Paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published Aug. 5, 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton.
Eccentric genius Adam Bosch has cracked the multiverse and discovered a way to travel to parallel Earths. There's just one problem: no one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive.
Enter Cara. Of the 380 realities that have been unlocked, Cara is dead in all but 8.
Born in the wastelands outside the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City, Cara has fought her entire life just to survive. So when she's offered a job travelling the multiverse, and a safe place in the city to call home, she's willing to do anything to keep it that way.
But then one of her doppelgangers dies under mysterious circumstances, and Cara is plunged into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and future in ways she never could have imagined - and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just …
Eccentric genius Adam Bosch has cracked the multiverse and discovered a way to travel to parallel Earths. There's just one problem: no one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive.
Enter Cara. Of the 380 realities that have been unlocked, Cara is dead in all but 8.
Born in the wastelands outside the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City, Cara has fought her entire life just to survive. So when she's offered a job travelling the multiverse, and a safe place in the city to call home, she's willing to do anything to keep it that way.
But then one of her doppelgangers dies under mysterious circumstances, and Cara is plunged into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and future in ways she never could have imagined - and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her Earth, but the entire multiverse.
A stunning science fiction debut, The Space Between Worlds is both a cross-dimensional adventure and a powerful examination of identity, privilege and belonging.
Bit of a mixed bag this one. The first two thirds of the book were interesting and I really liked the movement between worlds, though it would have been good to meet other traversers. I didn't see the plot twist coming and thought it was quite clever. The last third of the book feels rushed though, as if the author needed to wrap everything up within a page limit.
I had wanted something to read where I did not feel obligated or compelled to take notes, but then there were so many phrases buttressing the plot worth noting down, that I quickly ran out of bookmarks — even despite abandoning a majority of Johnson’s sharpest constructions to the depths of pages read. So, by a third in, I guessed that regardless of how I was to find this novel in any other respects, The space between worlds was at least a four star piece for revisitability. The word-to-word texture remained more prosaic than I fully take to in fiction, but there is much to appreciate in what Johnson has built, and how.
This was a delight. It came with strong positive word of mouth which was richly deserved. At heart, a love story with quite a lot else packed in to a shortish book.
This has things to say about capitalism, tech bros, race, abuse, family and so many other things through the prism of alternate worlds. A kind of 'what if this person wasn't what I find them to be' story.
Recommended.
