The Space Between Worlds

DNF: got about halfway through before the holes in the plot and worldbuilding got too annoying.

"I'm the best in the universe at letting bad shit happen to me."

This wasn't a bad book at all, and actually it had me hooked up until the ending started rolling, and then it felt like I was reading a different book entirely.

In a universe of multiple Earths, Cara is unique in that her self on most of these other worlds has already died. This allows her the privilege of visiting these other Earths and gathering information without being killed herself as the multiverse tries to correct itself. She makes a decent living doing this and maintains ties with her family living outside her walled city, but she also has a pretty large secret she's kept hidden from everyone.

Up front I'll say that the author can write. This was more philosophical and character-driven than I was expecting, and I was delighted by that. The multiverse aspect is really just used as a setting, and despite being important to Cara's character, manages to take a back seat to everything else going on. There's thoughts and discussions on classism and what it takes to survive a world of haves and have nots which I appreciated, and I loved how Cara approached her life, her job, and her resiliency at managing to survive.

When the ending started happening, though, I kind of felt like I was reading a different book. While the ending itself (prior to the epilogue) made sense and was at least a little bit satisfying in the moment, I thought that (ending/epilogue spoilers here) the author potentially walking back Adra/Adam being bad with a reconciliation with Nik Nik undid a lot of what the ending already finalized. I don't know if any of that is addressed in the second book, but it felt really vague and wishywashy.

I also thought the relationship between Dell and Cara wasn't handled well. It's basically one-sided for a majority of the book, with some hints at more, until the ending when suddenly things go from 0 to 100 without any buildup. It didn't feel natural, it didn't feel right, and felt more like a checkbox than anything else. I thought that was disappointing.

I really did enjoy a lot of what this book was doing, I just wish it had ended better. I might check out the second book to see if anything from the ending here is resolved more fully there, but I won't make it a priority.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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REASONS I HAVE DIED:

The emperor of the wasteland wanted to make an example of my mother, and started with me.

One of my mother’s boyfriends wanted to cover up what he did to me.

I was born addicted and my lungs didn’t develop.

I was born addicted and my brain didn’t develop.

I was left alone, and a stranger came along.

The runners came for a neighbor, and I was in the way.

The runners came for my mother, and I was in the way.

The runners came for my mother’s boyfriend, and I was in the way.

The runners came for no one, serving nothing at all but chaos and fear, and I was what they found.

Sometimes, I was just forgotten in the shed where she kept me while she worked or spun out, and in the length of her high and the heat of the sun I fell asleep alone and hungry and forever.

REASONS I HAVE LIVED:

I don’t know, but there are eight.

(that’s how you end a first chapter!)

A Quick Word

I read this to take part in Shared Stories Bookstore’s Sci-Fi Book Club—I’ve never been to a Book Club before, I’m looking forward to doing so again. But that’s not what I’m going to talk about here—but I need to say that some of what I’m going to say about this book has either been shaped/informed by or directly stolen from someone at that meeting. I won’t share their names, because I didn’t get permission, but I wanted it out there that the smarter things I say here comes from them.

What’s The Space Between Worlds About?

This is tricky for a few reasons, some of which I really can’t get into. In a sense there are four stories* in this book and each resolves (pretty much) before the next launches. So obviously, I can’t get into the latter stories. But the first one or two I can sketch out a little bit…

* This is stolen from our discussion leader.

In a pretty distant future world—following some sort of environmental collapse (and maybe some military-induced collapse, but mostly environmental) the world is covered in city-states (that’s actually a guess, we know almost nothing about the rest of the world). There’s a city called Wiley City—which is pretty much everything you think of when you think of a futuristic city—shiny buildings, cool tech, and whatnot. Outside the City is another settlement, called Ashtown. Ashtown is where the poor, the unwanted, the criminal classes live. There are also people who live outside Ashtown and in (or at least spend time in), called Ruralites—who are a strictly religious group and it seems most of the people of Ashtown are (at least nominally) dependent upon their efforts.

Travel between parallel universes is now possible. Maybe for just the residents of one Earth, anyway. The catch is, you cannot travel to a universe in which you exist—and it doesn’t go well for the person entering a world they exist in. This makes the ideal candidate someone on the fringes of society—those who are most likely to live a dangerous life or a life with inadequate resources, so they might die early from natural causes. The more realities that you’re dead in, the more you can travel on behalf of the corporate entity that runs the multiverse technology.

Enter Cara, a resident of Ashtown, who is dead on 372 of the worlds that humans can travel to. She’s largely keeping her head down, just trying to make it through the next few years without losing her job—which will result in her being removed from Wiley City—if she can last long enough, she’ll become a citizen and she can then relax a little. She cuts loose a little in the worlds she visits, but lives a pretty careful life on “Earth Zero.”

She receives word that she’s been assigned to a new world—yet one more version of her has died. When she gets there, things start to go wrong and she really can’t complete her mission. She can, however, by her mere presence, act as a catalyst for some big changes in the leadership of that world’s Ashtown and Wiley City. This will end up having some ramifications on Earth Zero—and maybe elsewhere, too.

The Technology/Its Depiction

This is one of those books that’s filled with all sorts of cool sci-fi technology—especially the traveling between universes, but it’s not limited to that. And Johnson gives us no Asimov-esque explanations for it. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I’ve already given you almost all of the details you’re going to get about the science behind the travel between universes.

And yet, it works. I’d hoped for a little more detail, but I wasn’t bothered by its lack. In fact, I cared so much about Cara and what she was doing—and the people she was surrounded by in the various Earths she went to, I didn’t stop to think about the tech. And when I did…it didn’t matter, really.

It’s there, it does what it’s intended to do. That’s all you need to know.

Spirituality/Religion

We get more of this, really, than the science behind the traveling and other tools they have in Wiley City.

The Ruralites have a hybrid religion with features of Christianity (that’s obvious) and Buddhism (I needed someone to help me see that) and some other things accumulated over the centuries. It’s pretty strict and regimented—but there’s grace and mercy, too.

There’s a burial scene—including a good part of the rituals used. It’s very detailed and tells you as much about the religion as it does the people taking part in it. It is so well done, that you almost want to see more people killed so Johnson will describe it again.*

* Sure, you can just re-read that part. But if she writes it again, she might include new details.

There’s also a superstition—if it’s not a full-blown mini-religion—that has developed among those who travel between worlds. It’s not endorsed by, or encouraged by, the company—but it’s pervasive and has a hold on those travelers. They will tell you there’s a presence, a person of some sort, governing the travel. Someone they can feel and sense between the worlds.

Our culture currently likes to pit science vs. religion/spirituality/whatever. There is no such division for Cara and most (if not all) of the people she knows. They exist side-by-side, informing actions and morality each in their own way.

This is such a good idea for Johnson to introduce and her execution of it—and explanation of both sets of beliefs are just great. We don’t get a creed or even a full idea about the religious tenants of the Ruralites—but we see enough to believe that such a creed exists.

So, what did I think about The Space Between Worlds?

In short, this is really just a stunning book. The back of the book promises “surprise twists” and yeah, there are some, but the book is about more than a twist or five, as skillfully as Johnson executes them. As someone at the book club said, you think the main story is about to wrap up but there’s a whole bunch of more pages to left. None of the storylines feel rushed nor do they feel stretched out. There’s one mini-arc you might want more time in, but that’s just because it’s so pleasant (and given the rest of the book, pleasant is nice).

Cara is a wonderfully complex character. When we meet her, she seems fully realized—like one of those characters that’s going to remain largely the same person at the end of the novel as she was at the beginning. But that’s not it at all—she goes through a great period of personal growth, of changing the way she sees the world and people in it. Her motivations behind her choices on Earth Zero get pushed to the limit, and she is going to be faced with some major changes in that reality (as well as others).

I don’t want to overlook the other characters…at least some versions of them. There are some truly despicable characters (one’s despicable on every world we see him on, one is despicable—vile actually—on most worlds—which makes it hard on the other to accept him (for Cara and the reader)). There’s an evil mastermind who is pretty chilling. There’s some criminal types who show more honor than anyone else in the book. There are some characters that are likable, admirable, and even loveable (depending on the world). It’s a rich, rich world full of wonderful people (that you meet several versions of).

I need to talk about the prose, and yet I don’t know how to adequately express how much I was blown away by it. You could almost open up to any random page and find something worthy of quoting, of meditating on, or marinating in. Johnson has this ability to take a benign, everyday, or plain sentence and turn on a dime and make it bleak, gutting, or even hopeful (that’s the less-popular option.) Cara does have some grit to her, she is a wiseacre. The book isn’t a doom and gloom, I frequently smiled. But her world is a harsh one, particularly outside the walls of Wiley City, and Johnson’s language reflects that.

Apparently, there’s a sequel. It didn’t feel like the first in a series—and can absolutely be read as a stand-alone. This is one of the best written books I’ve read this year—and the story is really compelling. With twists you won’t be able to guess most things that happen over the course of the novel. It’s a very SF novel, but it’s also the kind of SF that people who aren’t super-into SF can get into (like one person at the book club). I’m at the point where I’m just running in circles—so I’ll shut up, you go get the book. Deal?

The first half was riveting - the rest, not so much. I think the idiosyncratic writing style - equal parts noirish grit and thinkpiece therapy-speak - started as a strength and became a weakness as it floundered around the threadbare plot. The central romance here is a hole, like she forgot to write it. Cara talks about how great Dell is but we don't see much of the woman. Mostly we spend time with her gravitating around powerful, abusive men in a way that feels more pulpy and romanticized (“y/n” came to mind, if you know you know) than mature. I really think there was potential here, and there are some strong moments, but for the most part the characters feel like good ideas on paper and don't come to life. The worldbuilding is there and not bad, if nothing new (Mad Max goes Black and Chicano on one side, generic Euro-corporate socialism paradise on the other). The ending is awful, just really, really bad, not even worth spoiling - washes out to mediocre centrism. If nothing else I finished it in six hours so I suppose it's no harm, no foul, but no love either.

I should have read this book so much earlier. It's been on my list for ages and I could have been obsessing over Dell and Cara all that time. I loved the characters and all the different versions of it we have seen. I loved Nyame and how they made traversing a sort of spiritual experience. The whole dynamic between Wiley and Ash was amazing and showed through to every single character dynamic. Absolute magnificent world-building. I fear I will have to read this book over and over and over for the rest of my fucking life. 

In the little time I have for relaxing reading, reading about alot of violence against humans is not on my wishlist.

If you are searching for a Science Fiction book, this is not for you.


This is a story about a strong protagonist with questionable morals, an outsider making her way in a hostile world against all odds. You get religious themes, social commentary, philosophical ideas and, in great parts, a gripping story, but what you do not get is science fiction.

No explanation about how anything works hardly any information about the world and why it is how it is, let alone the parallel worlds, close to zero world building.
We get pages and pages exploring Cara and her feelings, former lovers, current crush, domestic violence, hopes and fears while the science fiction elements are glossed over in a paragraph or two and later happen totally ‘off screen'.

That being said, I could not put the book away and read through it within a few days. I like the style of the author, it never gets boring and has enough interesting ideas to keep you hooked and makes you think but overall I was looking for a sci-fi book, not some human drama. But that's on me.

2.5/5 stars.

Overall I quite enjoyed this book. I loved the riddle of the multiverse that it started with. As we progressed through Cara???s experience on Earth 125 I will admit I started to think ???Oh god is this going to be a ???365 Days??? like Stockholm syndrome plot???? But my fears were unfounded and the rest of the novel unfolded with the interesting sort of point-counterpoint, plot-twist, cross, double-cross one-two punch that kept me turning the pages. It is a much more nuanced take on abuse and survivors and resilience than I initially gave it credit for. The author has really taken the time to think through the implications of her multiverse world AND tied that to interesting characters who make reasonable decisions and grow as they experience and develop events and understandings in their world. Wonderful.

There are many advantages to reading with a book club, including: getting to discuss books with a group, discovering books I might have otherwise been unaware of, and of course friendship and fellowship. One downside though is feeling self-imposed pressure not to DNF a book I'm not enjoying because I don't want to let the group down by not reading it. Sadly this situation was the case with The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson. Imagine a world where the technology needed to travel the multiverse has been invented, the catch being that traveling to world in which the other version of yourself is still alive will kill you. Enter Cara, a traverser who came from impoverished Ash Town, who has died in a huge number of the other worlds making her extremely valuable to Eldridge Institute located in affluent Wiley City. The book has a lot going for it: a queer romance, representation and inclusion of different kinds of people, an inventive take on the multiverse, and relevant dystopian themes about equity. At its absolute best some sections reminded me a bit Butler's The Parable of the Sower, but unfortunately on the whole this book just didn't work for me. It was loaded with exposition and yet still managed to be confusing in its world building for far too long. I also found the fact that people sometimes had different names in the different worlds to be very confusing. Finally, I expected this to be a sci-fi adventure but it's really more of a character driven story with some sci-fi elements. Overall I was bored and confused and found listening to this book to be a bit of a chore. It did pick up a bit eventually, but it simply wasn't to my taste overall. ⭐️⭐️

incredible concept and ideas, execution didn't live up to my expectations but overall a great read that makes you do some thinking

I absolutely loved this book!

I'm a sucker for sci-fi stories where there are parallel worlds or a multi-verse, so that was super fun!

There's practically no homophobia/queerphobia in this world (multi-verse?) so that was awesome!
I love our main character, Cara, and her “watcher”, Dell. (I would totally read a book told from Dell's perspective!)

The book opens with this quote from a different book:
“In the far reaches of an infinite cosmos, there's a galaxy that looks just like the Milky Way, with a solar system that's the spitting image of ours, with a planet that's a dead ringer for earth, with a house that's indistinguishable from yours, inhabited by someone who looks just like you, who is right now reading this very book and imagining you, in a distant galaxy, just reaching the end of this sentence. And there's not just one such copy. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many. In some, your doppelganger is now reading this sentence along with you. In others, he or she has skipped ahead, or feels in need of a snack and has put the book down. In others, he or she has, well, a less than felicitous disposition and is someone you'd rather not meet in a dark alley.” Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality

Other Quotes that pack a punch:

“The universe erases me, but it also remakes me again and again, so there must be something worthwhile in this image.”

“The multiverse isn't just parallel universes accessible through science. They are in each of us, a kaleidoscope made of varying perceptions.”

4.5

This was almost a 4-star book for me. Almost.

From the title and cover I actually thought this was some sort of YA-ish romance book (oops, probably getting confused with “the space between us”) but it's actually a decent soft sci-fi novel.

Basically they've invented travelling between parallel worlds, but the catch is you can only travel there if your counterpart in the other world is dead. Since rich people tend to be alive in most of their worlds, this means the job of travelling falls on the poor underclass.

Our main character, Cara is one such traveller. The travelling is actually for quite mundane reasons - to gather data on parallel worlds for statistical analysis and to try and make money off of it. The book isn't too heavy on sci-fi, as it more ends up being about the people that Cara meets between the different worlds, and all the ways they are different (or the same). So don't expect the author to really explain the travelling thing.

The first quarter felt really slow as the author established the character's backstory and all the supporting characters and I was half-considering giving up on it. It did pick up the pace midway for an relatively satisfying conclusion. The villain and the way the ending played out definitely had room for improvement, but just don't read too closely into it lol.

This was a surprising read for me. I only knew it was about alternative universes, but at each quarter mark when I thought I knew where the story was going I was pleasantly surprised by its new direction each time. There were quite a few big surprises in between too. For a single POV I was impressed by the characterization of the other characters, but not enough for me to rate it 5/5. I was most invested in this book for its plot and world building - which I thought was pretty darn cool.

Infinite parallel worlds hold many wonderful plot opportunities, but also infinite plot holes that Authors fall through. Blake Crouch's [b:Dark Matter 27833670 Dark Matter Blake Crouch https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1472119680l/27833670.SY75.jpg 43161998] didn't escape them but this one did. I came for the genre and subject matter that has always fascinated me. I did not expect to be captivated by the character building and the quality of the writing. Look forward to her next book.

Er zijn oneindig veel parallelle werelden, en we kunnen mensen naar parallelle werelden sturen. Twee proviso's: de parallelle wereld mag niet té ver van de wereld verwijderd zijn, en de persoon die naar die parallelle wereld gestuurd wordt, mag niet meer leven in de wereld waar hij/zij naartoe gestuurd wordt.

In de praktijk betekent dat dat er 382 werelden bereikbaar zijn, en dat er normaal gezien veel verschillende mensen nodig zijn om naar die werelden te gaan, omdat de meeste mensen die in Aarde-0 leven, ook leven in de andere Aardes.

Ah ja: de wereld waar we het over hebben, is –vermoed ik– ergens in de toekomst, waar de zon dodelijk kan zijn en menden in de steden (of is er maar één stad over? geen idee) onder een bubbel leven. Geen Eloi en Morlocks, maar wel inwonder van Wiley City en Ashtown, de sloppenwijken rond de stad.

Wiley City is een moderne welvaartsstaat, Ashtown is sinds anderhalve generatie een soort fascistische staat met een ‘Keizer' aan het hoofd, die in elke wereld een min of meer erg schrikbewind voert.

Cara is iemand die in deze wereld aan de betere kant van Ashtown leeft, maar in de overgrote meerderheid van de andere realiteiten in Ashtown leeft, en bijgevolg in het overgrote deel van de realiteiten geen twintig wordt. Zij is dan ook behoorlijk waardevol omdat ze zeer veel werelden kan bezoeken: er zijn op 382 werelden maar 8 waar ze nog leeft.

Dat bezoeken, trouwens, is niet voor wilde nieuwe inzichten of vreemde nieuwe werelden: alleen bijna niet afwijkende werelden zijn bereikbaar, remember? Dus gaat het om maandelijkse redelijk doordeweekse bezoeken, om te kijken of er elders op andere plaatsen grondstoffen ontdekt zijn, of om te zien of die andere wereld net iets beter of slechter is en allerlei KPI's bij te houden.

Maar dat doet er eigenlijk niet zo heel veel toe: The Space Between Worlds is een zeer intiem verhaal, over Cara en hoe ze omgaat met haar situatie, over nature versus nurture, en over interpersoonlijke relaties over verschillende versies van die personen heen — niet in het minst met de Keizer van Ashtown, waar ze in verschillende realiteiten de concubine van is, en met haar handler Dell, waar ze stekeverliefd op is, maar waar het verschil in klasse (in deze wereld dan toch) onoverbrugbaar is.

Het gaat ook over liefde en klassen en privilege en trauma en mishandeling en misverstanden en liefde.

't Is een zeer aangeraden boek.

I had high expectations for this book due to all of the positive reviews and felt a little let down by it. It was interesting enough to keep reading but I never connected with the main character. The ability to travel to different worlds is a concept that always interests me, but wasn't fully utilized in this story.

Damn what a book. Very unique premise and very well written. Johnson really builds a world (or worlds).

4.5 stars.

So good!! A very fun ride. Ending left me wanting more.

This was not a light read, it was a slow, serious and tense story that uses its Science Fictional conceit to explore how events and choices, as well as accidents of birth affect who we are. As part of this, there is the dichotomy of “The Wastes” and “The City” driving home the differences and interactions of the “developed” and “developing” nations and their often paradoxical (or parasitic) relationships.

Well written and food for thought.

I think this excellent book suffered from being the first thing I read after finishing The Broken Earth Trilogy; I suspect most books' sheens would be somewhat dulled in comparison to the dazzle of TBET. Still, I raced through this and enjoyed it, with two caveats. First, there's one relationship between two main characters that grated on me for most of the novel, and I have a pretty high tolerance for interpersonal tension both in real life and fiction. After a plot twist, however, it becomes clear that the reader was supposed to be squirming reading those interactions, and I wish Johnson had been willing to give me a reprieve a bit earlier. The other caveat is there's another plot twist late in the novel that relies on the first person narrator failing to disclose a significant decision with the reader. That felt a bit sneaky to me, and is a good example of the success of TBET, which involved Jemisin deftly navigating second person narration without committing narrative errors of didactic commission or tricksy omission.

STILL! I'm just being picky! I believe this is Johnson's first novel, and based on how much I liked this, I'm hoping she keeps putting great stories out there in the world. Cara, her protagonist, is a nuanced and powerful character who will stay with me for a long time.

3.5

Cara is a person who can travel between worlds. Multiverse travel is only possible if your counterpart is dead, and Cara's life had been ended on 372 of the 380 possible and accessible Earths. That makes Cara a valuable commodity, as she travels between worlds and collects data for a huge corporation back on her home planet. During her travels, Cara learns some very important information, and she must return to her Earth and figure out what to do with what she now knows.

We get to know the people Cara knows on her Earth, and we also get to know their counterparts on other Earths, and that makes for a fascinating story. There are lots of if-onlys and tweaks and missteps and slight adjustments between the worlds, and it's these sorts of comparisons between existing worlds that makes a reader think of possibilities in her own multiverse.

This is random, but I loved the prayer to the dead Cara's sister offers in this book:
‘“Nelline, I am commending you into the arms of the earth, the preserver of all mercy. I am returning you to everlasting peace, and to the denser reality of the creator of all. Don't be scared. Don't regret. Whatever time you had, it was enough. Whatever you accomplished, it was enough. We will remember your good deeds for the rest of our lives. We will forget your wrongdoings forever. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for spending your time in the dirt with us.”'

I loved reading this but the ending was so deeply unsatisfying. My eyes are still rolling. I don't mind a happy ending to an extent but this was so far past that, it didn't even make sense. I won't spoil it by going into details but after spending so much time investing in these characters I refuse to believe that ending would occur in ANY world. And I was willing to suspend a lot of belief about this multiverse and the gaping holes in it because it really is such a fun and interesting premise! (although I would have loved more world building and less action) I think it still would have been 5 stars for me if that ending wasn't so incongruous with the rest of the book.