Wow, now this was an ambitious book, but M.R. Carey is just the author I might think could pull it off. As a fan of Carey's earlier works in which he deftly interweaves sci-fi and/or fantasy with quieter, very human elements, the attempt at a multiveral war is quite the step up in magnitude (and that's saying something when he hasn't been afraid to destroy the world as we know if before).

Having embarked on this grand voyage, I would say Carey was partially successful. While the earlier portion of the book is slow, it is very immersive, pulling you deep into the feelings of claustrophobic despair of our first narrator before broadening out into a grand expanse. However, this is where the book also begins to stumble a bit. In an attempt to impress us on the sheer enormity of the stage upon with our now-multi perspective cast is playing, the book inversely begins to feel a bit small and events too coincidental while the quantity of exposition blooms. This is not an uncommon problem with multi-veral works, particularly when taken seriously (in contrast to satirical or humorous works). As such, the book felt a bit dragging at times, though I did generally enjoy the different characters' perspectives as they did help flesh out this sprawling 'verse, and I felt he tied each back in effectively (if a bit fortuitously) into the overarching plot by the end of this book.

While this has not usurped the Girl with All the Gifts as my favorite M.R. Carey book, I do expect I will pick up the next installment to see how this grand confrontation pans out. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for access to this ARC!

This started out as an interesting exploration of the multiverse, and what it could look like if all the different Earths formed an alliance/government of sorts. It then turns into more of a straightforward action-oriented plot to defeat the evil government, which was less interesting to me (also because I have trouble with humanoid animal characters - many of the Earths don’t have people descended from primates, but people descended from cats, canines, rabbits, etc). I think M.R. Carey’s strengths lie in interesting settings and plot turns, and not necessarily character work, which also comes through here (though again, I may be negatively influenced by the fact that one of the main POV characters is a giant rabbit person).

Despite these criticisms, I’m still tempted to pick up the second book solely because it looks like it’ll focus more on Mother Mass, which was hands down the most interesting part of this book and has the weird scary plant/organism stuff that I loved in the author’s previous work.

Oh, my goodness! If you’re a fan of parallel timeline travel, this one had it all. Settings vary from “just like our timeline, but a little different” to “what if a different species became the dominant life form on the planet?” Multiple POV characters, a broad, sweeping setting, and a cliffhanger that makes you want the next book.

While i've loved M.R. Carey in the past, this one didn't do it for me. The character was well-writen but the world seemed a little generic to me and similar to many.

Carey never disappoints. I started reading his books back with The Girl With All the Gifts, and even some of his comics, and he's an author who always tries something new with his stories. The Koli series was completely different from this one or anything else he's written and that's a great thing. This space opera featured a ton of cool ideas and world building, highly recommended.

I love some of MR Carey’s earlier work, and there is a lot of potential in this one, but my biggest complaint is that you hit the last page and it’s as if the book could keep going for another zillion pages—which, yes, I understand is the nature of a series, but often there feels like some conclusions, not an entire new opening and a giant cliff leading into the vastness of —what? I’m not sure. Either way, I tend to read loads, which means if I read a series, I have to cluster them together or I’ll forget everything between.

I shared more about Infinity Gate with my audience on YouTube this year in my April 2023 wrap up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe-ns8It__Y

The Pandominion is made up of a vast number of alternate Earths, where an intelligent, humanoid species became the top of the food chain and discovered the ability to traverse, "step", from their planet to alternate Earths. The Pandominion is held together through trade and politics, and the Cielo, a brutal militarized group, monitors transports and incursions into Pandominion space, and eradicate it summarily.

We're introduced to the Pandominion through the work of Nigerian scientist Hadiz Tambuwal living in Lagos; her Earth is falling apart due to climate disasters, energy crises, and numerous wars. She is intent on finding some way of helping her planet, and through her experiments, aided by an AI called Ruoxi, she stumbles upon an alternate dimension. She quickly discovers many more, and eventually decides to leave her Earth for one of these after things become untenable on her home.

Hadiz arrives in a version of Lagos where Essien Nkanika lives. He has experienced nothing but poverty and violence, and longs to escape his indentured servitude. One night he meets Hadiz, and the two become involved. When she finally introduces Essien to an alternate dimension, he sees the advantage for himself, and decides to capitalize on what he sees as her naivete. When everything goes wrong, Essien is captured and tortured by the Cielo, and eventually seeing no other options, joins the military. Thus begins his life as a brutal enforcer. And the Pandominion's encounters with another multi-world-spanning intelligence, the Ansurrection, which is entirely machine-based.

During his engagements, he meets the last of the main characters in this book: Topaz Tourmaline Fivehills, a sentient, humanoid rabbit, who completely stole my heart.

Topaz's life, and her understanding of her society is completely torn apart when the Cielo arrive on her Earth, causing her and her best friend Dulcie to flee across multiple dimensions.

Exuberant, wonderfully inventive, M.r. Carey has created a fully believable multiverse, with a fantastic trio of characters whose gradual awakening to the reality of the Pandominion in all its vibrancy, diversity, and its brutal, atrocities-dealing complexity takes much of this book, which is the setup for a multiverse spanning war between the Pandominion and the Ansurrection.

I was reminded of Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett’s overly long and frequently tedious series opener "The Long Earth" while reading this book, which I had a much more positive response to, as "Infinity Gate" grabbed my interest from the get go. M.R. Carey keeps the pacing moving along at a good clip, and I felt each Earth he took us to was real and plausible. As well, the three main characters were captivating.

This is the start of a series, so there is much setting up of stakes (but I never felt bored) and giving us a good sense of the mindset of the Pandominion . I loved this book, and really can't wait for the next instalment.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Orbit Books for this ARC in exchange for my review.

2/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

DNF @ 30%

I think I'm just not the target audience for this. Usually a DNF is an automatic 1 star for me, but I don't think this book was necessarily bad.

I wasn't really invested in the characters, and thought Essien was annoying. (Also, he has some internalized misogyny, or maybe the author does. I can't tell if it's his or the author's but since I can't, the writing could be clearer.)

The scientific analysis and explanation seemed well done, but that's because I wouldn't know any better, and there was so much narration about scientific theory that I didn't think was necessary. I got bored.

I couldn't bring myself to care about the overall goal to save a planet or some faraway war.

DNF 40% in

So much of this book is just exposition about science, and then the main character is pretty bland, the audiobook narrator wasn't working for me either.

This is a very interesting, very well written, infinite parallel universes story, which includes emergence of sentient AI, and people evolving from non-primate animals. Two of the three main characters are somewhat hard to like, but they grow on you as their stories unfold. Hadiz is a genius physicist, so it makes some sense that she neglects her relationship skills. She is living in Lagos on our Earth, which is in the process of becoming uninhabitable by humans due to human driven climate destruction. Her only companion is a possibly sentient AI. She discovers how to travel to other versions of Earth, where other scenarios played out. She tries to save her own world with her invention but typically for humans, she's just ignored. Instead she flees to a world similar to ours. There she encounters Essien, forms an unlikely relationship, and is quickly betrayed by him when he tries to steal her invention. He is then captured by the military of a union of many worlds like Earth, and force enlisted. The organic life worlds have just encountered another group of united worlds, these inhabited by artificial lifeforms, and war is imminent. The final viewpoint character is a girl on a rabbit ascendant world where the artificial lifeforms are trying to make first contact with the organic life. This is a very ambitious book, covering so many interesting scenarios, and pulled off very well. In spite of being a fairly long book, the ending feels a bit unfinished, though not unsatisfying, and I guess it's a good thing there will be more to come of this story!

This is my first book by M.R. Carey, though I've seen the excellent film "The Girl With All The Gifts" based on his novel and screenplay. I'll happily be reading more.

Infinity Gate is the first book in a series focused on multiverse travel. In this set of universes, the Pandominion, an alliance of many relatively similar Earths maintained by a violent cyborg army, polices its borders and monitors for incursions (instances when someone from a non-Pandominion world discovers "stepping" - moving between universes - and arrives in a Pandominion world). We learn relatively early on that another alliance, which the Pandominion has termed the 'Ansurrection,' also exists: this is comprised of worlds which seem to be populated exclusively by very advanced mechanical AIs. The Pandominion army, the Cielo, considers non-Pandominion worlds to be blatantly inferior, and does not value the lives of those who live there. The plotline of this first installment of the series establishes this context, and follows several protagonists -- a scientist from a non-Pandominion world collapsing due to human-caused climate disaster who discovers step technology, a young man from another non-Pandominion world that she meets, a Pandominion bureaucrat, and a teenager who finds herself at the center of the Ansurrection/Pandominion conflict.

I liked a lot about this. The plotlines came together in a satisfying way while leaving a ton of room for the sequels, the author tackles a lot of challenging themes well, and the pacing is consistent and engaging. I love that the setting for the story is Lagos (multiple iterations of Lagos across multiple universes). The cast of characters is extraordinarily diverse, spanning a range of ages, genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds, and the representation feels consistently thoughtful and nuanced. If I had a criticism, I'd only say that I found some of the point-of-view characters more engaging than others - I really wanted more of Hadiz Tambuwal, and felt like the last section with Paz went on a bit too long for me. I'll absolutely pick up the sequel.

Content warnings: death, murder, violence, gun violence, slavery, torture, blood, injury detail, medical content, medical trauma, xenophobia, forcible confinement

Thank you to NetGalley & Orbit Books for providing me an ARC for review.

Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

This is another example of a book where the idea sounds great when you read the blurb on the back, but the execution is sorely disappointing. Honestly, the most I can say about this book is meh.

The idea of a technology that allows humans to travel the multiverse is amazing, and there are so many ways a story like that could go! One of the best examples so far was The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson . Now that story had a heart. Unfortunately, this one doesn't.

Oh, it has plenty of interesting ideas. The worlds of Pandominion are fascinating, and the idea that in some version of our Earth, primates might not have evolved to dominate the land is intriguing. The fact that most of those diverse races manage to coexist peacefully is also wonderful to see.

However, a long story like that can't win on worldbuilding and concept alone. It needs engaging characters to carry the narrative and keep the readers engaged. And the characters in this book are extremely unlikeable. They are selfish to the extreme, unable to take responsibility of their own actions. They make often horrible decisions and commit atrocities and manage to justify it. I couldn't stand most of them. The only character I could more or less relate to was Paz, because she was mostly an innocent bystander at the beginning, and any actions she took afterwards were fueled by her sense of right and wrong. But we meet Paz a lot later in the book, and for the first 35% I really had nobody to root for, so this story was almost a DNF for me.

Also, we have an empire that spans countless parallel universes and includes a diverse variety of "selves", who manage to coexist even though some of them evolved from primates, others from wolves/cats, and even others from herbivores. But that empire itself is a repressive regime, where the only political actions seem to be strike first and annihilate the (possible) treat and ask questions never. Are you telling me that with all the bright minds available in all the multiverse, the Pandominion couldn't come up with a better form of government?

Why is it that this mighty and very technologically advanced empire didn't even try to communicate with the machines when they stumbled upon the mechanical civilization? Seriously, not a single attempt at communication was even considered. Or, you know, just leaving them alone. There are infinite Earths in this multiverse, so why not just blacklist this particular one and go explore somewhere else? No, the solution is to invade and annihilate. Without provocation, mind you. And they wonder why they get pushback? Or that they are being destroyed in response?

Finally, even though this book is about 500 pages long, it doesn't even resolve part of the story that is hinted at in the first chapters. It just sets up the stage and brings all the main characters together. Yes, I understand that this is the first book in a series, and that there is an overarching story. But you need to give the reader some kind of payoff for investing hours of their time into this book. At least one story arc should have been satisfyingly concluded by the end of this book. Unfortunately, it wasn't. And honestly? I won't stick around for book 2 to find out what happens to the Pandominion.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Great book. I loved the premise of multi-dimensional travel, pan-dimensional governing, as well as alternate-dimension competition. The story moved along well, with well defined characters and growth. I initially thought this was a stand-alone novel and not part of a series, but found that was not the case at the end of the book. I look forward to what comes next in the series!

Multiple dimensions, AI, and a multi world war are packed into this sci-fi thriller. It's a dense story that follows several characters and groups through a complex plot so drink some coffee beforehand. It took a while to get through but was worth it.

4 stars.

I enjoy Mike Carey’s work — especially the Felix Castor series and The Girl with All the Gifts — so I was thrilled beyond measure to receive an e-ARC of Infinity Gate.

I’m glad it’s the first in a series, because the world-building is very dense. At times it was difficult to shift between the various points of view until they began to converge. It’s primarily set in Lagos on various different Earths in the multiverse.
-Hadiz Tambuwal, a scientist on a sparely populated Earth who inadvertently develops a way to travel inter-dimensionally
-Rupshe, Hadiz’s AI construct
-Essien Nkanika, a laborer & gigolo
-Orso Vemmet, a bureaucrat in the Pandominion, a governmental body over many of the Earths
-Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills (“Paz”), a school-girl from another version of Earth (named Ut) where the dominant species is a type of rabbit
-Dulcimer Standfast Coronal (“Dulcie”), a transfer to Paz’s school and her only friend

It took me a while to finish this book, but I look forward to its sequel.

CW: human trafficking, physical abuse

It's been a while since I read MR Carey, and this ended up being a surprise and a fun read. To my knowledge, this is the first time that Carey has tackled the multiverse, and it's fun to see him look into the idea of how a multiversal government would work, as well as the idea of the self across dimensions and species. We get a large cast that's incredibly well balanced, and seeing how the three major threads of the story end up weaving together and where this first book leaves off, you can tell that Carey has put a lot of thought into this. There's also what might feel like a false start to the story, but trust me, it's all intertwined. We also get a lens into the nitty gritty of a human vs artificial intelligence/robot war through the eyes of ground-level combatants that ends up being surprising in how the combatants come into the conflict, and how far back Carey is willing to peer. Carey also gets to write the word Gundam in a book. Pick it up - you'll get a great multiversal story, great characters, and an intriguing path forward. In for the next one.

With shades of Foundation, I was excited to see Carey delve into the straight science fiction category. His past books have been interesting but have veered toward the more fantastical. If I had any negative feedback it's simply about my lack of interest in science fiction series. Where are all the standalone novels? This is #1 in a series.

This is the first book to a scifi duology, same author who wrote the really famous book The Girl With All The Gifts. I feel like this is one of those books that give off that first book feeling where it’s slow, confusing but once you read the sequel it completely corrects that and actually benefits from it if you can stick with it. It’s a long con basically. This takes the idea of multiverses and just runs with it.
Full review on YouTube.

A good example of modern sci-fi that blends multiple sci-fi elements into one cohesive story. The story of Hadiz who discovers travel to multiverse, the AI Rupshe, the worker Essien and bureaucrat Orso whose individual elements form part of the big picture was entertaining.

The prose was a bit sciency and I found it a bit hard at the beginning before getting into the flow somewhere close to mid-book. Despite that this was a well paced and overtly entertaining novel for those who are looking for something different in this genre.