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ridicully's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
tome15's review
3.0
Brandt, Gerald. Threader: Origins. Quantum Empirica No. 1. DAW, 2021.
In a recent interview, Gerald Brandt tells us that, in Threader, he was trying to find the sweet spot between science fiction and fantasy, and a brief allusion in the novel suggests that he was aiming for something like Jack L. Chalker’s Midnight at the Well of Souls (1977) in which a starship captain discovers an ancient alien machine that controls the structure of the universe as a whole. For me, though, Threader seems almost pure fantasy. The fact that characters sometimes use the word quantum does not mean that there is much quantum physics in the story. A young man, Darwin, is thrown into an alternate world by a quantum computing accident. In this world, he and many others, can see and manipulate quantum threads that structure the multiverse. And that’s it for science. The rest of the story is Darwin’s trek across a dystopian American landscape in a quest to return to his own universe. Even so, the story might have worked for me if Darwin were not such bore. His angst never pulled me into his story. Three stars.
In a recent interview, Gerald Brandt tells us that, in Threader, he was trying to find the sweet spot between science fiction and fantasy, and a brief allusion in the novel suggests that he was aiming for something like Jack L. Chalker’s Midnight at the Well of Souls (1977) in which a starship captain discovers an ancient alien machine that controls the structure of the universe as a whole. For me, though, Threader seems almost pure fantasy. The fact that characters sometimes use the word quantum does not mean that there is much quantum physics in the story. A young man, Darwin, is thrown into an alternate world by a quantum computing accident. In this world, he and many others, can see and manipulate quantum threads that structure the multiverse. And that’s it for science. The rest of the story is Darwin’s trek across a dystopian American landscape in a quest to return to his own universe. Even so, the story might have worked for me if Darwin were not such bore. His angst never pulled me into his story. Three stars.
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