Monday, May 11, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 4, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

The Space Between Worlds is the debut novel by author Micaiah Johnson.  I didn't know anything about the novel going in to reading it - the novel's description was interesting enough on Netgalley for me to place a request, but I'd seen no press for it and hasn't heard of the author prior to requesting it.  I'd even managed to forget that plot summary in the month between my request of the book and when I started reading (this is not that uncommon, I like going into books cold).  All of which is to say I didn't have any expectations of The Space Between Worlds going into this novel.

But if I'd had any expectations, I think they'd easily have been blown away.  The Space Between Worlds is absolutely tremendous, a piece of fascinating SciFi featuring a fascinating exploration of themes of class, race, family and love, to go along with a story featuring multiversal travel.   It's lead character is absolutely tremendous, and the rest of the cast is excellent in their own ways as the plot takes some fascinating turns from beginning to end.  And the themes it hits and explores are done so well, and so damn poignant to today's world.  This a must read, that's pretty much all I have to say about that.


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
In a future version of our world, a man discovered the Multiverse....and how to send someone from our Earth into another one.  There's just one catch:  while materials and objects can be taken from another Earth without problem, people cannot travel from one Earth into another in which another version of themselves still lives.  If they try, the new Earth rejects them, painfully and horribly, and spits them back out.  And so, to travel to other Earths, and to gain all the knowledge that can be obtained from them, you need to find people who are already dead in those worlds....and the people most likely to be dead in many worlds are the people who are only barely surviving in this one....

People like Cara.  Caramenta grew up an Ashtowner, a resident of the poor Desert town/city that exists outside the walled controlled wealthy Wiley City.  Ashtown is controlled by its cruel emperor Nik Nik, and Cara knows the cruelty of the Emperor and his runners full well, to say nothing of the life as the daughter of a woman who was once a Worker (prostitute) for the House.  After all, in the 380 Earths that humans can reach, Cara is dead in all but 8 of them.  Which makes her the perfect traverser for the Eldridge Institute - able to travel and gather information for its rich masters to nearly every world out there.  And in return, Cara is able to live in comfort in a city that would otherwise never accept her presence....even if she knows no true residents will ever look at her like an equal.

But one of Cara's dopplegangers on the 8 remaining Earths dies, Cara's mission to that Earth - a totally new one to her - goes horribly wrong.  And in the process she will learn more about herself, and all the worlds than she ever realized before - a knowledge that will suggest she has merely traded one barbaric wasteland for another.....
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The Space Between Worlds packs a ton into its not too long page-length.  We have travel between multiverses!  A pair of contrasting towns - one a desert wasteland ruled by a brutal emperor and his "runners", with a Church and a House (of Prostitution) as the other major institutions; the other a rich walled off city with control over weather and people live on higher and higher levels like an archology!  A main character with a dark secret past, a love of family and a longing for a woman she might never be able to have!  This setting and its characters pack a ton into this one novel, with twists that other books might have made major climactic surprises being revealed as early as the second chapter here.  And it all works all so damn well.

The Space Between Worlds is a book about Class....and Power.....and Family.......and Love.  It's all of these things at once and it nails all of these themes tremendously in multiple ways.  The theme of class is the most prominent, with the nature of multiversal travel meaning that the rich once more need the poor people like Cara they discarded, and exploit them until they're of no more use - as seen in an early sequence in which another traverser is fired because there are no longer any worlds to which she can travel but others cannot.  And of course, the rich are exploiting the multiversal project to do things like get information on the stock market and whatnot, because of course they are.  Meanwhile, the poor who aren't lucky enough to be traversers are stuck in a desert wasteland ruled by a cruel emperor who would kill any who might be seen as insulting him, and the only other two powers are a House of Worship run in large part by a teenager and a House of Pleasure for any with money to pay.

In other books, this setup would be enough to make the point on class, but The Space Between Worlds does more, and does so tremendously effectively, as Cara's journey in the multiverse reveals quite clearly that the differences in people of different classes - in their backgrounds, in their behaviors, and well everything is basically just an illusion.  "Warlord, Emperor, CEO.....No Difference:" one character remarks eventually, and this book proves it so damn true.  And honestly, even with that quote, it's never heavy handed about the whole thing, or really too heavy handed, with the book showing us the situation as much as it tells us though Cara's internal monologue.  I could seriously write a full essay about class differences and power in this book, but uh, I won't here.  But it'd be a damn deep essay.

And really, what a monologue, because Cara is a tremendous heroine and main character.  Due to her tragic history, and of course the knowledge that she has died nearly 400 times in other worlds, she's a character who at first is desperate to survive, and to hold on to what little good things she has: the sister and family she loves back in Ashtown and the safety and security in the City, and maybe the voice of the woman who she longs for but doesn't believe could ever love her.  Cara is a badass at surviving, but at the same time, she harbors such tremendous self doubt and hatred of herself for where she comes from and what she did to get there.  But as the plot goes on, and Cara is confronted with a world with a major difference from the one she calls home, one that throws her for a loop at first but proves not to be as different as it seems on first appearance, Cara's determination moves her in a new direction- a direction towards an acceptance of who she herself is, and of what she has to do for herself to truly feel worth the things she cares about.  It's a tremendous journey of character development and she's so great in it all.  The other characters in this book are perhaps hit or miss: some of them are mere skeletons (the love interest Dell is honestly the most notable of these) while others, like Cara's stepsister Esther, who is a religious leader of such strength and conviction and caring you could write another entire book about her, are more developed - but honestly it doesn't matter because Cara carries everything so well.

Again, I could go on and on about this book in many many different ways, but if I do any further here I'm afraid I won't ever stop.  It's just such a deep book, with fantastic characters, and a plot that will just draw you in from start to finish and won't let you go, with you being too drawn in to notice some of the tricks it's pulling until it's too late.  And it ends on such a perfect note, in a way that's powerful and yet, in a rarity for this type of book with these themes, in a way that is not depressing at all.

Must Read.  And I don't say that lightly.
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