Scan barcode
duckinggreyduck's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
waden34's review against another edition
1.0
This book started off interesting enough but went downhill fast. Hugely over-complicated discussions on abductive reasoning having absolutely nothing to do with the story, made me want to rip my eyes out.
Barnes probably knows his science, but certainly needs help with the fiction part. There is no logical flow to the story, so it was hard to consolidate what just happened to what is happening now. The ending was one of the worst examples of Deus ex Machina I've ever read. With no logical way to end the story, things just magically work out for the better, all within a handful of pages.
I don't recommend anyone read this unless they've already read all other books in existence...
Barnes probably knows his science, but certainly needs help with the fiction part. There is no logical flow to the story, so it was hard to consolidate what just happened to what is happening now. The ending was one of the worst examples of Deus ex Machina I've ever read. With no logical way to end the story, things just magically work out for the better, all within a handful of pages.
I don't recommend anyone read this unless they've already read all other books in existence...
jesm98's review against another edition
3.0
What a crazy book! I think I spent about half of the time confused about what was going on in the story and how it was happening. I enjoyed this science-fiction story, but there are still some things that I am confused about. The technical explanations between characters didn't always answer my own questions. I did, however, enjoy the story.
tome15's review against another edition
3.0
I like the first three quarters of this book a lot. Then it is as if Barnes turned it over to a nephew who watched too many Mel Gibson movies.
mburnamfink's review
4.0
Lyle Peripart is an average astronomer, an American ex-pat living in New Zealand and making a pretty good go of it, in a world where the Nazis won WW2 and Twelve Reichs divide the globe. He's got a steady relationship, a nice house, and a talking suborbital rocketship. When he accepts a new job with a mysterious industrial tycoon his life gets seriously weird. He starts running into a Gestapo agent, his fiance is a gun-slinging international assassin rather than a history professor, and there are gaps in what Lyle can say and think: worlds and phrases that trigger headaches and amnesia. The biggest problem: no two people agree on what history looks like, and no one has every actually communicated with America. An entire country has been missing for decades, memory is a lie, and something is very fishy.
What follows is a thrilling quest into the empty heart of America, the weirdness of Many Worlds Quantum Mechanics, and what it means to really Pursue Happiness above all else. Finity is a strange strange book, a breezy picaresque tied to quantum speculation and a brutal death march, but it's quite cool and an under appreciated gem.
What follows is a thrilling quest into the empty heart of America, the weirdness of Many Worlds Quantum Mechanics, and what it means to really Pursue Happiness above all else. Finity is a strange strange book, a breezy picaresque tied to quantum speculation and a brutal death march, but it's quite cool and an under appreciated gem.
smcleish's review
3.0
On re-reading in 2012, I liked it better. The ending is still poor - it's very abrupt and not satisfying. But most of the story is enjoyable enough.
Originally published on my blog here in May 2001.
John Barnes has written several novels about culture clashes (most recently [b:A Million Open Doors|264499|A Million Open Doors|John Barnes|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312029001s/264499.jpg|256407]); this paranoid alternative universe novel is almost more of the same. Finity is a science fiction thriller; investigation of sabotage at a huge company turns up evidence that a large number of alternate versions of reality are beginning to collide Colleagues no longer share the same idea of history, or even of recent events. In addition, something has happened to the USA, or its equivalent in every alternative reality; the rest of the world has lost contact with it, without realising.
There seem to me to be several holes in the explanations of what's going on in Finity (there is also more exposition than in most of Barnes' novels). Some things are just sloppy - Barnes surely cannot mean that there can only be a finite number of combinations of a finite number of symbols as he seems to say; an infinite collection of numbers can be built from the symbols 0-9. It is also not the case that a point has infinitely many neighbours; neighbour is not a valid concept in Euclidean space - within a particular distance of any point there are infinitely many points, but there are always ones closer than any given one). Some of his explanations of quantum physics also contain suspect statements, and the idea that use of quantum computer powered devices will swap an individual into an alternate universe seems pretty ludicrous.
Although alternative realities are interesting, it is difficult to see any way to travel from one to another, and this is something which an author needs to face once multiple alternates are introduced. This has been done in several ways. In [b:The Man in the High Castle|216363|The Man in the High Castle|Philip K. Dick|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347388495s/216363.jpg|2398287], they are fictions in each other (linked by the I Ching), and [a:Michael Moorcock|16939|Michael Moorcock|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1222901251p2/16939.jpg]'s Jerry Cornelius series makes them fantasies. In other Moorcock novels, alternate realities are a by-product of time travel, which is left with an unexplained mechanism, and [a:Robert A. Heinlein|205|Robert A. Heinlein|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1192826560p2/205.jpg] mixes this idea with that of fiction in [b:The Number of the Beast|50877|The Number of the Beast|Robert A. Heinlein|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1201734223s/50877.jpg|1077659] and the novels that followed it. Other ideas used by writers include traumatic events such as near death experiences or experiencing other universes by drug taking. In almost every case, though, these are more causes of travel between alternates than explanations of how it might be possible.
To have no real explanation, particularly when dealing with one of the well established components of the genre, is not really a problem. (The reader tends to think, "Oh yes, alternate realities" or "time machines", or whatever, and it's a concept already familiar and acceptable to them.) However, Barnes does attempt an explanation, and this is not very convincing. As a result, the novel as a whole is diminished. In general, Barnes is a writer I admire a great deal; but Finity is his most disappointing novel to date.
Originally published on my blog here in May 2001.
John Barnes has written several novels about culture clashes (most recently [b:A Million Open Doors|264499|A Million Open Doors|John Barnes|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312029001s/264499.jpg|256407]); this paranoid alternative universe novel is almost more of the same. Finity is a science fiction thriller; investigation of sabotage at a huge company turns up evidence that a large number of alternate versions of reality are beginning to collide Colleagues no longer share the same idea of history, or even of recent events. In addition, something has happened to the USA, or its equivalent in every alternative reality; the rest of the world has lost contact with it, without realising.
There seem to me to be several holes in the explanations of what's going on in Finity (there is also more exposition than in most of Barnes' novels). Some things are just sloppy - Barnes surely cannot mean that there can only be a finite number of combinations of a finite number of symbols as he seems to say; an infinite collection of numbers can be built from the symbols 0-9. It is also not the case that a point has infinitely many neighbours; neighbour is not a valid concept in Euclidean space - within a particular distance of any point there are infinitely many points, but there are always ones closer than any given one). Some of his explanations of quantum physics also contain suspect statements, and the idea that use of quantum computer powered devices will swap an individual into an alternate universe seems pretty ludicrous.
Although alternative realities are interesting, it is difficult to see any way to travel from one to another, and this is something which an author needs to face once multiple alternates are introduced. This has been done in several ways. In [b:The Man in the High Castle|216363|The Man in the High Castle|Philip K. Dick|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347388495s/216363.jpg|2398287], they are fictions in each other (linked by the I Ching), and [a:Michael Moorcock|16939|Michael Moorcock|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1222901251p2/16939.jpg]'s Jerry Cornelius series makes them fantasies. In other Moorcock novels, alternate realities are a by-product of time travel, which is left with an unexplained mechanism, and [a:Robert A. Heinlein|205|Robert A. Heinlein|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1192826560p2/205.jpg] mixes this idea with that of fiction in [b:The Number of the Beast|50877|The Number of the Beast|Robert A. Heinlein|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1201734223s/50877.jpg|1077659] and the novels that followed it. Other ideas used by writers include traumatic events such as near death experiences or experiencing other universes by drug taking. In almost every case, though, these are more causes of travel between alternates than explanations of how it might be possible.
To have no real explanation, particularly when dealing with one of the well established components of the genre, is not really a problem. (The reader tends to think, "Oh yes, alternate realities" or "time machines", or whatever, and it's a concept already familiar and acceptable to them.) However, Barnes does attempt an explanation, and this is not very convincing. As a result, the novel as a whole is diminished. In general, Barnes is a writer I admire a great deal; but Finity is his most disappointing novel to date.
apostrophen's review
3.0
Mixed reactions to this one. I liked the story in and of itself, with an interesting premise: parallel worlds seem to be bleeding, and even the individuals around the narrative voice, Lyle, are changing - his wife goes from physicist to marine at a blink, and though many worlds seem to exist, no one seems to be from a place that includes a currently free U.S.A - all universes seem to have the U.S.A. as having collapsed in war.
The physics, however, are mind-boggling. As the group travel to the U.S.A, trying to find out where it went, the physics lessons are just way too much. Also, Lyle is a bit weak as far as the rest of the supporting cast go - the rest are so amazing, he seems far too Joe Average to belong in their company, and is a kind of sad-sack narrative choice for the main voice of the story.
The physics, however, are mind-boggling. As the group travel to the U.S.A, trying to find out where it went, the physics lessons are just way too much. Also, Lyle is a bit weak as far as the rest of the supporting cast go - the rest are so amazing, he seems far too Joe Average to belong in their company, and is a kind of sad-sack narrative choice for the main voice of the story.
More...