I would like to thank Nazia from Orbit for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - Orbit

Published - Out Now

Price - £18.99 hardcover £8.99 Kindle eBook

INFINITY IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds - except that they're really just the one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an AI threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they'll eradicate it by whatever means necessary, no matter the cost to human life.

Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth's environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel. It could save everyone on her dying planet, but now she's walked into the middle of a war on a scale she never dreamed of.

And she needs to choose a side before it kills her.

The concept of alternate universes has been around a long time. It’s the attraction of the big ‘what if’ a certain person was not born; a decision not made or just for laughs everyone was evil and wore a goatee? More recently we’ve embraced the multiverse where all these endless possibilities can lie in wait for us. I suspect our desire for times different to our own may have helped nudge this along. MR Carey has applied this to a gloriously epic SF tale in their novel Infinity Gate where space is not conquered instead it’s the ability to cross from one version of Earth to another and which now faces its own huge apocalypse and a strange group of human and non-human characters may be the only way to save every universe.

In Lagos; on an earth dying of climate change and constant war Professor Hadiz Tambuwal and a sophisticated AI named Rupshe discover the ability to cross universes. They are their world’s only living things by the time Hadiz finally crossed over.

In a Lagos where the Earth still stumbles on Hadiz meets the young but untrustworthy Essien Nkanika who seeks wealth and escape. But Hadiz’s work has attracted the powerful Pandominium’s attention. A human empire of multiple earths forever on lookout for excursions and the ruthless armoured military force known as the Cielo are sent to capture them but nothing goes to plan.

Elsewhere the Pandominium has discovered its equivalent in a empire of AI and machines that now is aware of organic life’s existence and the two forces slowly edge closer to war. This has dire consequences for a very different version of earth where Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills a large rabbit (that world’s dominant species) finds herself on the border of the potential war as a young friend of hers has radical views on the rights of machines. Across the distance of the multiverse all these characters are to cross paths and decide if Armageddon can be stopped.

This is a huge epic tale that where it not for the absence of spaceships I’d class as space opera and what impressed me so much about the novel is Carey’s storytelling helps initially to explain the world and then mixes up various characters in different combinations to show us how big this story is going to get.

The first half of the book is very much scene setting starting with Hadiz to make us understand the basic concept of how Stepping as universe crossing is called works and also how big the multiverse is. This isn’t simply what if Nazis won WW2 this is every combination of Earth - life forming or not; every decision; every evolutionary path and means we have a near infinite set of worlds to explore.

Cleverly we start off with worlds that sound like our own and also ignorant of the multiverse as Hadiz and Essien meet but then with the Cielo’s violent appearance we meet the immense Pandominium an empire of alternate earths that has human and non human beings living; trading and as we will see fighting. The Cielo scenes we use to see the ruthless side of the Pandominium that only accepts certain version of Earth as real and others like ours as simply a world for the taking and life on them is not real and not to be cared about. I was impressed that Carey showed us an Empire not one we will love and support. Then for good measure we meet an AI Empire that clashes with the Pandominium - one we learn is forever learning and adapting (almost Borg-like) and now finds organic life in the way.

Unusually the heart of the novel is Topaz’s scenes a non human character but as this story expanded we got to accept the presence of other races that may be humanoid, reptile, cat or on this case rabbit-based. These are the ‘aliens’ but in reality alternates to the human race on Earth and Carey skilfully makes us see them as sentient and human in terms of emotions and depth.

With Topaz with get a tale of a young student plunged into this not-quite-yet war. A simple friendship with the rebellious Dulcie cuts Topaz off from her family and brings her to the attention of the authorities and sends Dulcie on a dangerous trip through the multiverse. This latter half of the novel then connects all the plot strands together and we get to see the direction the tale is taking but with lots of action, violence and escapes thrown in for good measure. All the build up of the first half of the tale now allows things to move into high speed and just accept that we are dealing with multiple species, hi-tech weapons and skilled artificial intelligence. Despite that in the closing chapters this is not going to be a tale of armies but an irregular group that have to save all the worlds. It’s not power that’s going to have to try to win the day but brains (electronic and organic) and compassion. Bigger questions are now set up for the next book in the series and I am very much here for it.

Creative, thoroughly entertaining with a fascinating cast of characters we get to slowly understand and bond with The Infinity Gate is a gloriously epic piece of Science fiction adventures. Well worth your time and strongly recommended!