Book Review : The Space Between Worlds By Michaiah Johnson

 The Space Between Worlds 

(The Space Between Worlds #1)

By Micaiah Johnson

 

Published Year: 2020

Page Count: 305 pages 

Medium Used: Kindle PW 

Genre : Science Fiction, Fantasy, SFF, Adventure, Multiverse, Technology and Space, 2024-read. 

Rating : 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Such beautiful book. The writing is terrific. The prose is so good and the world building is next level! I read a digital edition of this book and have large swathes of paragraphs highlighted .. thats how good the writing felt! It expertly weaves the worlds of multiverse, space – time travel and fantasy into a beautiful science fiction, fantasy story. The plot is complex but is also laid out in a fashion that makes everything clear. I find that not everyone has the ability to tackle the confusion and conundrums that multiverse – with multiple selves of a person,different times and relationships –  creates. Michaiah has navigated this tough space by limiting the number of focused worlds to two and also killing off most of the parallel selves to these ” traversers “. She also made these worlds very similar to each other albeit altering the relationships between people a little. Their core natures and ambitions stick. 

Wiley city and Ashtown are fictitious neighbor establishments separated by a fence. As the names suggest, Wiley City is well developed while Ashtown composes of rurals and wastelands. The people of Ashtown are often looked down like savages that live on filth and ash,sand. One inhabitant of the Ashtown, Caramenta has always wanted to escape her dreary existence by moving permanently to the city. She has always been defined by ambition – not just in this world labeled ‘ Earth Zero ‘. 

Adam Bosch of the Wiley City has developed a technology that enables people to migrate to other earth like worlds/universes. Its just that the person who is traversing into the other world should not have a living doppelganger on that world. If such a doppelganger is alive, the traverser gets killed by the universe or badly damaged that they cannot survive. Caramenta works for this company and she is uniquely positioned to be their most celebrated and frequent traverser. Out of the 382 worlds which are known to them, she is dead on 375 of them. She can enter into any of these 375 worlds freely and acquire data from their ports. She is mostly killed/murdered on those worlds because of failing to escape poverty or the ruthlessness of her emperor Nik Nik. 

During her travels to an Earth 175, she learns that the doppelganger of Adam Bosch is a cruel and brutal,  tyrant, emperor. This shows the actions of Adam in her world in a new light and she starts digging into him. She sees into his inhumane core. He makes a new announcement that not only shocks her but pulls her out of her shell of complacency. With the help of some of her trustees, she counters his actions and puts a temporary pause on his sinister plans. The sequel to this book must speak to what comes next. I am very eager to learn it. 

Dell and Cara share a deeply touching, love relationship that is done just right. It doesn’t feel overdone like I have read from other authors. They have each other’s backs and watch out for any trouble to the other. Its a wonderfully crafted multiverse story which also has the drama of lesbian love, revenge and self righteousness. I loved this book thoroughly and highly recommend to all SFF readers out there!