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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Very well written with non-cardboard character development, excellent plot, great scientific extrapolation, atmospheric yet believable descriptions and a great twist at the end!
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2971062.html
This was the first novel by the mid-twentieth century sf writer Alan E. Nourse, published in two parts in 1951, the year he turned 23. I must admit that I was pretty impressed. It's a story in two halves, set twenty years apart, in the near future (of 1951), about the effects of a machine that enables access to parallel dimensions in which things lurk which may or may not be hostile to humanity. Where a lot of writers of this era would make McEvoy the heroic inventor of the machine, Nourse instead shows him as so narrowly focussed as to miss the dangers he has unleashed, and instead the heroes are the two people who are able to travel between the dimensions unharmed - the teenage Gail in the first half, and her young son Robert in the second half. I won't pretend it's great literature, but the conceptualisation of what might lurk in the other dimensions and what they might think of us was very original, and although the setup did not go much more than 100 miles from New York, it was well enough realised.
This was the first novel by the mid-twentieth century sf writer Alan E. Nourse, published in two parts in 1951, the year he turned 23. I must admit that I was pretty impressed. It's a story in two halves, set twenty years apart, in the near future (of 1951), about the effects of a machine that enables access to parallel dimensions in which things lurk which may or may not be hostile to humanity. Where a lot of writers of this era would make McEvoy the heroic inventor of the machine, Nourse instead shows him as so narrowly focussed as to miss the dangers he has unleashed, and instead the heroes are the two people who are able to travel between the dimensions unharmed - the teenage Gail in the first half, and her young son Robert in the second half. I won't pretend it's great literature, but the conceptualisation of what might lurk in the other dimensions and what they might think of us was very original, and although the setup did not go much more than 100 miles from New York, it was well enough realised.
A sentimental favorite from my childhood. The story concerns the discovery of another dimension, another universe right next door to ours. It's mind-bending stuff, especially for a grade schooler.
Update: I just re-read this book to my eleven-year-old daughter. I was delighted to find it holds up well. She found the story intriguing, just as I did when I read it at approximately the same age. It was my first full-length science-fiction novel, and now it is hers as well.
Most of this book was written in the early 1950s. When I first read this book, in the late 70s, the events were still in the future. Something funny happened since then, however: now it's all set in the past, but it's a past that didn't happen.
At least, not in this universe.
Update: I just re-read this book to my eleven-year-old daughter. I was delighted to find it holds up well. She found the story intriguing, just as I did when I read it at approximately the same age. It was my first full-length science-fiction novel, and now it is hers as well.
Most of this book was written in the early 1950s. When I first read this book, in the late 70s, the events were still in the future. Something funny happened since then, however: now it's all set in the past, but it's a past that didn't happen.
At least, not in this universe.