A great book, very hard to put down. I whomped through this, barely able to put it down the first night–and way too late.
It starts off as a mystery, kind of, and very focused on science and analysis. There are brief bits of action every so often, but it’s mostly about people putting their heads down and working together (though with specific restraints) to solve a problem and separately, to solve the little mysteries that have accumulated.
The book remained interesting, even through one of the big reveals at the middle of the book was anticipated–because I remembered an excellent book that was intriguingly parallel on the technology front.
[Spoilers await, so I’ll put what follows below the more tag.]
So, the book that’s similar is called The Infinitive of Go. The parallels are eerie, but it’s not hard to imagine that they’re cases of parallel development, rather than homage.
So, the special device, in both books, is a matter teleportation device. Both transmit devices flawlessly, animal trials are fine… then come the human trials. They work… but they (sometimes) seem to drive the human crazy. The device runs by having a computer solve a complicated equation that humans can’t check; in Infinitive, because they’re using transfinite numbers, here because (after a deeper layer of mystery) they’re using a weird 19th century equation that they don’t really understand.
In both cases, the big reveal is that the people being transmitted aren’t going crazy. Instead, the person who steps into the chamber/fold steps out into a different–but usually almost identical universe. Sometimes it’s the small differences that add up; one character steps into this universe from one where she’d never been involved in a terrible accident. The book kicks off with a guy who lives in the same house at the same address… but married a different woman in his home reality.
The books diverge from that point. In Infinitive, it gets philosophical; the question is whether the world is doomed, and there’s some comedy as they wrestle with concealing aliens from more divergent worlds. The Fold, however, turns action adventure, with the world as a whole at risk.
Both books are good, and The Fold is compellingly written. Mike Erikson is our single POV character in The Fold, and the writer makes some very interesting choices in crafting his main character–some that are strongly argued against in elementary writing. It’s nice to see him take the challenge and leap over it.
The big challenge, for writing Mike, is that he’s an off the charts genius. Deciding how to show us Mike and leading us to empathize with him despite his super heroic talent must have been tough, but the author carried it off. His smarts follow strict rules, and while he’s brilliant, his leaps aren’t outlandish–they’re perfect, but built up coherently.
Again, this was a compelling page turner, very well written–despite featuring a lot of scientific analysis, it moved along and kept me engaged. I highly recommend it and will be looking for more books by this author.
(Small note: the all knowing investigator at the VERY end of the book, who comes to recruit Mike and who has seen this before. That totally didn’t fit this book. I suspect it’s a tie to something else, but it’s the only thing that really rung wrong in the whole book.)