2017 Dragon Award Finalist – Best Sci-Fi Novel2017 New Apple Award – Official Selection2017 Readers’ Favorite – Honorable Mention2017 ETWG Blue Ribbon Book Cover Contest – 2nd PlaceThousands have checked into the Infinity Hotel over the years. None of them have ever checked out.Peter Childress and Charlie Womack are successful engineers on their way to Phoenix for an important presentation. But … Phoenix for an important presentation. But one of Charlie’s infamous “shortcuts” has gotten them good and lost once again. As night falls, the pair stumble across the Infinity Hotel and the promise of a meal, fuel and a good night’s sleep before starting off fresh in the morning is too good to pass up.
But while Charlie immediately takes to the hotel’s amazing amenities, Peter begins to uncover some of the hotel’s dark secrets – a seemingly unlimited number of floors, guests that appear out of time and place and a next morning that never seems to come. Worse still, the entrance to the Infinity has disappeared and no other apparent exit back to the outside world is in sight.
Now, under the watchful eyes of the hotel’s manager and front desk clerk, Peter searches for a way back out and uncovers the horrible truth behind the mystery of the Infinity Hotel.
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AN INCREDIBLE ADVENTURE !
All that remains of planet EARTH is a clump of bubbling lava that solidifies upon contact with the vacuum of space…
The crew of the eight spaceships see with horror the fruit of their monumental error…
A microscopic percentage of shift in their calculations of navigation in time and space.
Their ships should never have reappeared so close to the Earth ‘s atmosphere…
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A VERY GREAT extraordinary adventure on the different subjects of interdimensional space travel, terraformation, space colonization, extraterrestrials, the future of Humanity…
Despite some lenghts in the middle of the novel, I liked the novel’s original and entertaining script, as well as the characters.
This novel is a very nice discovery !
A MUST READ.
The blurb reads like a scifi version of The Twilight Zone as done in The Hotel California, doesn’t it?
And, yeah, pretty much, that’s the plot…
Sort of…
After a fashion…
Though if you’re worried that the will spoil the plot, it only covers up to chapter 2. Our hero, Childress, has already started to peace together that the hotel is bigger on the inside by this point.
Yes, the Hotel Infinity is bigger on the inside. And if you think that’s bad, you should see the Star Trek references. Heh.
The book is written in a style that’s very novel-like. Less Victor Hugo, and more modern novel, but Richard is very much an artist with no pretensions. It’s smart and well-thought-out, a mystery that plays perfectly fair, and gives the reader all of the pieces and parts to figure out what the bloody blue heck is going on. However, you really won’t figure it out.
And, one of the nice things here is that everyone has a back story. And I do mean everybody. If they have a name, they have a backstory. There’s at least one chapter of history for almost every named character.
I will say that going from the prologue to chapter 1 in a little disorienting, as it goes from space opera, David Weber style, to a road trip in the South West. The last 10% of the book could have been an additional novel by itself, with what it pulled off. But the ending we got gave a complete, satisfying conclusion to the story, the characters, and the world that’s been established.
At the end of the day, this book starts out like David Weber, continued as written by Rod Serling, and ends with the epic scope of John C. Wright. Yes. I went there. Richard Paolinelli obviously thinks in terms of epic scope. I won’t say that Paolinelli is in Wright’s league just yet. Give him another book or two, and expect Wright to have serious competition in the “awe-inspiring scale” category.
For JCW, I would give a 6/5 if I could. Richard will just have to settle with a 5/5.
Escaping Infinity is an awesome book, and I look forward to Paolinelli’s next work.
Allow a full day for this mostly family-friendly apocalyptic tale of an interstellar accident and how it is resolved.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
A very fascinating sci-fi
This is the first book I have ever read by Richard Paolinelli and I found it very intriguing. This is not my typical genre to read but I wanted to try something different and was very surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The story deals with different cultures, species and time. It shows where people of Earth are a species to be observed by future aliens. The commander of this alien spaceship makes a mistake and obliterates Earth. The main character has found a solution to creating/saving the New Earth. He has the ability to alter and reshape the New Earth. The story was a little hard to get into but once it got going it was great. I would definitely recommend this book.
Escaping Infinity
By Richard Paolinelli
Escaping Infinity by Richard Paolinelli starts out with a bang – quite literally! Eight alien spacecraft unexpectedly materialized in Earth’s atmosphere before passing through. The resulting catastrophic inferno vaporized every life form on Earth, every bit of water and every hint of an atmosphere. Volcanic eruptions poured out lava that almost instantly cooled, leaving a dismal, lifeless ball of rock. Earth’s death throes even impacted the moon, leaving several wide fracture lines that ran in zigzags across its face and its orbit was changed to be approximately 3 days longer.
The commander of the alien flagship stared at his view screen in horror. He had simply wanted to show this jewel of a world to his colleagues and never envisioned the destruction that ensued. Apparently, the navigation computer had failed to flag a small star near their course that was unexpectedly collapsing into a black hole. The change in the gravitational pull was just enough to cause the ships to emerge in Earth’s atmosphere instead of behind the moon. Sick about the damage they had caused, the aliens came up with a plan to attempt reparations to the planet and its inhabitants.
Welcome to the Hotel Infinity. As I read, I was reminded of the words to The Eagles’ popular song, “Hotel California”, that include:
“We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave …
Welcome to the Hotel California …”
I really enjoyed this somewhat off the beaten path of a science fiction story. It was nothing like I expected from the prologue, but it was a fascinating story, nonetheless. The characters were well drawn, the world building was fantastic and the writing was intelligent. I thought the ending was a little over the top, but hey, what the heck, it’s a futuristic story. If you’re looking for something a little different, then you’re sure to like this book. I highly recommend that you give it a try!
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
WOW! I loved loved loved this story! Actually I am not such a big fan of science fiction but might as well convert to be one now. What a great storyline! Amazing characters, and not only Peter and Liz and the manager, but every single one! Sure, the first chapters were a bit confusing, given that without any explanation I was sucked from what felt like Star Wars to an engineer-meeting in our world and time… but then..yeah, then it just sucked me in and didn’t let me go until the last page was turned. Amazing world building next to unbelievable believable technology, the bliss of no knowledge to the devastation of knowing, the horror and the hope…
a wonderful way to explore humanity. Thank you very much M Paolinelli, for this escape from reality… or infinity…
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.