More walls broken

Dr. Vitrielli was the head of the Consciousness Research Department at California State University before he killed himself, taking pertinent information about his private studies with him to the grave. Using his expertise as a basis for a more unorthodox practice, Dr. Vitrielli was studying the transmigration of souls before he took his own life. Transmigration of souls is, theoretically, the migration of one consciousness to a different body, but when the new head of the university's department and another tenured professor manipulate Dr. Vitrielli's assistant, Clive, into resurrecting the deceased professor's ghost for questioning, it seems like transmigration might be more than just a theory. The three men complete the transmigration ritual to open a portal to another world, but Dr. Vitrielli's ghost isn't the only thing that passes through. His daughter from an alternate universe is pulled out of her own world into the one where her father is dead, and it's up to Clive to return her and stop the other two professors from capturing Dr. Vitrielli's ghost for their own nefarious purposes. Powers (Down and Out in Purgatory, 2017) wastes no time with his new novella, packing a powerful story into such a brief and exciting read. Fans of fantasy, the paranormal, and science fiction alike will enjoy transporting themselves into his strange world of ghosts and alternate dimensions.--Rachel Colias Copyright 2019 Booklist

Three professors fumble their way through opening gates to increasing disaster in Powers's enjoyable novella. Young Clive Cobb and his two elder colleagues at California State University's consciousness research department attempt to raise the ghost of their colleague Professor Vitrielli using a device Vitrielli invented. But they punch through to somewhere entirely wrong, bringing across someone else who is frighteningly familiar. Powers manages to pull off exquisite comic timing even when little that's funny is happening. He likewise weaves in dark humor amid the professors' nerve-racking attempts to fix the "walls" between realities. If the tropes inherent in crossing parallel dimensions are overly familiar, Powers (Alternate Routes) puts his own small twists on them, keeping readers guessing about how he's going to clean up the mess-though some messes may not be cleanable. This quick tale is recommended for lovers of short fiction that tramples genre boundaries. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.