Only Forward is a science fiction novel by English writer Michael Marshall Smith; his debut novel, it was first published in 1994 by HarperCollins.

Stark uses an old friend in Red, Ji, to find out, surviving a gang territory war in the process, that Alkland was taken to Stable.

Stark explains that centuries earlier, someone accidentally found a way to make the illusion of the sea looking like land from above to be true.

After navigating a series of nightmarish events, during which they realise that someone or something terrible is pursuing them, Stark and Alkland return to the City, taking refuge in Cat.

After some time living in the City, Stark entered an overgrown and abandoned area of ruined, ancient buildings, and saw a collapsed statue of Admiral Nelson, in that moment realising that he had travelled not to another world, but to the future.