Infinity Gate

I thought this was going to be a three- or even four-star book, but alas, the let-down. Promising in the beginning: I love a good alternate-worlds story that puts some thought into how the whole thing can shake out socially and economically, and this book seemed to do just that. Plus, the identity of the narrator was cool and promising, and the narrator’s bias was clever and snarky.

Well, that all went down the drains after the first quarter or so, when suddenly space-opera-MilSF-blah. Why are we reading out super-soldier specs? Y a w n. I could’ve lived with the added POV characters (and actually, the school girl x AI couple was endearing and decently written), but man, going all-in on adventures in space and technobabble was not a good call.

And then, in the very end, it turned out that a) the author clearly thinks we are stupid, because there is something that is signalled so clearly it might as well be spelled out, and it’s treated as a twist. Maybe Graydon Saunders has broken me, because he would’ve considered that part almost too clear and in need of less obvious hinting (and leave it at that, forever), but that felt lame as the outcome of the final showdown.

And then the book ends on a non-ending/cliffhanger, while formally revealing the identity of the narrator – which has been clear from the beginning, so either this is another faux-twist or the writing is just off. Definitely not enough to get me to read the next part, as you can just tell how it’s going to go from here. Man, this one had potential – the initial AI rights setup plus the parallel similar-but-not worlds with different species were cool. But sure, throw it away to get in a couple more stats about your Iron Man suits. Kinda sad, that.