A review by archergal
The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky

4.0

Boy howdy, you can't do better than these Adrian Tchaikowsky books for Big-Ass Ideas! I've found the books I've read by him fascinating.

This one covers alternate worlds. There have been many, many alternate universes. And we hear a little about many of them. But there's a problem: they're all gonna collapse into some kind of historical singularity if Our Intrepid Heroes can't figure out how to stop it.

For me, it took a little while to figure out exactly what was going on. The storytelling has lots of interludes/asides where we find out about those alternate earths, and which species predominated in it. And there's a (figuratively) mustache-twirling villain, embodying the worst of 2020's bad cultural viewpoints. He was almost a little OTT for me.

The diverse characters are just presented as... characters. This is so welcome. And there are Neanderthal characters.

I just thought it was a lot of fun, with a lot of cool ideas. That's my kind of SF. Recommended, if you like that sort of thing.