The Walls of the Universe [Hardcover]

Back in December, I read a review of "Walls of the Universe" on the scifi blog io9. Even though I had never read the original novella, I was impressed with the concept and pre-ordered it on Amazon. A copy arrived in my hands last week, and I finally sat down to read it tonight. I fully expected to read it over the next few days and then move on.

Instead, I finished it in one sitting.

I'm not exaggerating. I started reading it at 9pm last night, and as I write this email to you, it's now just past 4am.

I was hooked right from the start. The book was gripping, fun, and deeply fascinating. I also enjoyed the love story aspect of it, and the scenes with Casey were romantic, sexy, and passionate. The tech and the high concept may have been what pulled me in, but I found myself caring about these characters and desperately turning the pages to find out what happened to them.

I have to admit, my favorite MWI-type (and frankly, scifi in general) stories in the past have been James Hogan's "Proteus Operation" and "Paths to Otherwhere." Not only has Mr. Melko's book immediately thrust itself on to my shelf alongside those old favorites, I have a feeling that his is going to be one I re-read again and again with much greater frequency.

Thanks to Mr. Melko for writing such a wonderful, romantic, entertaining novel. Now I'm off to go find a copy of "Singularity's Ring."

Growing up on a farm in Ohio, high school senior John Rayburn dreams of studying physics at Case Institute of Technology though the reality is that he will attend Toledo where he can earn money to afford the tuition. He is angry at himself as much as bully Ted Carson whom he beat the snot out of when a figure arrives insisting he is Johnny. They look like identical twins and the second Johnny explains he is a double-Prime replica and gives John a gizmo to travel to alternate worlds and come up with inventions to sell on this orb that has not been created starting with Rubik's Cube (make that Johnny's cube).

Prime Johnny says he will masquerade as John while the latter explores. However, Prime fails to warn John that there is one flaw with the cross dimensional device: you can never go home. Prime takes over John's life. John, after meeting several "Johns", settles on a world where he studies physics with plans to stay in hiding of sorts while fixing the gadget so he can come home. Prime impregnates John's girlfriend Casey and marries her; while his Rubik Cube creation runs into patent law issues and Ted makes trouble for him. On the world he chose to live John has a relationship with another Casey, avoids the Ted alternate and accidentally "invents" pinball that bring him to the attention of his previously unknown competitors, stranded cross-world travelers earning a living with new technology and a desire to steal John's functioning gadget.

THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSE is an entertaining science fiction thriller in which the two Johns find their respective lives play out differently. Whereas Prime learns the grass is not greener as nothing goes right for him; John makes his new world a home though he ends up in danger from desperate marooned souls like himself. Although a late twist implies a series involving saving the universe from reverse engineers, readers will appreciate Paul Melko's fine tale of two Johns.

Harriet Klausner

I really, really liked Paul Melko's "The Walls of the Universe." The problem is I wanted to love it.

The first third of the novel unfolds at a breathless pace as we meet John Rayburn and his double from a parallel universe, John Prime. Prime has come to John's universe with a device that allows the user to pop from one parallel universe to the next. Prime offers John the chance to explore the next universe over, promising John that he can pop over, recharge the device and just pop back. Little does John suspect that Prime's device only allows you to journey forward to the next universe and not backward and that Prime is looking for a way to steal John's life out from under him.

For the first third of the novel, we alternate back and forth between John's journey and Prime's scheming in John's home universe. Prime has come forward with ideas and inventions not yet seen in John's universe, intending to claim them as his own and take the credit and fortune that comes with them. We slowly see how Prime works his way into John's seemingly ideal life, not only getting the girl John has always had a crush on but also working out the first stages of fame and fortune by introducing the Rubik's Cube to that universe. Meanwhile, John must learn the ropes of travel, eventually deciding to settle down in one safe universe and going to college to try and understand the device.

In the course of the story, Melko allows the reader to both root for and against each John. Prime could easily be a one-note villain, but as Melko explores the character and allows us to get to know him, we become more sympathetic toward him and even begin to pull for him as some of the later events of the story begin to unfold. And while John may be initially be a victim, he eventually begins to take on some of Prime's traits that early on made us pull against him, leaving the reader with some fascinating questions about nature vs nurture. And, like all good sci-fi, he presents the arguments and allows readers to draw their own conclusions.

The book also brings up some interesting ideas about "destiny," as we see John's journey to ending up with the same girl in two universes as well as having to tangle with the same bully in both.

It's once other various inhabitants from other parallel worlds show up that things begin to drift off course a bit. The story tries to expand the concept of the infinite number of universes, each one slightly different than the next, with concepts about people who only exist in one universe and the morality of jumping from one place to the next and trying to cash in. We also find that John's machine is damaged and that through study John is able to reverse engineer a working device to return to our world.

However, once John gets a newly working device, things begin to derail a bit. The problem is these concepts come up so late in the story that they seem tacked on and aren't as fascinatingly explored as some of the concepts and characters early in the novel. It may be that Melko wanted to have some hard science in a character based sci-fi story, but it just feels a bit out of place.

But that shouldn't keep you from reading "The Walls of the Universe." For 300 pages, it's one of the most fascinating, compelling and page-turning sci-fi (or really any genre) novels I've read in a long time. I'm hoping that Melko might return to the universe he's created here and show us the last 50 or so pages are all about setting up a great follow-up.