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NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • An outsider who can travel between worlds discovers a secret that threatens the very fabric of the multiverse in this stunning debut, a powerful examination of identity, privilege, and belonging.
WINNER OF THE COMPTON CROOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD • “Gorgeous writing, mind-bending world-building, razor-sharp social commentary, and a main character who demands your attention—and your allegiance.”—Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—NPR, Library Journal, Book Riot
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 doppelgängers 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.
“Clever characters, surprise twists, plenty of action, and a plot that highlights social and racial inequities in astute prose.”—Library Journal (starred review)
From the Publisher
ASIN : B08191MPPS
Publisher : Del Rey (August 4, 2020)
Publication date : August 4, 2020
Language : English
File size : 2492 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 322 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : 1529387140
4.5
Reviewer: Christopher Shamburg
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Best scifi novel I’ve read in years…
Review: Totally enjoyed this book. There are elements of Vonnegut and Toni Morrison, but with faster pacing than either of them. This is a great concept, well thought out, with fascinating world building, fast plot and great characters.The logistics of travel between parallel universes can get tricky….but describing that travel is only available among worlds with similar frequencies, the plot can move in a smart and creative pace…and can have some fun twists…like you can only travel to a world in which you are dead.The dystopia of Earth Zero gives just enough information to make it fascinating and not cumbersome–letting the reader collaborate in some of the blank spots.The plot moves fast with action, insight, and ideas.
Reviewer: Dennee
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Complex, but a very good and thought-provoking read
Review: The “space between worlds” in the title refers not just to the temporary void in which Cara finds herself whenever she is assigned to go to a parallel world but to the space between the two cultures on each of these worlds. These versions of Earth have all devolved into a society of stark Haves and Have-Nots. The wealthy and educated live in Wiley City, under a dome, while the rest live in an arid, mostly dessert landscape of rough living that has pretty much devolved into something like the dystopia from Mad Max films. Although the culture there has more structure than it first appears; it is a society where power is actually, for mutual survival, pretty much balanced three ways between the Ashtown Emperor Nik Nik, with his army of “Runners” and their large weaponized vehicles; the “Rurals,” a more spiritual community that manages to grow all the area’s food on a fertile strip outside of Ashtown; and “The House,” which is not just a bordello, but a genuine comfort-house for the injured in spirit and body. It took me about 60 pages to comprehend all this, but once I did, I loved the book and didn’t want to put it down.Earth Zero is the only one where travel between parallel universes has been developed, for reasons that will gradually become clear and form an important part of the plot. Earth-Zero Cara, originally from the Rurals, has become a “traverser” for Wiley City’s Eldridge Institute, run by a rich Elon-Musk type who invented the process of traveling between the worlds. Cara is one of their best traversers, and if she can stay out of trouble another six months and pass an exam, she can become a permanent Wiley City resident. That’s a big If, though. Her job is to go to parallel worlds where her counterpart has already died–one big and life-threatening organic barrier to crossing over is that two versions of a person can’t be on the same planet at the same time–and once she’s there, to download data from data ports that have previously been set up by earlier traversers, and then to return quickly to Earth Zero. But strange things can happen, and the curious traverser can discover a lot about herself and the counterparts of people s/he knows on Earth Zero. For Cara, it’s like a study in Nature vs. Nurture, because people can turn out differently–or sometimes they can suppress parts of themselves they don’t want others to see.The “space between worlds” concept is also present in Cara’s relationships with people, especially with her handler Dell, but also with her sister Esther and with Nik Nik. This book is complex, but it’s a very good read.
Reviewer: Zuzana Lištiaková
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Review
Review: The only thing that bugs me is that itâs over.And reading all those reviews saying thereâs no lesbian love story, or that there isnât enough explanation or clarity… I canât help but wonder: did you really read the book? Or just the first twenty pages? Have you ever wanted to truly read a book, or do you just get caught up in short, intense scenes that donât have to make sense in the end? Well, maybe go watch a music video instead.Anyhow, if doing whatever it takes to keep the other person safe, if loving them so much that you respect their space, and wanting them to be happy isnât love, then what is? I must ask. Yes, itâs not obvious, itâs not simple, and there arenât any meaningless 20-page explicit sex scenes in this book. But the feelings are there. They are there from the very beginning, and only if one is brave enough, patient enough, and ready to go through all the toils, sweat, and blood, can you feel it too. Only then can YOU really feel it in the end, I believe.Not just loveâeverything else, too. Rage, void, confusion, despair, hope, the will to fight, the will to die, understanding, gratitude. Everything. It wasnât just one feeling but a constant surge, leaving me breathless in its complexity.But to each their own. Everyone wishes to feel something different, perhaps. I felt this. I loved it. I will never forget.
Reviewer: DJ
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I really wanted to love thisâ¦
Review: All of the elements were here. Alternate earths. Compelling lead character. Good story. But, it just didnât add up properly for me. Let me attempt to explainâ¦The world the story centers on (and by that, I mean the common background of the multiple earths discussed), is one very different from our own. In other words, its history, political structure, and settings are fictional. Thereâs basically wasteland and a walled city (think Judge Dredd world). So, the alternate earths are variations of that world. Same wasteland, same walled city, small nuances between the people/doppelgängers living in each.Normally this isnât an issue with books like this, but there just wasnât enough background or similarity surrounding these worlds to make me connect with them. For me, the allure of the multiverse is to see variations of the world in which we currently live. The worlds in this book may as well have been alien, but for the obvious use of words like âearthâ and âLotâs wifeâ. Again, a fun read, enough for me to give it 3 stars, but not the romp across âourâ multiverse that I expected.The science of multiverse travel was light, but fun. The characters were good, but a little flat and predictable. The worlds described dropped a lot of tantalizing sci-fi nuggets like âhealing podsâ and things like solar variability, but didnât give any reason behind them. They just were there, set against a backdrop that leaves you wondering if this earth is far in Mad Max-like future, or just some crazy, alien variation of our home.The story peaks midway through, then rushes to the end and literally gets to the point in the last 3 pages. Enough to say, âWell, that was fun. Guess there wonât be a sequel.â 3 stars for some new ideas and some fun. But like I said, just didnât come together right.
Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I love that itâs an original storyline and you get lost in the story. What an amazing read!
Reviewer: Lisandra
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Assim q entendi q esse não era o romance q eu não sei pq esperava q fosse e comecei a aproveitar o livro pelo q era, um comentário profundo sobre os problemas do mundo e dos indivÃduos q tem q sobreviver nele, lindamente escrito, então pude enfim começar a amar essa história e personagens e cada um deles vai te cativar e ao menos te fazer sorrir e pensar se não querer abraçar e guardar num potinho. E sério a escrita é incrÃvel, o livro deve ter mais parte marcada do q não ksksk até os agradecimentos foi lindo! Não sei como lidar c esse livro.
Reviewer: Chara
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This has quickly become one of my all time favorites. Layered and powerful writing. So so very lovely. A must read for sure.
Reviewer: Andrew Weston
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is another of those books I was attracted to after reading about it on Black Gate Fantasy. And thanks to them, Iâve rather enjoyed myself.Hereâs the cover blurb:******’My mother used to say I was born reaching, which is true. She also used to say it would get me killed, which it hasn’t. Not yet, anyway.’Born in the dirt of the wasteland, Cara has fought her entire life just to survive. Now she has done the impossible, and landed herself a comfortable life on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, she’s on a sure path to citizenship and security – on this world, at least.Of the 380 realities that have been unlocked, Cara is dead in all but 8.Cara’s parallel selves are exceptionally good at dying – from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun – which makes Cara wary, and valuable. Because while multiverse travel is possible, no one can visit a world in which their counterpart is still alive. And no one has fewer counterparts than Cara.But then one of her eight doppelgängers 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.******Interesting eh?And it is. Imagine a post apocalyptic world struggling to recover from a war that all but ruined the planet. And while mankind survived, itâs now a world of division. There are those who live a life of plenty within their walled cities, and those who eke out an existence in the ruined â albeit it slowly recovering â wastelands outside.If you live inside a city, you have everything you could possibly need: security; safety; the best hospitals and medical care; education and employment. (You get the idea). Life is good . . . as well it should be, for the star of their society discovered the means to travel between dimensions to parallel worlds; a secret process by which they âdatamineâ information and technology and anything else that can be used to improve their own scientific advancement.But travelling between worlds is dangerous. Thatâs why youâll never find city-dwellers volunteering for the job. And really, why would they when thereâs an endless supply of candidates just waiting for an opportunity to earn decent money â if only for a short while â and the possibility of full citizenship if they do well.Enter Cara, a traverser with a penchant for survival. As the blurb reveals, of the 380 realities discovered so far, sheâs only alive in 8 of them. Sheer coincidence? Or is there something more insidious, more duplicitous behind those figures?Well, we certainly find out in an engaging adventure that â although set in a bleak and miserable world â nevertheless lets the sun shine through. Itâs a tale about survival. Of love gone wrong and hope for a better future. Of the determination to improve. To see things to a conclusion without giving up. Our characters are human. Flawed and broken. Their interactions are colored by their social, cultural and racial differences, allowing for an engaging dialogue that keeps things real. Well placed plot twists and an easy pace keep the story moving along nicely, until you find yourself at a poignant end that you didnât quite expect. (Kudos there).This is the first book Iâve read by Micaiah Johnson, and from what Iâve seen, I know it wonât be the last. The Space Between Worlds, a fresh slant on a well-used trope. And a darn good read to boot!
Reviewer: Anna
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This book was better than I expected
