So, this is pretty much my first foray into to the (soft) science fiction genre. This is not true science fiction. It is written in an easy to read style, with a basic scientific concept being the plot. That makes it easy to read for those of us who want to read something different but are not sure if we want to read science fiction. That basic concept centers around the ability to fold dimensions so to be across the world quickly by stepping through something called the Albuquerque Door. It's distance travel, not time travel. The Door opens up a whole Pandora's box of dimensional possibilities; ie; alternate realities, which are mostly not good ones. Hence, the story unfolds upon nasty things (beings?) coming back through the Door. Hmmm, is that a spoiler? Sorry. Our protagonist Mike, is offered the opportunity to travel to the lab the Door is in and observe the process of the scientific team fine tuning it, whom, by the way, have been traveling over and back from one site, or lab,to another on the same property for some time and logging their trips. They say it is ready to go but are quite secretive and somewhat defensive. Oh, and this is a Dept. of Defense funded project. They are under the threat of maybe losing their funding. Probably because they will not give out their secrets. I mean, if you hold the purse strings, you want the scoop on what your money is buying, right? So, Mike is offered a summer job (he is a school teacher by trade) to observe and determine if the Door should continue to get funded. He has a photographic memory and never forgets anything--that's a nervous breakdown right there! That is why his long time friend Reggie, the head of the finances for the project, recruits him. Mike accepts the job, makes observations, reports to Reggie, but--along the way he finds something wrong with the Door. Before he can figure it out and decide to report it to Reggie, things start to happen. At this point, you will be halfway through the book. When the action finally takes off it is a pretty good read and I kept seeing it as a movie while I was reading it. I think it may be a better movie than a book.
The characters are a good assortment of scientific types with their odd quirks and are pretty believable. One character continuously replies with the "F" word which grows old pretty quick. She uses it so much, I felt a yawn coming on every time she began to speak. The grammar is good in this book, which is a pet peeve of mine, so that is at least one star. I did find the author writing about Mike's injuries as "fishhooks" of pain and referring to it like it was a new thing several times. If something is an ongoing presence it becomes "
the fishhooks" so the reader knows the same problem is still showing itself. This always leads me to wonder "where was the editor?" At any rate, I will not tell you what the "something wrong" is that Mike finds. That really would be a spoiler and I wouldn't do that. Also when I read the part that reveals the reason behind the team not revealing their secrets I thought, "Seriously?!? That's what all the secrecy is about? A team of scientists, one who is famously published, is no smarter than that...!?" What a letdown.
It is worthy of reading, but no blockbuster here. I really linger between three and four stars on this. Definitely not four, but not so bad as three, so I give The Fold three and a half stars. Those stars are for ease of reading and good sentence structure, not so much for a fantastic story with a killer plotline.
None the less, pick it up. Everybody has different tastes.
I received a copy of this book from
Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review. These words are my opinion.
Thanks so much for being here!
Jeri~
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