Author: Chris Dolley
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Rating: WORTHY!
This is that one in a dozen books that makes the other eleven worth trudging through - because you know that somewhere in that doubtful dozen there's one like this just waiting to be found and enjoyed - and loved. Even if it creeps you out as you read it.
Graham Smith is the main protagonist (and bless the author for not making this first person PoV which would have ruined it). He works in the mail room in a government office in London and for all the world looks like your everyday ordinary OCD guy. But he's not, as we soon find out. There's a rational reason for Graham to do his obsessive observation of things and positioning of items, and his tightly-focused counting of paving stones on the way down his street - because the night we follow him home, his key won't unlock the door - not even after he's followed his ritual.
He's at the wrong house, and this isn’t anywhere nearly as unexpected to him as it is to me and you. He finds a note he wrote to himself in his pocket - it tells him of his new address, which is really his old address - the one he lived at six months before. When he goes there, his key fits and his home is exactly the way he thinks it should be. Once again, the world has unraveled for him.
This unraveling seems to occur often. His mom and dad disappear and reappear, his home changes places and/or becomes 'unexpectedly' redecorated. Books on his shelves disappear or reappear. The only constant is Graham himself. He never changes - he remembers how things used to be and he writes extensive notes to remind himself of what’s what. Sometimes it’s only those which keep him sane. Graham has had so many instances of saying the wrong thing that he's become all but mute, because he doesn’t want to ask any more about someone's parents who now don’t exist (or are still alive), or about a child or a pet.
Imagine how disturbed he is then to discover a girl watching him one day. He's never seen her before, but now it’s like he sees her often. One night she saves him from someone who is following him in a car, but the next time he meets her, her hair is different, she's a different age, and she disappears again. A third one, different again, but the same girl, the same age, shows up. This girl says she's psychic, and can get in touch with the spirits, but there are two hundred of those, and they're all named Annalise - the same as she is.
Intrigued yet? I was gone long before this, and by that I mean completely absorbed by this story about a world which doesn't seem to be able to absorb Graham. Even as I read and admired it, I kicked myself routinely for not thinking of it first. The story was so endearing and fascinating. Until Graham's mom reappears, but looking nothing like Graham remembers. Then it got a wee bit scary. You see, all the pictures Graham had of his mom were pictures of this new woman, and he was absolutely convinced that she wasn't his mom at all.
As much as I love this novel, I have to point out some flaws in it. In a novel like this, which digs heavily into scientific concepts, there are inevitable problems either because the author doesn’t understand science, or because they're trying to hard to make it sound scientific and simply end-up having to paper over significant cracks in it, hoping that readers don’t understand enough science to catch them out.
I think it’s a mistake, even for a writer who actually is a scientist, to try to nail down their fictional concept by larding it with two much of an explanation in an effort to make it sound scientific. I can’t speak for other readers, but I don't require that writers come-up with some new scientific precept to base their novel on. In fact, I prefer it if they don’t, because they inevitably end-up sounding like an idiot. Just wave your hand at something scientific and move on. I'm good with that. This is fiction, for goodness sake! It doesn't need to be completely rationalized in all aspects or justified up the wazoo.
The two main problems I encountered here are for one, the creationist nonsense that there hasn’t been enough time for mutations to do the work of evolution. BULLSHIT! There's been almost four billion years! Bacteria and viruses had three billion years to experiment with mutations and new genes before anything more complex came onto the scene. With some exceptions, pretty much everything since then has been merely tinkering and tweaking.
The second issue is the Single Gene Theory (to give it a Kennedy-esque conspiracy aura!). This is a popular idea in fiction, and it holds that one gene equals one magical trait. Yes, in some limited cases, one gene does equal one trait, but by far the norm is that a series of gene networks is responsible for exactly who we are and how we function, not any single gene, so when the author began ranting about an experimental "telepathy gene" in chapter 37, I felt slightly nauseated to say the least.
There was a similar feeling engendered in me when the novel turned to the inevitable discussion of parallel worlds. Parallel universes, believe it or not, are an inevitable outcome of the mathematics which help explain this universe in which we live. They're not a invention, as creationists like to lie, developed to explain a god away. Whether they're like what popular fiction portrays or something else entirely is another issue. What tripped my BS alert however, was when the author had a character talk about how there could be an infinite number of parallel worlds, yet this character baulked at the idea that some of the worlds could be so close as to be almost the same! I think he needs to seriously ponder the true dimensions of infinity!
We also got that old saw that we don’t use 100% of our brain. I see this a lot in fiction, and it’s complete nonsense. We don't typically use all of our brain at the same time, but rest assured we do use all of it. The brain is a very expensive organ in terms of energy requirements. Evolution would never have been able to develop such an organ were the bulk of it unemployed.
That aside, I loved this story and became addicted to reading it. And there were, I confess, moments of unexpected humor, such as when a character tells us that "...most worlds are more advanced than us…", but we're an average world? I know average isn't the same as median, but seriously? How can it be average if the bulk is greater? That's the same as saying that the average of 1,2,3,4,5, is one!
But a few gripes aside, this, for me was about as close as you can realistically get to writing a perfect novel. It was brilliant and beautiful, with motivated, interesting characters and lots of action. It had edge-of-your-seat moments and daring escapes, it had fun and intrigue, and it had a really kick-ass strong female character who was a full and equal participant in events, in addition to having an intriguing and captivating male lead (who wasn't even named Jack!)
I'm fully on-board with this and I'm looking towards getting my hands on Chris Dolley's entire oeuvre at this point.
