Fran (Not Receiving Notifications)'s Reviews > The Space Between Worlds

"Human beings are unknowable...Even if you hustle and make it in the rough, you have no idea if you would thrive or die in the light of real riches, if your cleverness would outlive your desperation". "In the Wiles, I pass for someone who has known stability and money her whole life. In Ashtown, I pass for someone who remembers how to pray and scrape. I am always wearing costumes but never just clothes".

Cara was a survivor, a product of the Rurals, the wasteland of Ashtown, a community outside the walls of the sheltered city of Wiley. The Wiley population was well fed, well clothed as compared to the often religious Ruralites who dressed in drab colorless garb. Life was a struggle. Dedication ceremonies honoring the warlord, NikNik, displaying gratitude and respect, were necessary for their very survival. Cara was NikNik's favorite girl. An opportunity arose...a chance at a new life...a reinvented version of herself... a traverser.

Adam Bosch, the founder of the Eldridge Institute had discovered a way to see into other universes, a way to retrieve intel from worlds with a slight frequency shift from that of Earth Zero. To collect this important data, "disposable people" were needed as traversers who were pulled from one world and forced into another for the purpose of data collection. Out of 380 compatible worlds, Cara was still alive on 8. She could only be sent to worlds where her doppelganger had died. "With the exception of some of the traversers, we are stunningly expendable". To survive means to strive for permanent citizenship in Wiley City. Having traversed more than any other Eldridge employee, she was well on her way to this goal.

Cara's "pulls" to different Earths were managed by her handler, Dell. Dell and Cara used wit and/or sarcasm in their communiques. Dell was a product of privilege. She lived in a high tower on the 80th floor. Cara's dwelling was below, on the 30th floor, where no sun was visible. Dell was dressed to the nines, Cara was simply attired. Tensions developed...feelings...unfulfilled desires.

"Every traverser has a more experienced mentor...I get the honor of having Jean Sanogo..." Papa Jean encouraged Cara to better herself by becoming an analyst... study world stats and company internal textbooks...stop traversing!

Cara's younger sibling Esther lived in Ashtown in the Rurals, an area all about "charity, piety and religion". Esther was warm and generous, all that was good. Could she become ruthless?

Filling out the main characters was NikNik, the warlord, son of a brutal emperor. "[NikNik] knows what it feels like when a powerful man takes the person you care about most in the world away...".

Seemingly, "The Space Between Worlds" by Micaiah Johnson is about multiverse collection for gain by Eldridge Industries, a soft sci-fi romp into the world of power and greed, however, it is so much more. This well written depiction of world building is a commentary on the lives of desert wasteland dwellers, inhabitants living outside the walled city of Wiley, a city of high towers and vibrant color as compared and contrasted with the colorless, gray shacks and huts with so called expendible people, often policed by runners. (enforcers of the elite). Micaiah Johnson's understated writing style describes the journey of a woman traversing the multiverse. A joy to behold. Highly recommended.

Thank you Random House Publishing-Ballantine, Del Rey and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.