Paperback, 336 pages
Published May 31, 2021 by Del Rey.
Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there's just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying--from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn't outrun. Cara's life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.
On this dystopian Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now what once made her marginalized has finally become an unexpected source of power. She has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works--and shamelessly flirts--with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to …
Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there's just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying--from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn't outrun. Cara's life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.
On this dystopian Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now what once made her marginalized has finally become an unexpected source of power. She has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works--and shamelessly flirts--with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.
But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgangers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined--and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world but the entire multiverse.
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.
