent fan of Olan Rogers since the heady internet days of the Last Scene. I have watched his open heart vlogs on Youtube, and watched Final Space. Man. That show hit me so hard in the heart nuts that my head is still swimming. I watched the entire FS series again with my son. He loved it and I loved the emotional bond a cartoon built between us. I pre ordered the Final Space book over a year ago. And then one fine day I saw Olans post about this novel he wrote with his best friend. I knew, because basically everything Olan does is somehow seemingly executed on a wavelength that shakes my emotional core, that this book would be wonderful. And. Unsurprisingly. It was. I have a couple of complaints. 1. It all felt very same-y. Travel. Fight. Talk. Travel. Fight. Talk. Repeat. 2. The stakes were high but honestly all the characters I thought would perish lived and all I thought would live died. 3. The book could use another 100 pages. 4. And the ending was like the end of a pilot episode of tv. I dont think more are coming and after Final Space going dark on a cliff hanger, I dont expect any more of this story. So. That is a disappointing future amidst the hopeful nature of the book’s ending. I know the dates are far apart but I basically read this in one sitting, next to my Christmas tree. It was a good, fast read. If you love lightweight sci fi stand alone books this is a good one. If you love Olan you will love this. Read it. The end.
19 reviews
December 2, 2024
Let me first say, this is not a typical style of book I would read (so it took me a bit longer to get through just for that reason alone) I picked up this book because I have followed Olan’s career for years and years, I have admired him as a creator and couldn’t not buy a book of his. I have met him and Jake on different occasions- sweetest people you could ever meet. Anyway, if it weren’t for the EXTREME amounts of language I would have given it a 4.5. It made me cringe. The amount was highly unnecessary. Since this isn’t personally my style of genre I didn’t super get into the book until about page 100 when things started to make a little more sense. It is a well written story overall with loads of character development throughout. The main character’s diligence is motivating and inspiring especially with the lack of experience he had getting to his goal/destination. I would suggest it to my Sci-fi lovers but idk if they would stomach the language either. With that being said I definitely wanted to know how it ended, so it had me “hooked” enough to keep reading rather than putting the book down for good. However I did return the book upon completion (I just didn’t know if I’d feel good having this in my book collection) 😬
Profile Image for Max Chivington.
4 reviews
January 21, 2025
Straight up solid sci-fi. The story feels like it's pulling from so many sources of inspiration without feeling like a cheap copy of another story. The characters really shine, and their dialogue feels unique to each person. Great chapter pacing. I never felt like the story was dragging at any point, which is a hard thing to accomplish. I received one of the early copies that didn't have the italics. That being said, my reading experience was not hampered in the slightest. I'd love to read more stories from this world! Well done.
Profile Image for Miles.
27 reviews
March 16, 2025
TL;DR:
'Forward, As Always' is friggin' fantastic with a gritty and complex story line and a tough-as-nails setting which has incubated some intriguing characters who are fun to read about. My big beef is with the pacing. Not a good enough sense of progression for a disappointingly large chunk of the book. Too many of the juicy details feel lopsided toward the ending.

--- Full Review ---

Olan Rogers is and always will be one of my heroes. His humor and viewpoint of life has been unmatched since I started following his content. I watched his video where he promoted 'Forward, As Always' and told us that he just wants us to read it and made it available for all to read online for free. This man has a creative mind and a sturdy heart that I have looked up to since I was a little crouton, and I hope that he finds a jubilee of success in his career. I eagerly bought 'Forward, As Always' because I love his work and want to support both of the authors.

I know the struggles one may go through when putting their heart out in art form, and consequently, I have also learned the value of quality, constructive critiques. The purpose of this review, if by ANY stretch that Olan Rogers and Jake Sidwell come across my humble little review on Goodreads, is to provide that feedback for them and for anyone curious about this book.

In this hard-fought battle of survival that the world of Galilei provides, it can be difficult to have personalities vary much from a rough and tumble style, but the characters in this book have been written with an excellent sense of diversity and color, yet possessing a sense of realism considering the setting. Storms and militant groups threaten the lives of the main character, Gaius, and his home, and the responding actions of this eager and distractible teenage boy is believable, which I felt to be refreshing and interesting. Some characters are rash, while others are steely, quiet, or bull-headed; some are optimistic, hermit-like, or have a childlike innocence about them. They all weave a cast of characters that are fun and are a pleasure to read about.

The dialogue that some characters exchange while in combat feel stilted at times. Admittedly, it is hard to consider what is realistic in those scenes because have I ever been in a combat scenario with a knife? Psh, no, I haven't even gotten in a proper fist fight! So I dunno, take this with a grain of salt, I suppose, but the back-and-forth lines didn't always seem to match the characters personalities. Again, I have never had to fight for my life, so maybe I'm simply naive.

A similar issue I had with Lord of the Rings, as highly regarded as it generally is (by me included), was the long trekking sections. Much of the story was Gaius and friends running to the next destination. They'd pause to talk for a bit, and we'd read some of Gaius' thoughts and motivations on peripheral matters here and there, and then they'd make it to the next section where they'd fight something, plan and prepare, and start hiking again. This was a formula that persisted throughout a good portion of the story, primarily for the first two-thirds, I'd say. Not much character development or plot thickening occurred throughout these sections, and if it did, it was sparse. A stronger sense of progression would have done wonders in getting me through the traveling sections.

Those fight scenes were certainly exciting, I can't deny that. The way that the authors set up the world made it feel like you'd be a rabbit in a land dense with predators, and it was thrilling to read through the detailed fight scenes. It was a good way to mark the progression of the main character as well, because he doesn't know how to fight starting off, though he is eager to learn. He is taught the art of fighting along the way by key characters he meets on his adventure.

After that first two-thirds of the book, the group arrives at an important destination, and all the pieces start to weave together. Questions were still springing up even at this point, which rekindled my engagement.

Many questions still went unanswered up until the very last chapter, in which were rectified in the form of an info dump. That was my biggest disappointment of 'Forward, As Always'. It would have been so much more enjoyable and satisfying to pick up some of those pieces throughout the story, saving one or two big ones for the ending, and slowly piecing together the 'hows' and 'whys' as I read.

Once we were told the whole story, it was dripping with moral grays and hard choices that many people had to make in the past, a thick plot that I would have thoroughly savored. The setting and complex motivations of the antagonists were so good! Yes, the particulars of why information was hard to come by in the story does make sense once you get there, but I wish that I didn't have to wait so long to get it.

I was pleased by the book as a whole. Olan and Jake had some fantastic ideas that made for a phenomenal story. What would have made this story shine is a breadcrumb trail of progression and plot points to keep my hunger for more information just satiated enough to be happy but not enough to stop reading.

My family loves your work, Olan, and now that I'm familiar with yours, you as well Jake! I hope y'all keep working to bring about great art, like a hardened bunch of dwarves crafting fine steel on a fiery forge, or a mighty Tyranitar hyper beaming trails to press onward!
Profile Image for Kristi Drillien.
Author 4 books25 followers
September 30, 2025
I really wanted to like this book, and it wasn't bad overall. But for the most part, I felt like it didn't live up to its potential. I enjoyed a lot about the setting, in particular the Tempest, deadly storms that come every 3-5 days. It adds a lot of urgency to even the slower parts of the plot, and the way it is incorporated into the plot and the lives of the characters is well done. Overall, a lot of creativity went into this world, even if I was confused by what was going on for a lot of the time. 

Much of the book involves Gaius trying to track down the man that set fire to his home when he was a child, while learning that he's been kept in the dark about a lot of things, and when he goes on what he hopes is a mission to confront that man, the plot suddenly turns into a zombie story. I was thrown for a loop, even more so because I had no idea how these "zombies" really worked. I felt like I was missing some kind of backstory, and in the end, I don't think it was ever explained much more than what little is said at the time the plot takes this turn. Then at the end of the book, there's a large amount of explanation and answers given about the state of the world, but it still didn't answer all of my questions.

I do not know if my lack of much previous experience with sci-fi of this type meant I was the wrong audience for it, but I do at least feel that the pacing could have been better. And maybe information I wished to have just wasn't intended to be had by the reader, and that's certainly the prerogative of the authors. I didn't dislike the book; it was just a little slow in pacing, and I didn't feel very satisfied by the ending. But I think that other sci-fi fans that are interested would probably like it more than me, and I would still be interested in reading future books by these authors.
Profile Image for Kuririn.
1 review
January 1, 2025
A wonderful, chaotic read. Read the book in basically a day, enjoyed it so much!

I think there was a very authentic feeling to the protagonist, Gaius. With the stakes so high and ever present, the emotional turmoil, tremendous grief, and love/hate relationships he held with characters made him almost like an unreliable narrator—clearly being emotional, but also unable to properly process and describe how he feels. Also as a big bird owner, his relationship with Raindrop is the best.

Overall, there are parts of the story I think could have been flushed out more, or could have done with a bit better pacing for developing meaningful attachment to certain characters—such as Iris subplot with Cole/Brin etc. But I don’t want to score less because it didn’t take me out of the story as much as it made me curious to understand more of what was going on.

Excellent set-up into a series, but also an appropriate ending to imagine what would come next. Hope to see more in the future. Forward as always, Olan and Jake.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Rachel.
5 reviews
March 2, 2025
Going from following Olan since his balloonshop days to now being able to hold in my hands the book he wrote with one of his closest friends is something so amazingly insane to me. But despite being a LONG time fan, I can genuinely say without any bias towards the authors, that I wholeheartedly enjoyed this book. I don't know if I can put into words how much I loved this book, but for the sake of this review, I will try my best. I love when a book has a twist that I never would have guessed, and this one had SEVERAL. I enjoyed having to learn what the hell was going on along with Gaius and having no idea what was going to happen next. My jaw dropped a few times, even as I read in public (it was completely involuntary). The characters were easy to fall in love with (or absolutely despise depending on who we're talking about... I'm looking at you Renner), and I cried more than I think I expected to (most of it being in just the last 100 pages). Highly recommend, 10/10, even if you're not super into sci-fi (this was my first ever sci-fi read).
Profile Image for Liv.
13 reviews2 followers
December 20, 2024
I have been following Olan and Jake for the better part of 15 years and when I saw the announcement that they published a book I pounced.

And boy was I not let down. It's gritty, it's real, it's vibes that are riding the same sound waves as Red Rising.

I was gripped from prologue to the last page. Each character was a wonderful balance of fleshed out and mystery with a dollop of trauma. The characters all felt like they truly breathed which I found very refreshing. I also thought the fast pace of the book kept me on my toes just enough to keep me wanting to read more rather than giving me whiplash from all the action. I loved the birds, I loved the morally greyness, I loved the anguish, I loved who made it through it all. Way to go Olan and Jake.

Given that I finished reading all of two seconds ago I would die for a sequel but I think this also works perfectly as a standalone.

5/5
19 reviews1 follower
October 13, 2025
What a fun story! It plays out almost like a sci-fi adventure video game. Character development was inventive and realistic, and Galilei may as well be a real place. The stakes get bigger and bigger through the book, but the world also makes more sense as the story goes, and that’s a tough balance to strike! Would love Olan and Jake to build more in this world! (No really, please… can you write another book? Please?)

(The only reason I’m giving 4 stars is I got a 1st edition print, which wasn’t 100% edited yet, so there’s an occasional awkward formatting thing or phrasing change from the online print included. I kinda love it, it’s like seeing behind the scenes into the creative process.)
6 reviews
November 27, 2024
4.5!
Whoa 🤯 I’ve been an Olan Rogers fan since the balloon shop “Hey Ben” days. I love his later videos with Jake and bought their debut novel without needing to know much about it. I got so much Fallout vibes in the beginning which I loved. Clark is an absolute favorite!!! The violence and language was a little more then I prefer but comes with the story their telling. The end left me a little unsatisfied with some of the quick plot wrap up but overall I really enjoyed the world they build and the setting I’d recommend! It’s fast paced and a quick very entertaining read!
1 review
December 24, 2025
I really enjoyed the pacing of the story and how it's not at your face in every chapter. You can see the depth Olan puts into his characters, just like he did in his own show 'Final Space'. I loved almost every character and their flaws, especially Raindrop being everyone's favourite therapy pet of the group. Gaius' character is a prime example of bravery in a dystopian world and I will forever admire that writing.
Profile Image for Phil Kohler.
13 reviews1 follower
January 8, 2025
Wow! I'm saying this as a long time Olan Rogers fan, in case that matters. This collaboration between Olan Rogers and "Final Space" writer Jake Sidwell is a fun and interesting read. I couldn't put it down.
Profile Image for Erik.
4 reviews
January 27, 2025
There are parts of the story that are a little cliche if you've consumed a ton of sci-fi, but it is good. I really enjoyed the motto they use throughout the story and there was a surprising mini genre twist at one point. It would make a very interesting TV show or movie.
Profile Image for Shawn Piedrahita.
29 reviews
December 28, 2025
The story was a neat idea, but the execution was pretty lackluster. Hard to care about the characters and the writing was clunky for most of the book. I ended up skimming the last 50 or so pages just to say I finished it.
Profile Image for Charlie Daniels.
4 reviews
December 29, 2025
Olan is one of my favorite artists. From YouTube short stories, to Final Space and this amazing book, I am never disappointed. if you want an awesome real and emotional adventure book this is worth reading! highly recommend.
Profile Image for Seth Greek.
1 review1 follower
November 25, 2024
This was a really fun read. We’ve really come a long way since the balloonshop days. Good for us. Mostly not me though.
38 reviews
December 4, 2024
Read online, on my phone, which I very rarely do. Skavers reminded me of the Vashta Nerada from Dr Who.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Eden.
41 reviews1 follower
January 11, 2025
The world building was sparse as was the character development. It was much more violent than anything I usually read. Such is the nature of war, specifically sci-fi war, but much of the violence was needless and overly graphic. The content warning at the front of the book was necessary and appropriate. I read it because I have liked Olan Rogers for over a decade, and wanted to support his work. There was distinct difference between the writing of the two co-authors.The plot resolution was a giant info dump in the final chapter, and was somewhat unsatisfying.This one, while not utterly awful, wasn't my favorite, probably won't read it again.
Profile Image for Rachel Bridgwood.
143 reviews4 followers
February 25, 2025
Olan Rogers just IS good memories for me so I didn’t imagine there being any way that I wouldn’t like this book. And I did like it. Having recently watched series like Scavengers Reign — the planet environment and the survival aspect of this book was particularly interesting to me. Reading it felt like watching a TV series in the way it moved. It’s certainly setup to be the first book in a series but it also feels like it COULD be complete. I often like that type of ending. Tons of unique characters, big MC growth and change. So many solid side characters. A wonderful wonderful wonderful science fiction / apocalyptic vibe.
Profile Image for Adam.
1 review
November 17, 2025
I’ve been a fan of Olan since early Balloon Shop days. Followed Balloon Shop until the end, Olans personal channel, been to one of his stand ups, loved Final Space, and have the FS comics on order. So I may be a tad biased.

I was a little skeptical going into this as it’s not the medium he typically uses to tell his stories.
What a pleasant surprise this was though. I really enjoyed this all the way through. Fun read!

I kinda hope for a sequel that expands on what is there. I feel there are a couple questions and answers that could be explored in more depth. But even if not, I’m still pretty satisfied.
Profile Image for Danielle Quinn.
14 reviews1 follower
March 26, 2025
A book that reminds that even when everything is going to shit, the best path is to move forward.
This story feels completely unique but did an excellent job of world building in such an efficient way!
Gaius is a quickly relatable and likable character, his motivations are clear cut and human.
The variety of personalities in the story adds a lovable charm. The variety of landscapes creates an imaginative world that draws interest to each new location.
An ending that left me with the feeling of ‘even when there is no hope, a glimmer is there that you just have to search for’
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