Review by Booklist Review
Carey launches the Pandominion series with a tale told by a seemingly omniscient narrator working up to the moment it achieved sentience during the interdimensional war between the Pandominion empire and the machine hegemony, or Ansurrection. The narrative follows three primary characters: Hadiz Tambuwal, a human scientist on a dying world who accidentally develops interdimensional travel; Essien Nkanika, a human rogue who enlists in the Pandominion military, the Cielo, after being wrenched into one of their worlds; and Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills, a recklessly independent rabbit from a Pandominion world. The Pandominion consider any sentient beings outside of the worlds they govern to be inferior and therefore expendable, which leads the military to shoot Hadiz and capture Essien when they notice Hadiz's scientific excursions into some of their worlds. Topaz is an ordinary student until she befriends an Ansurrection sleeper agent and is forced to flee her homeworld to unite with Hadiz. Infinity Gate, with its in-depth science and rich characterization, is a must-read for sf fans, as Carey's story crosses the militarism of an anthropomorphic Starship Troopers with Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's Long Earth series while waging a war against Stargate's replicators.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Carey (The Girl with All the Gifts) posits that the depletion of earth's resources might be avoidable by raiding the "universe next door"--unless the neighbors complain loudly as they do in this brilliant dimension-hopping sci-fi thriller and Pandominion series launch. Hadiz Tambuwal, a scientist on a crash program to stave off Earth's looming ecological collapse, discovers a gateway to alternate Earths that lack people, but offer clean air and water. Unfortunately, her explorations attract the attention of the Pandominion, a collective of Earth-hopping beings (not all of them human) who fear incursions from "Unvisited" dimensions and are enmeshed in a war with the Ansurrection, a unity of AI-driven robotic beings. Carey skillfully explores the moral complications of machine personhood as brilliant schoolgirl Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills befriends an Ansurrection infiltrator that seeks individuality, and Hadiz perfects her world-hopping device with help from Rupshe, an experimental AI. The stark choices of war or peace and environmental health or disaster are unsettlingly close to current-day issues, making this cosmos-spanning work a timely plea for planetary sanity. Readers will be wowed. Agent: Meg Davis, Ki Agency. (Mar.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A desperate scientist. A selfish rogue. A caring child. And the fate of infinite realities. At the beginning of this multiverse-spanning tale, an unnamed narrator tells us we're going to hear the stories of three individuals: first, Hadiz Tambuwal, an accidental genius; second, Essien Nkanika, an impoverished man willing to do anything to survive; and finally, Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills, a sentient rabbit whose choices changed the course of history. From that confident and intriguing opening, we jump right into Hadiz's story. She's a scientist working in a research station in Nigeria who can see the end of civilization coming and finds it terribly inconvenient that this collapse might interrupt her work. She's looking for dark energy but instead stumbles on a way to hop into alternate universes. We soon learn that thousands of these alternate universes are governed by an empire called the Pandominion that invented cross-universe travel long ago and doesn't care for people making unsanctioned trips. But with Hadiz's Earth in the midst of civilizational collapse and environmental catastrophe, she's left with no choice but to hop sideways to another Earth--and unknowingly set in motion a reality-altering chain of events. The result is sort of a space opera that never goes to space, instead spanning thousands of alternate Earths, including multiple Earths where evolution took a different path and the dominant sentient species is descended from rabbits, hedgehogs, or others of our mammalian cousins. The plot doesn't map onto a traditional hero's journey arc and feels all the fresher for it. Short, action-packed chapters keep the pace brisk, and each character we meet, however briefly, is vividly and empathetically drawn. A genuine treat for SF fans: an epic multiverse tale that moves like a thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
