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dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
John Rayburn, his friends, and their doppelgangers from other universes build a transdimenional corporation. However, there old enemies the Alarians aren't finished with them and then there's the matter of John Prime visiting universes on his own, unbeknownst to the rest of the Pinball Wizards...
Sequels. You hate them, right? Yeah, me too. Rarely do they pack the same punch as the original. While Broken Universe doesn't make me forget about my general sequel hate, it does a pretty good job in showing what a sequel could be.
Broken Universe takes what Melko started in [b:The Walls of the Universe|4367026|The Walls of the Universe (Universe, #1)|Paul Melko|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312051788s/4367026.jpg|4415036] and turns the knob up to eleven. Instead of two Johns and two Caseys, we get multiples dupes of John, Casey, Henry, and Grace. They go about building more transfer devices, deal in more than just pinball machines, and generally act like normal people probably would if they had an infinity of parallel universes to explore/exploit.
The Alarians were a decent foe for the first half of the book but I found the Vig to be much more interesting. They were merely hinted at in Walls of the Universe but stepped to the forefront in the second half of the book. I liked that Melko gave them more dimension than just being a transdimensional police force.
The characters of John Rayburn, John Prime, and Grace Home were the most developed. Prime continues to be my favorite character but Grace almost passed him in this one. The contrast between John Rayburn and John Prime drove the book along nicely. Grace really stepped up after what happened to her at the end of the first book.
It's not all peaches and gravy, though. I still don't get why all the Johns and all the Caseys wind up together. I'd much rather see John and Grace as a couple. My only other complaint is that I wanted more. There are still enough unanswered questions for at least one more book.
Note: I did an interview with Paul Melko about the Universe series here.
Sequels. You hate them, right? Yeah, me too. Rarely do they pack the same punch as the original. While Broken Universe doesn't make me forget about my general sequel hate, it does a pretty good job in showing what a sequel could be.
Broken Universe takes what Melko started in [b:The Walls of the Universe|4367026|The Walls of the Universe (Universe, #1)|Paul Melko|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312051788s/4367026.jpg|4415036] and turns the knob up to eleven. Instead of two Johns and two Caseys, we get multiples dupes of John, Casey, Henry, and Grace. They go about building more transfer devices, deal in more than just pinball machines, and generally act like normal people probably would if they had an infinity of parallel universes to explore/exploit.
The Alarians were a decent foe for the first half of the book but I found the Vig to be much more interesting. They were merely hinted at in Walls of the Universe but stepped to the forefront in the second half of the book. I liked that Melko gave them more dimension than just being a transdimensional police force.
The characters of John Rayburn, John Prime, and Grace Home were the most developed. Prime continues to be my favorite character but Grace almost passed him in this one. The contrast between John Rayburn and John Prime drove the book along nicely. Grace really stepped up after what happened to her at the end of the first book.
It's not all peaches and gravy, though. I still don't get why all the Johns and all the Caseys wind up together. I'd much rather see John and Grace as a couple. My only other complaint is that I wanted more. There are still enough unanswered questions for at least one more book.
Note: I did an interview with Paul Melko about the Universe series here.
abmgw's review against another edition
4.0
The first half of this book: boring, hosekeeping, cleaning up the leftover from the last book.
The second half: brilliant, nice ideas, action, drama, love, romoance, death, nukes.
The second half: brilliant, nice ideas, action, drama, love, romoance, death, nukes.
raechsreads's review against another edition
5.0
Broken Universe is the continuing story of John and Prime along with their friends and their alternate universe selves. Yep, lots of the same characters, yet all are somewhat unique by being from slightly different universes. In the book, the group must face down the threat of their enemies of the first book and then there comes another enemy - a group the first group doesn't like either - the Vig. There are many twists and turns as the group figure out how to deal with the issues that arise with universe travel. Very well written. Melko goes into more development of the characters, going deeper into the psychology of many of the characters. Overall, an amazing sequel in the Broken Universe trilogy.
loonyboi's review against another edition
5.0
Another great book from Paul Melko. The Broken Universe picks up right where [b:The Walls of the Universe|4367026|The Walls of the Universe (Universe, #1)|Paul Melko|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312051788s/4367026.jpg|4415036] left off (literally!) and takes the story in crazier directions across the multiverse. Like the first book, it's surprisingly dark at times, but still a very light read. I really enjoyed this book a lot, and hope Melko has a third volume planned. Highly recommended!
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