Infinity Gate by M R Carey
| Infinity Gate by M R Carey | |
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| Category: Science Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Stephen Leach
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| Summary: A universe-spanning epic crafted with stunning imagination. Masterfully told, this is an absolute triumph of a novel. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 512 | Date: March 2023 |
| Publisher: Orbit | |
| ISBN: 978-0356518015 | |
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I'm annoyingly picky when it comes to science fiction. Not because it's a genre I dislike – nothing of the sort. My standards are high precisely because it's a hard genre to get right – and when it's bad, it's often terrible. But the premise of Infinity Gate had me hooked. A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if it was done well, it'd be fantastic. So this is where I sum up that premise.
On a dying Earth, a lone scientist stumbles upon a seismic discovery: a method of transmitting matter that can be used to facilitate travel between universes. Initially seeing it as a way to restore her broken planet with resources scavenged from elsewhere, she soon realises that it's the gateway to an infinite number of alternate dimensions. But her incursions into other worlds bring her into conflict with the Pandominion: an interdimensional confederacy of parallel Earths, with thousands of different names and evolutionary paths. It's an ostensible paradise; a union of worlds with boundless resources and opportunities, advanced technology and no scarcity or poverty. Travel between the worlds is quick and effortless, achieved through inter-dimensional shunting known as Stepping, and the Pandominion expands its borders by Stepping into new dimensions, amiably integrating these new Earths into the union.
The narrative shifts several times with virtually no warning, jumping to a new world to introduce a new character seemingly disconnected from the initial story. But slowly, their various plots all begin to weave together into one larger setup, allowing us to see the Pandominion from multiple angles. The possibilities of divergent evolution are teased out brilliantly, showcasing all sorts of different worlds in which other lifeforms won the evolutionary arms race instead of humans. Very few of the characters are human at all – it's even commented upon that hardly any of the worlds in which apes became the dominant species end up becoming part of the Pandominion. Instead, the species we meet are avian and reptilian, feline and ursine and leporine. It's a clever way to put the reader off-guard, impressing upon them how little our species matters in the grand scheme of things and how easily we might be outflanked by another race should we ever meet them. So too is the expansive potential of the advanced technology, whose application is used not just for expanding knowledge and consciousness but also for enhancing physical capability – the augmentations made to the Pandominion's military forces are catalogued in extensive detail, but in a way that's never perfunctory or dull.
The huge diversity of races and cultures in the Pandominion initially gives the impression of a truly vast and disparate empire, united by the benefits of apparently limitless technology and progressed beyond blinkered notions of factionalism and inequality. But for all that it's an apparent utopia, it soon becomes apparent to the reader that there's a rather dreary conformity to all the members of the collective, and that the peace and harmony of the Pandominion is fiercely and rigidly enforced in a ruthless fashion.
This vicious tendency proves to be a tactical misstep when the agents of the Pandominion eventually come into contact with a rival union of united worlds – this one a network of Earths populated solely by autonomous and self-sufficient machines with no apparent biological progenitors. Inevitably, conflict ensues between the Pandominion and the machine hegemony, and before long it's an all-out war that threatens to eradicate both coalitions as it sweeps through the various worlds we've visited. The actual conflict stays mostly off-page, however: the novel is more concerned with contemplating age-old questions of the nature of the biological versus the artificial, and conundrums such as whether sentient digital consciousness can ever be considered as valid and as “true” a form of life as organic matter. But these aren't airy conjectures – the interpersonal conflict throughout hinges on these issues, and both sides make a compelling case.
All of that barely even scratches the surface, though. There's so much plot in this story that even a summary of this length this gives little away; there's simply so much going on, and so much interplay between the characters we meet, that I feel like it would take pages to sum it all up properly. It's a sprawling, epic story with utterly dazzling ambition, and justifies its length in a way few books of this nature manage to do. Yet for all that length, it's wickedly paced – the story is divided into chapters that are frequently short and sharp, some barely a couple of pages. It's compulsively readable and leaves you hanging as often as it fakes you out. The fact that this is intended as the first of two surprised me – it's the sort of saga you could easily presume to have multiple instalments. I'm so eager to see where it goes – not least because of a couple of fantastically-executed twists near the end.
This is the science-fiction epic I've always wanted to read. It's nothing short of superb, and deserves every accolade it's sure to get. Go and read it as soon as it comes out – you will not be disappointed.
I got to the end without realising that M R Carey was another name for the writer behind several other great reads: The Girl With All The Gifts, The Dead Sea Deception and even a great run on X-Men. Why not go and check out his Felix Castor series? Bookbag readers have enjoyed Dead Men's Boots, The Naming of the Beasts, and Thicker Than Water among others. For more from Carey, try The Book of Koli.
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