First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Penguin Random House UK/Cornerstone for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way. Also, please note: this isn't technically an ARC review, since I was approved for the UK edition, but the book first came out in the US in April.

Original, captivating and genre-encompassing, this book reads like a collection of (increasing surreal) short stories with a series of open endings...except in a way it's a single narrative, prismatically fragmented and partially reflected in each separated story, and at the same time bleeding from one of them into another, with a last chapter that does offer closure, all while transcending reality as we know it. Don't let the sci-fi premise deter you from reading In Universes: most of the stories firmly reside in the magical realism camp, with the occasional contemporary or post-apocalyptic detour, and you don't need to understand quantum mechanics in order to enjoy it/them. As a matter of fact, there's very little to none sci-fi content in this one, but instead there's a lot of heart and compassion and intelligence and sadness and tenderness and pain and existentialism (also not threatening), sharp observations about womanhood and motherhood (A Solid Body, Fractured is a gem), and poetical, yet fluid and accessible prose. If this is Emet North's debut, I can't even fathom the level of awesomeness that will follow, and I'm eagerly anticipating whatever they'll come up with next.

Note: as a rule, I review every book that I rate 4 to 5 stars in full, unless it's a novella or an anthology. But I decided to write a mini review for this one because, due to its peculiar structure, one of my average-sized reviews would have ended up being redundant and probably too spoilery...not to mention that, as I noted above, this book technically falls under the short-story-collection umbrella, though of course it also doesn't...

Formatting note: my ecopy had a blank a page toward the end, but since I decided to buy a physical copy for my collection and for reread - and in order to support the author, it goes without saying - I was able to read the whole thing.

De verdad que esperaba algo más de In Universes, quizá porque la premisa de los mundos paralelos es probablemente uno de mis tropos favoritos de la ciencia ficción y, si bien es cierto que Emet North hace gala de una imaginación desbordante con cada nueva iteración y capítulo, quizá los mundos que plantea se adentran demasiado en el weird como para ser plato de mi gusto.


La prosa del autore es muy bella y emotiva, pero por alguna razón no he conseguido conectar con esta historia de amor y búsqueda de la otra persona que nos completa a través de mundos con similitudes pero con diferencias extremas también. No he pasado por alto el tono profundamente reivindicativo de algunos de las realidades alternativas, como esa en la que las mujeres se fracturan en animales cuando dan a luz, en una novela caleidoscópica que creo que te obliga a posicionarte cuando la lees, porque es imposible que te deje indiferente.

Es bastante probable que haya jugado también un rol negativo en mi valoración el aroma eminentemente melancólico que emanaba de cada historia, sin llegar a atisbar un rayo de esperanza en el camino. Especialmente duros y tristes son los capítulos apocalípticos, que los hay, en los que la inevitabilidad de los hechos que han ocurrido alrededor de los personajes los empujan a un final descorazonador.

Una novela que no es para todos los públicos, especialmente no para mí pero que es un libro sobre la búsqueda de la propia identidad y de qué nos define como la persona que somos con el que desgraciadamente no he conseguido conectar.

[CN: mention of suicide] Niall Harrison wrote a very interesting review of this over at Locus, in which he suggested that In Universes falls on one end of the spectrum of multiverse media: the end on which how, and why, the multiverse system works is far less important than the personal journeys of individuals within it. Harrison considers In Universes “in that sense, a solipsistic novel”. I think I agree, although parts of the novel work so well (and could almost be standalones) that I still found myself engrossed. Raffi, a physicist, is working on a summer internship at NASA and living in a state of low-level chronic depression. Their encounter with a sexy sculptor, Britt, pushes them to wish they had known her earlier, and suddenly we’re in a universe where Raffi and Britt are thirteen-year-old neighbours. Raffi’s depression and failures of friendship and love pursue them through all the different universes that there are. In most of these, other characters (Graham, Kay, Alice) are foregrounded, as besties, as roomies, as lovers, as spouses. Raffi’s sense of emotional, relational failure is quantum, we begin to see, and they find peace only in the one universe where they learn to forgive themselves.

But I can’t be totally convinced by this (maybe because I also feel like a failure who can’t forgive herself much of the time?) First, Raffi has real effects on other people. We all do. Self-flagellation and fleeing responsibility is the least decent and responsible way to deal with the reality of your effect on others, and maybe that’s part of North’s point, but In Universes prioritises Raffi’s feelings and arc in a way that surprised me, given that they’re often mourning actual deaths or physical harms which, rightly or wrongly, they feel they’ve caused. Second, and relatedly, Raffi’s effects on other people are given so much weight that it starts to look arrogant. The sole universe in which she doesn’t fail Britt as a thirteen-year-old is the one in which Britt dies by her own hand at eighteen, after Raffi romantically rejects her. Really? It sets up an oddly self-aggrandising zero-sum game, where the price of Raffi’s decency as a child is her culpability as an adult (and, of course, Britt’s life), or, worse, the price of Britt’s life is Raffi’s self-esteem. It seems to suggest that these two things—a life and a person’s self-esteem—are similarly weighted. That doesn’t work. Imagine this story told from Britt’s perspective. Your friend rejects you in every universe that exists, but the story is somehow all about them? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

The shame of it is that some of this is really well written. Some of the universes are very odd, like the ones in which women fracture into herds of animals after they give birth to a daughter (corking opening line to this chapter: “My mother is a horde of bees”). It’s all excellently managed, this whole section, funny and surreal and dark and suffocating and with some great turns of phrase. I also loved the VanderMeer-meets-Laura-Jean-McKay chapter in which animals have been taken over by alien intelligences who are systematically killing humans. Maybe the issue with the novel as a whole is how closely it seems to hew to many of Emet North’s own experiences: teaching snowboarding, training horses, a physics career. Maybe that’s how a multiverse novel can still feel a little claustrophobic.

An incredibly imaginative and compelling tale across parallel universes, as we follow various versions of our main character, Raffi, as they search for identity, belonging, love and redemption.

The book can be seen as a set of 11 short stories involving Raffi and a loosely common set of people and situations. These are tied together by a single thread of regret about an incident with one of Raffi’s friends, Britt, when they were teenagers. The other characters - Kay, Graham, Alice - have different roles in each story: sometimes friends, sometimes lovers, sometimes just acquaintances.

Raffi is a cosmologist, with an interest and expertise in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics - the theory that the randomness of quantum mechanics is resolved by all possible outcomes occurring in alternate, newly created worlds. But that’s where the science stops - this is not really a sci-fi book, and there is no attempt to explain any mechanisms for people to travel to, or even be aware of, the alternate worlds. Rather, each story is set in an alternate universe, and any brief mention of the science just serves to guide the reader’s understanding about the loose relationship between each story. And that’s not a criticism - I actually found it a subtle but effective way to relieve what might otherwise be jarring switches of context between each story.

In most of the worlds, Raffi is dealing with feelings of loss, regret, or detachment. By the end of each story, Raffi tends to come to a conclusion that that these feels are unresolved, and wonders what life would be like in different circumstances. Each following story then takes on some of these different characteristics, but often with other significant changes - sometimes fantastical rather than realistic. And sometimes these are as a consequence of what Raffi wishes for (Monkey’s Paw style), and sometimes they are a vehicle to explore other issues (like the world in which women fracture into hordes of animals).

In one respect this is a difficult read, because each of the stories is a further exploration of these feelings of loss and regret, which remain unresolved for a majority of the book. However, this was lifted enormously by the range and breadth of imagination that the author has poured into each story. Each chapter could stand alone as a short story in its own right, with its own unique sense of character and place. Even (or especially) those with a fantastical element, where the world building was concise and compelling.

I found Raffi’s search for identity, for an authentic self, and for a sense of redemption or resolution, to be engaging and compelling. And that’s testament to the author, as I have found these themes in other books to be off-putting when they come across as the minor dissatisfactions of someone in an otherwise privileged situation. But I found Raffi’s character to be sympathetic, and these struggles of identity and authenticity to be meaningful rather than trite.

And I found the final story, with its fantastical elements, to be a fitting conclusion to Raffi’s struggles.

So why not 5 stars? Only because I found the book so difficult to pick up from time to time. And by three-quarters of the way through the book, I was finding it affecting my mood - but perhaps that in itself is an indication of the quality of the writing and emotional engagement.

This book isn’t for everyone, and I definitely need something lighter for my next read. But it is an incredibly accomplished debut work.

Thank you #NetGalley and Random House UK Cornerstone for the free review copy of #InUniverses in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

3.5. I think this was a solid book that explored some interesting thematic work. Quite thought provoking too.

This was such a strange and curious book but really compelling! It’s hard to describe exactly what it is but it involves parallel universes. It’s so dream-like and quirky. Thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking.

The narrative veers off in different directions each chapter, though always with the same central character. Perhaps a little jarring at first, but brought together neatly and impactfully at the end. We look at how choices can make such a difference in a person’s life, the impact and repercussions for those around. How slight changes can have a huge and lasting impact on relationships. The importance of connection between humans.

I found myself pondering this book long after I’d finished it. Some of the universes were straightforward, others were really quite weird and memorable. The writing is so lovely and often heart breaking. The idea of a psyche fracturing with our unresolved guilt and trauma. The pain we carry with us. A powerful book and one I will continue to think about.