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. “Gorgeous writing, mind-bending world-building, razor-sharp social commentary, and a main character who demands your attention—and your allegiance.”—Rob Hart, … attention—and your allegiance.”—Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY 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)
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Wonderful far-future multiple worlds story. A brilliant scientist on Earth Zero (Our world? Who knows?) has discovered how to slip people between universes that have a similar vibration to ours…ie, that aren’t too different. But people can only traverse to another universe if their counterpart there is dead. Climate deterioration has split the world–all the worlds accessible to our characters–into haves and have-nots. And because the have-nots are less likely to survive in each world–poor food, no protection against the heat of the sun, poisoned water–they tend to be the traversers. There’s a fantastic plot, a tentative background sapphic love story and brilliant worldbuilding, all wrapped up in truly lyrical prose.
“REASONS I HAVE LIVED: I don’t know, but there are 8.”
This is a unique blend of science fiction and dystopian surrounding the idea of the multiverse and parallel lives. Cara is a traverser who has the ability to travel to 372 out of the 380 parallel worlds that Earth Zero has discovered. That is because she is dead on those 372 worlds. She collects specific data for the company she works for until one day she learns something that will change everything. Honestly, reading the synopsis is the best thing I did before jumping in. It perfectly sets the theme.
The world building is a little hard to follow at first. Once you grasp how traversing works and unravel the secrets Cara is harboring things start to fall into place a lot smoother. There’s a bit of an information overload in the beginning along with some dragged out scenes but I have to admit that Johnson has a way with words and the imagery was beautiful in a lot of areas.
“Easy doesn’t mean happy.”
This novel approaches class levels and poverty in a unique light. Cara comes from Ashland and her interaction with Wileyites puts into perspective how lowly her class is considered. Throwaways at the expense of the system and its gains. Though there are not descriptive sex scenes, Ashland is a town that is run by an emperor who profits on gang like activities. There is prostitution and physical abuse mentioned. I especially liked the addition of the strained f/f relationship between Cara and Dell and the sisterly bonds between Esther and Cara.
My favorite part of this read is the superstition surrounding Nyame and her existence as a being controlling the space between everything. The lore was a nice touch. Between the superstition surrounding Nyame and the beautifully descriptive beliefs for religion, mourning and burials; I felt a little magic and culture flow into this dystopian sci-fi.
Outside of the information overload and the slow build in the beginning, I found myself sucked into Cara’s life. Johnson had a fun way of adding little twists that I didn’t expect and lead the plot in ways that kept me intrigued. I think readers who love a good multiverse sci-fi will highly enjoy this one.
Thank you to Del Rey Books and Micaiah Johnson for the advanced reader copy. All thoughts are solely my own.
It’s a rare thing to read a book that is so good from top to bottom that you wonder why you bother writing your own books at all. The Space Between Worlds was that book for me. Not a period or letter out of place. It is perfection.
Wow! I preordered this book after only reading the first two pages because it immediately hit me with its greatness. I finally got around to reading it in full, and it did not disappoint. Micaiah Johnson has created my favorite book of 2020. Science Fiction is a perfect place to explore cultural issues, and Johnson executes her story about class and privilege expertly. A powerful book that couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.
This is one of those books where the world feels completely real and lived in. Johnson provides enough detail that it seems obvious as to how the world ended up this way but not so much that she has to dedicate time to world building info dumps. On a similar note, Johnson expertly feeds the reader plot relevant information without them noticing, in fact there was information that was telegraphed as being important that ended up being a red herring.
I’ve read a few other novels based on the theory of infinite universes, but this book stands apart. Hard to put down, fascinating characters, and marvelous world-building. I’m looking forward to cherishing this again with a second reading.
I enjoyed this story so much!
The Many Worlds theory has been explored before but this felt raw, up-close, and visceral. We land bang in the midst of it from page one and it never slows down.
The best part for me, and I imagine for the author, was being able to explore multiple facets of each characters’ personalities based on a ‘there but for fortune’ experience. To watch Cara embody herself/notself and then become more of who she is along the way (which sounds confusing but makes perfect sense as you read) was magic.
A thrilling, sometimes dark, and residually tragic ride through time-space coupled with a powerful exploration of Identity.
Some nature vs. nurture there as well, but you don’t think these things while you read. You are simply immersed.
What a great book!
One of my favorite books of the past year. Excellent, innovative science fiction.
An incredibly original story, engaging and thought-provoking, moving and extremely well-written. It seems to sag in the middle but it was really only a lull before the storm. Well done from start to finish.
4.5 stars and the only reason I took half a star away was that the ending left me unsatisfied. The whole time the book is building up to this big showdown between good and evil and right and wrong and instead of giving us the fight of a lifetime we instead get a sort of half-measure that really accomplished very little in regards to changing things. The rest of the book was fantastic though and this is completely worthy of a read. I got so immersed I stayed up late into the night more than once unable to stop myself from finding out what would happen next. I loved the dystopian setting snd the sci-fi elements. Using the multiverse was genuine genius. I do wish we had more time with Cara on all the other worlds rather than just the main couple. I feel like there was so much more story that could have been told and that I still want to know even though the book is over. Definitely highly recommend!
Thank you Micaiah Johnson, DelRey Books and Netgalley for #gifting me with this ebook.
4.5/5 Stars
Trigger warning: This book contains scenes of domestic violence.
This has been one of those books that sat on my shelf and I just never got around to picking it up. I’m so glad that I reached for it this time around.
Cara is a survivor in every sense of the word. She has died on 372 other worlds, which makes her one of Eldridge’s biggest assets in multiverse travel. Little does Cara know that not everything is as it seems.
I am not the biggest sci-fi reader, but I loved the idea of there being hundreds of parallel universes that could be traveled to, but only if you no longer lived on that world. Cara is a strong female character; she is tough and ambitious, yet also flawed and a bit broken. She walks a thin line, never really fitting into any space that she inhabited.
I loved the pace and flow of this story. There are a couple big twists sprinkled in that leave you on the edge of your seat, waiting to see how it all unfolds. Adding in the same characters from different multiverses just added to the complexity of the story; in some worlds I hated a character and yet in other worlds I liked them. It’s a strange feeling to root for a character on one page and then pray for the same characters demise on the next. I also really liked that the queer sub-theme was added without a lot of added attention, it made it feel so natural and normal (which is how it should be!).
I feel really bad saying this, because I had really high hopes for it, but this one totally fell flat for me…
It started off very strong – I was immediately drawn in to the multiple worlds and Cara’s place in them. The first reveal wasn’t much of a shocker but still packed a punch, and I expected to fly through this one based on how quickly things started off. But somewhere about a quarter of the way in things just started slowing down and from there felt like they got slower and slower until they ground to a halt for me. I’ve seen other reviewers talk about the elegance of the writing – which I agree with completely – and also about the weird simultaneous flatness of the emotional affect – which, unfortunately, I also agree with completely.
After the strong opening I just never felt a big connection with the characters or the worlds. They are very similar, and I get that this is part of the story, but it meant that a lot of the writing started to feel repetitive to me – and not in a way that builds tension or stress into the story, but rather in a way that felt like it was forcing me to keep flipping pages just in the hope that something exciting and new would happen… Even the romance felt stilted and painfully dry. Plus it was hard to believe that the world – weary protagonist would behave, talk, and think as simplistically as she so often did, and it made it tough for me to relate to her. This may be where the YA- intended audience and I part ways, but still – it made the read feel like work after a while, and that’s when it really lost me…
I think this was just an example of the wrong book – reader match.
(But how gorgeous and evocative is that cover?? It’s what initially drew me to the book…)
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my obligation-free review copy.
Originally posted on Tales to Tide You Over: https://margaretmcgaffeyfisk.com/category/reviews/
This is a science fiction novel built around the multiverse theory. It jumps into an interesting explanation of how the system works from the start. That interest soon turns dark as the health and longevity differences found with economic disparity offers a rare opportunity to become part of the utopian city. Despite the hard science foundation, though, this is a novel about people, choices, and consequences.
The narrative voice is an odd, cynical monotone for much of the book as Cara, the main character, lives on the edge of two societies. She’s valuable for her disposability, or rather, the opposite. The multiverse rejects more than one copy per world, so when her double dies, ‘our’ Cara can then visit those worlds using a special machine. She lives in the city and has access to a citizen’s resources when she’s not transversing as she works toward earning a citizenship. But she doesn’t belong there, and while she reveals fascinating details, she’s set apart from them.
A literal wall divides this society with few exceptions, but besides some holdovers from early Ruralite religious beliefs, gender and sexuality are a spectrum. Racial disparity, on the other hand, is stronger when the city blocks all rays that would trigger melanin, making the distinctions hard to ignore. Sexism still echoes in Ruralite expectations and in the warlord’s treatment of his wives and mistress as well.
The city itself is a fascinating mix of utopian ideals and social failures. It offers health care, protection for those unable to work, fresh fruit for anyone to enjoy… But the real benefits are reserved for citizens, and the resources come from those exiled to Ashtown beyond the wall. The city isolates its citizens, rejecting touch and care as necessary while those outside the wall embrace it. A utopia for the few with strict social and emotional barriers blunting them from the reality of their faults. They are blind to what makes their city work.
We only glimpse the religion practiced by Ruralites outside the wall, but those hints are complex and fascinating. The funerary ritual is beautiful while the differences in lifelines across the Earths affect the different characters’ calling as much as anything.
The writing uses simple sentences full of nuance that reveal the complexity of a world struggling to survive after industrialists polluted and stripped everything of value. Nor is the lesson learned. The areas with damage sit outside the wall while the people with control of resources live within, paying those trapped outside to continue the stripping either of their Earth or another.
This is far from a simple narrative. As soon as you grow comfortable in what you think you know, another twist is thrown into the mix, making everything that much more complex. While such a pattern could have broken the narrative, this works because each twist builds on what’s been happening instead of tearing it down. The same is true for the foreshadowing. Seemingly unrelated mentions have a direct connection you learn later…and sometimes several connections.
Coming from the life Cara does, it’s little surprise she expects everything to be wrenched from her. Still, her character is more than a product of her upbringing as shown by her bond with Jean, her mentor at work and her teasing dance with Dell, her handler, when Dell seems to repel her advances. Nor is this a new aspect to her personality from her childhood bonds.
She doesn’t lie back and glory in the changes her low survival rate bought her. Cara is a person who acts, and traveling between the worlds makes her hyper-aware of her situation and that of others. She struggles with the questions of whether the quality of people buy their fate or the fate of people makes the quality possible. This book becomes not just a social, but also a philosophical discourse on the back of her questions.
The way each version of the major players (Dell, Nik Nik, Esther, and more) changes from world to world is fascinating. We learn some of the triggers provoking the differences or only uncover the consequences. Cara also changes as she observes or interacts with others. She’s affected by the new reality even when separate from it. The novel is a love story, a story of self-discovery, or maybe both.
This is not a clean, tidy novel, but it is compelling and fascinating. The story has violence, mind warping, and destructive behavior. It’s a powerful read without using complex language or tricky metaphors, so the story is approachable. That’s part of its strength where the narrative tone becomes another hint of things to come. There are twists at every turn, each one building on what you know but turning you in another direction, nor are the characters exactly as they appear. The Space Between Worlds will make you think, feel, and wonder. Well worth the read.
P.S. I received this ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book. Cara is a seriously flawed character, but she grows and matures. The idea of all the other worlds was really well done here, and I kind of would have liked to have seen more of what was happening on them. As it is, this story only really focuses on 4 of them.
I was a little disappointed with the ending. It seemed to be a big build-up to an epic show-down and well-deserved revenge but was instead kind of wishy-washy.
Overall though, I really did enjoy this and thought it was amazingly well done considering this is this author’s first published novel. Oh, and many thanks to my friend Lindsay who recommend this to me. It was right up my alley but for some reason, I had never heard of it before. I’d definitely recommend this for sci-fi fans, or Mad-Max fans, as Ashtown was giving me some serious Mad-Max vibes.
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson was a Book of the Month pick and when I saw there was a buddy read for it on Instagram I jumped at the chance to take part. This is definitely a great book for a discussion, and even though it’s science fiction I also found it to be pretty dang thought-provoking and relatable to the real world. I haven’t actually read that much sci-fi but it’s a genre I enjoy, and I loved the world Johnson created in this novel. It was so vivid and detailed without being too wordy, and I felt like I was right there with the characters.
I loved Cara and she was such a strong female lead. Even though I had the BOTM copy I decided to do the audio and it was very well done. Nicole Lewis made for the perfect Cara and I loved listening to her voice this book. I had a hard time putting it down and listened to the whole thing in a day. Lewis made the book even more enjoyable so I would definitely recommend listening to The Space Between Worlds if that’s your thing.
The Space Between Worlds reminded me a little bit of The Midnight Library (which was the book I finished just before this one) in the sense that there are different versions of ourselves in other worlds, so it was a little odd going from that book to this one, but also rather cool as well. The pacing/world building was incredible for me and it held my attention the entire time. I don’t even know how Johnson thought of all this, but I’m glad she did, and I love the experience I had while reading it. I will be looking forward to whatever she writes next!
When it comes to sci-fi, more often than not, I am let down. You see a lot of authors fall back on overused tropes and/or people misuse scientific terminology, which as a scientist makes me immediately shut down. This is NOT one of those types of books. This is literally the new voice in sci-fi that I have been anxiously hoping and waiting for.
Cara has the ability to travel across the multiverse. There are 382 worlds in total. The caveat? You can only travel to the worlds if you no longer exist on that world. So the Eldridge Institute hires transversers like Cara, Black and from a poor backgrounds that, statistically speaking, had slim chance of survival anyways.
“The needed trash people. Poor black and brown people. People somehow on the ‘wrong side’ of the wall, even though they were the ones who built it. People brought for labor, or come for refuge, or who were here before the first neoliberal surveyed this land and thought to build a paradise. People who’d already thought this was paradise. They needed my people. They needed me.”
This paragraph in chapter one hit me like a ton of bricks and set the tone for the entire story. I was so blown away that this author included this paragraph that so succinctly described Earth zero. I just wasn’t expecting this sort of brutal honesty in sci-fi, and I immediately understood that this book would be unlike any other in this genre.
I don’t want to comment on anything in regards to plot for this one because I honestly that that you should go into this one blind. Roughly speaking, there are multiple worlds existing at once hence the multiverse, but in terms of what happens on each of those, you need to experience that alongside Cara.
Let’s talk characters.
Our protagonist Cara is a Black, bisexual female who literally will do whatever it takes to survive especially she refuses to die the way that her mother did. She’s sarcastic, rough around the edges, but true to those that she cares about. Cara knows that she needs to make it order to finally become a citizen and be safe for once in her life.
As far as secondary characters go, all of them (Dell, Ester, Jean, Adam, and Nik Nik) were well developed and fascinating. We learned each of their backstories as well as their lives on the different Earths. Never once did I think that these characters deviated from or slowed the plot down. If anything, I was so curious as to how all of it would play out.
This book does an incredible job of tackling the intersectionality of race, class, and identity and it does it in a way that reminds you that even when we advance in science and technology that these themes and problems are not going to magically disappear.
Honestly, there is so much more that I could talk about in this amazing book, but I will wrap up with just pick this one up and read it. Johnson is a desperately needed breath of fresh air in science-fiction, and I cannot wait to see what is next.
Thank you to Del Rey for providing a review copy through NetGalley. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.
I wasn’t sure what I was reading at first, but I really enjoyed the world building. And then the story really took hold. Loved it!
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This is the author’s debut novel. I picked this book as my August BOTM pick. Easily one of my all-time favorite covers.
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: In this book we follow Cara who is traveling through 380 different earths. In 372 of them she died, but on 8 of them she has lived until she mysteriously dies on one of the remaining worlds. I thought this was a very solid debut novel. While reading this book, I was feeling a few vibes reminiscent of Dark Matter in the sense of the sci-fi vibes I was getting. To me, it was really cool seeing how so many different scenarios can play out across different worlds, each with its own outcome. I would definitely recommend this book all sci-fi readers. There were a few thriller vibes in this which I greatly appreciated. I’m excited to see the next book Micaiah writes!!!!!
This book is going into my top ten list. I loved the heroine and the world-building.