4.5/5 stars! This is the second installation in the Pandominion series by author M.R. Carey and should not be read as a standalone. This is a man vs machine sci-fi and I was thoroughly captivated by the story. The pacing was strong and I felt like even casual sci-fi fans would be able to follow the plot line well.

Echo of Worlds is a solid if slightly forgettable conclusion to the Pandominion duology. This time the protagonists are all working together to stop a war that could potentially scour the portion of the infinite multiverse that both sides of the war inhabit, while the war gets ever more intense. It all leads to an exciting mission that has plenty of twists and turns and a solid conclusion.

Esta novela es la conclusión de Infinity Gate y quizá por las buenas sensaciones de su lectura esperaba demasiado de Echo of Worlds, que sin llegar a ser para nada una novela “mala”, sí que falla al intentar construir la conexión con el lector y su empatía hacia los personajes que van mostrándonos su vicisitudes. Y es que, con el potencial de mundos casi infinitos ante él, Carey opta por una solución bastante facilona, a mi entender.


Es muy llamativo el comienzo de la novela, con un ente que no se identifica pero que parece que jugará un papel primordial en el desarrollo de la trama. Pronto lo dejará de lado, para centrarse en el variopinto grupo que se unió en la primera novela para tratar de impedir que la guerra entre los humanos y las máquinas llegue a un punto de no retorno. Y aquí es donde empiezan los problemas. El grupo está condenado a entenderse pero se pierden en vericuetos y “misiones secundarias” que solo inflan la novela sin aportar sustancia. El objetivo que persiguen de conocer a la Masa Madre, algo que buscan con más interés que el más abnegado de los panaderos, en realidad no sirven para nada en el devenir de los acontecimientos y los pasos intermedios no van acumulando tensión ni conocimiento, se sienten bastante prescindibles.

Estos problemas de ritmo desaparecen cuando vamos llegando a la conclusión final, pero por desgracia tampoco me convence el uso de un deus ex machina de manual para arreglar un conflicto que se expandía por innumerables mundos y que ha causado bajas imposibles de cuantificar. El autor nos ofrece una interesante perspectiva sobre el transhumanismo, apoyado en un poquito de tecnojerga para suavizar el impacto, pero al final deja que el conflicto se solucione desde el exterior de una manera un tanto inocente.

Es posible que mi experiencia como lectora de ciencia ficción haga que sea cada vez más difícil sorprenderme y de hecho Carey no lo ha conseguido en esta ocasión. Quizá en la próxima habrá más suerte.

4.5 stars, rounded up - a satisfying conclusion to the duology

Having very much enjoyed Infinity Gate and its plethora of interesting ideas I was very curious to find out how things continue and overjoyed to receive the opportunity to read an e-arc of Echo of Worlds.

In the first book we followed a rather disparate group of characters who lived in very different parts of the multiverse who all ended up in the same place and a terrible conflict with a machine based civilization (The Ansurrection) was introduced that needs to be solved. And with the biology based civilazation (The Pandominion) being very large and therefore a huge, slow bureaucratic monster that can be pathologically relied on being unable to react to problems in a timely manner it falls to our rag-tag group of Hadiz, Essien, Moon, Paz, Dulcie and Rupshe to find a solution.

Luckily the plot does not at all go into a predectable direction where the good guys win the war over the bad guys. Instead there is a throrough examination of what different kinds sentience there can be, especially when it comes to AI and who actually has a right to live and to make decisions for themselves. I though that this part and the consequences of this examination are handled very well and in a refreshing manner.

Also Carey really knows how to write. His books are incredibly readable and combined with just the right chapter length you just keep turning the pages. He was also very good at re-introducing the crucial parts of the first book in a very organic way that does not feel like just info-dumping. Since it happens a lot for me that I cannot for the life of me remember all of the important details of a previous book in a series I was very thankful for that!

The only reason this is not a 5 star read for me is the fact that I enjoyed the contents of the first book, i.e. the introduction to the multiverse concept and the different characters, more than the focus of the plot in this one on solving a conflict. But that is entirely a matter of taste and nothing I can fault the book with.

Very much recommended to just about anyone enjoying Science fiction!

I have received an advance review copy via NetGalley from Orbit and voluntarily provide my honest opinion. Thank you very much!

This was an absolute blast from start to finish. Building on the very strong foundation of its predecessor 'Echo of Worlds' hits the ground running on its way to delivering a complex and satisfying ending. It's satisfying to be given a complete sci-fi story of this nature over a mere two books where the norm may be to stretch out the story further, though I would very happily return to these characters and parallel worlds.

If I had one complaint, it's that the climax relies too heavily on convenient coincidences. That aside, I heartily recommend this to anyone who enjoys a well-constructed and original sci-fi story and wants to feel the force of a roller coaster in paper form.

A very long book. And you really need to have read the first book.
Even knowing the situation and characters, I confess it did take me a long time to get back in to this story. A very long time.
But suddenly things seemed to pick up for me, and it got pretty interesting. All in all, I did enjoy it, and it had been worth persevering.

The denouement of this duology brings back all the characters from Infinity Gate and new adventures await as the story takes more twists and turns.
There are more reveals and twists in this book but it feels more like an adventure story than the sci-fi of book one.

This book is the follow up to the Author's highly entertaining Infinity Gate .............. wrapping up
all the events into a culmination of just what AI might become ! The finale of a great sci Fi duology .
Character driven and full of complexity , written from multiple POVs - we see how they grow and
develop and how they impact on the storyline to good effect .
The action in this final book features more on our ragtag group's attempts to prevent the extinction of
both sides rather than the ongoing war between the Pandominion and the Ansurrection itself
The books ask us to see how sentient entities who cannot see the others view and worth can ever
be brought to the others point of view , to co-exist ! It asks us to consider the potential ethics of
a possible self aware AI , its development and the future of not doing so
An excellent duology - I look forward to reading more from the Author in the future

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

I thoroughly enjoyed The Infinity Gate when I read it last year and was so excited to read the next book and let me tell you it did not disappoint. It did take me a little bit to get back into this world and remember these characters but once it all clicked into place I was happy and intrigued to see how the story was going to play out.

This is a very character driven story which is something I love and I really loved getting to know our characters more and reading from their pov. They're such complex characters so it was nice to see their development and growth in this one.

The world building is amazing and I loved that we got just as much as we did in the first book if not more. Carey has done an amazing job with this duology and left no questions unanswered. Every step and every decision was carefully thought out and had a reasoning behind it. I had no idea how this story was going to end but I honestly really enjoyed what happened and I love how important some characters roles ended up being!

This is such a great sci-fi duology and I cannot wait to read more of Carey's books!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Echo of Worlds picks up from the end of the previous book, Infinity Gate, with the Pandominion still at war with the Ansurrection. Not that we see too much of the larger war. No, the action focuses more on the ragtag group attempting to prevent the mutually assured extinction of both sides.

Strangely, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did the first. I think the issue for me is that the series is front loaded. The setting and character's were all introduced in the first book and nothing new is really added to the mix in this one. That's not to say it's a bad book, but I suspect it would read better if both books were read back-to-back.

Thanks to NetGalley, Little, Brown Book Group, Orbit and the author for an advance copy.

I loved the first book in this series, Infinity Gate, so was very excited to get the opportunity to review the sequel, and it didn't disappoint. In the first book, the concept of the Pandominion – an alliance of worlds (all versions of Earth in alternate universes), is introduced, as is a brewing conflict between the Pandominion and a machine/AI collective. There is some hard science here, but it is tempered by the characters, scientist Hadiz Tambuwal (from Earth), Essien Nkanika who is from a similar world and Topaz (Paz) Tourmaline FiveHills, a young rabbit who comes from a version of Earth where rabbits have evolved into the dominant species.

The second book follows the story of Hadiz, Essien and Paz, as well as soldier/cat Moon and robot Dulcimer Coronal These are all well rounded and fascinating characters. An omniscient narrator relates their adventures as they try to stop all-out-war between the Pandominion alliance and the AI-controlled worlds. As with many conflicts, a blindness to the other side's motivation and mind-set is the root of the problem, but how to get two entities, neither of whom see the other as sentient, to co-exist? The questions raised about what constitutes a self, the possibility of AI becoming self-aware and ethical considerations of tethering AI's ability to learn are current and fascinating.

This is only a 2-book series but I hope the author considers turning it into a trilogy. I want to spend more time in this world and find out what happens next to these wonderful characters.

Review for SFFWorld: The first book of this duology, Infinity Gate, was perhaps my favourite read of 2023, so this second part has a great deal to live up to.

(Please note: there are minor spoilers for Infinity Gate that follow.)

The war between the organic species of the Pandominion and the machine-intelligence hegemony called the Ansurrection has continued. Each species tries to outdo the other in its ability to kill the other, the result being that each group now develops weapons that could kill each other off, not just on one world but across the multiverse.

This book pretty much begins where Infinity Gate ended, with our contrasting group of heroes being brought together from various difficult situations by their acquaintance Rupshe, an AI.

This involves a disparate group of creatures - Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills (Paz), is a rabbit from the city of Canoplex-Under-Heaven in Ut, Hadiz Tambuwal, the Earth scientist who was downloaded into an AI construct in Infinity Gate,  Essien Nkanika, the Cielo soldier conscripted into the Pandominion’s army but who is now a rogue agent, along with Moon Sostenti, the cat-like Cielo who was Essien’s mentor, all of whom play their part in bringing this series to an end.

Despite their major differences, they are all needed in order to stop the bombshell that Rupshe tells them on their arrival – that they are heading towards an impending event -  a Scour, a mysterious occurrence in the past which has led to the removal of all living matter on a planet. Rupshe tells the group that unless they work together, not just a planet but the multiverse could be destroyed.

The AI is determined to stop the annihilation of everything, of all worlds across the multiverse. To do this, it needs to determine the location of the alien Mother Mass briefly mentioned in Infinity Gate. Here it has a much more central role and that our group think that its abilities may be the saviour of life as we know it. Ruphe's assembled our assortment of characters to do this, of course. Not all get on with each other. Moon shot Essien in Infinity Gate, after all!

There's a lot going on here. Carey raises the stakes here to mind-boggling levels – we have events happening across a multiverse, planet-destroying weaponry, sentient AI, aliens, post-apocalyptic landscapes, not to mention that our main characters are an AI, a rabbit, an AI anima in a robot-monkey’s body, a cat-like soldier and a hedgehog! On paper it sounds odd, but Carey is such a skilled writer that it all seems possible and even probable.

There’s also more complicated issues involved which elevates this beyond a ‘shoot-em-up’ space adventure. One of the key elements is an ongoing debate about identity and what makes us human (or alien!), and whether a machine society is as bad as the Pandominion makes it out to be.

In fact, there are grey areas here.  The organic existence that makes up the Pandominion is clearly who we are rooting for, as humans, even though it is shown that the Pandominion is also a harsh, bureaucratic, restrictive omnipresence. Although we might expect the novel to suggest organic life to have advantages and disadvantages over machine entities, Carey shows here that it is not always plain sailing for organic life.

Simultaneously, although machine-life may seem omnipresent and unstoppable, it is fallible and mistakes are made, putting our beloved endearing characters in jeopardy. Life in this novel is complicated.

This makes the book sound a little dense and perhaps heavy going, but I was pleased to find that it wasn’t. Yes, the bigger ideas are there and yes, they are important, but Carey is a skilled enough writer not to let such things dominate the plot. Even when the plot becomes a little bit Mission Impossible - and yes, the action scenes at this point are amazing – think the Terminator meets Starship Troopers via Warhammer 40 000 and Mechwarriors - there’s also some humour to lighten things a little, although Mike is careful not to add too much of this.

By the end, the group manages to achieve their aims,  and the consequences of which are… unexpected. The book actually ends not where I thought we would be (although it has been highlighted from the first pages of Infinity Gate!), but it is a satisfying and appropriate conclusion. Most of all, I felt that the journey over the two books was worth it. It’s a good ending to the duology.

I said at the beginning of this review that I've been looking forward to reading this book this year and after Infinity Gate, Echo of Worlds had a lot to live up to. The fact that it does and goes further is a testament to the author. It's epic, action-packed space opera, with major consequences and characters that (as you would hope) have developed from the first book. I've been lucky to read a lot of great books this year*, but at the moment, Echo of Worlds is my favourite science fiction read of 2024 so far.

*And as I type this, we're about halfway through the year.

Strangely, I didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous book. Maybe because there was hardly anything new to discover- most of the scene setting was done in the first book, after all, and there wasn't much truly, arrestingly new in this one (with one notable, spoiler exception). There were also less grand reveals in this book, though the plot ticked along at a decent pace. That sound like I didn't like it- I did, I was just expecting more (possibly unfairly?).

Sci-Fi / Fantasy has always been my go to genre. Whether books/ Films etc..this is my comfort zone.
So when I hear about big, epic tales of humanities expansion, set across a multiverse, I’m immediately convinced to pick it up.
This is the conclusion to the Pandominium duology which started with Infinity Gate.
In all honesty, this one could be read as a standalone, due to the authors writing at the beginning of this book. It gives you a good “re-cap” of what’s happened previously and why we are at this point. He delivers a great set up that progresses into this wonderful masterpiece.
This is like a soap opera set in space, with AI’s, humanity from across all different Earths, at different evolutionary levels, can they learn enough about themselves and each other, in order to work together to find a way to achieve peace?
Amazing, amazing, amazing! Can’t recommend this enough.

After the extended table setting that was Infinity Gate, the first book in his Panedmonium Duology, MR Carey returns with the conclusion in Echo of Worlds. Infinity Gate established a multiverse that is made up of different instances of the planet Earth, the biological worlds are ruled over by a bureaucracy known as the Pandemonium which has found itself at war with a machine hive-mind hegemony which it calls the Ansurrection. This book focussed on three disparate characters brought together by a rogue and very individual Artificial Intelligence that thinks it has the solution to stopping the total annihilation that will come from this war.
Carey effectively keys in readers who may be a bit hazy on the details of that first book and then sets up what is essentially a heist narrative. The three main characters from the first book – Essien, who has become a solider, scientist Hadiz who died but has had their consciousness preserved, and humanoid rabbit Paz – are joined by Essien’s antagonist Moon, a cat-like soldier, and Dulcie, a robot former spy for the Ansurrection. They are deployed on a series of increasingly dangerous missions in which are intended to stop the oncoming war. But as with any good heist narrative nothing ever goes to plan.
The trick that Carey successfully pulls in this book, and the series as a whole, is to deal with massive concepts (infinite versions of Earth, planet-busting weapons, artificial intelligence hegemonies) and bring them down to the personal. He makes readers really care about the individuals that they are following and not only their overarching mission but their personal growth. And he builds the story so that the stakes are constantly raised and the solutions that they come to are never the ones they started out with but emerge from those individual personalities. He also, as expected, solves the mystery of the narrator (the reason why despite all the cliffhangers readers can be fairly sure that at least some things will work out), in a way that is suprising and refreshing.
MR Carey has been working across the gamut of speculative fiction. He has now delivered great reads with zombies (The Girl with All the Gifts), a post apocalyptic tale (Book of Koli), ghosts (Fellside) and now, with The Pandemonium duology, he firmly has the multiverse (with a side of robopocalypse) under his belt. It is exciting to consider where he might go next.

I really liked Infinity’s Gate, and this conclusion sticks the landing. There’s a fair bit of scientific philosophising, but never at the expense of characters or action, and the whole thing is propulsively exciting. Excellent contemporary SF.

Echo of Worlds is truly epic - the world-building is rich and intriguing. However, this led to some of the same pacing issues as with the first instalment, Infinity Gate. The plot ramps up in the last quarter, becoming ever more action-packed, and leaving some plot points and themes unexplored (or not explored as fully as they could have been). This second instalment, however, has a much better feeling of resolution in its conclusion than its predecessor. I could see the potential for this narrative to be drawn out across a trilogy, rather than a duology, but nonetheless, this is a satisfactory read - although I found it dragged somewhat in the last quarter, as so much was packed in. I continued to enjoy the characters and seeing them develop, and would happily spend more time in this world - although I do think my brain will need a little time to process this mammoth novel first.

Great to get my teeth into a brilliant hard sci fi novel after reading a rather poor one recently.
I never read the first book in the series , Infinity Gate, but everything was well explained so that I never felt confused and indeed I did not realise when reading that it was the second book.
A multiverse with multiple planet Earths that made sense. Two warring gigantic empires, the organics versus the machine minds and both sides considering annihilating the other with doomsday weapons.
But a motley crew of an AI ,dead physicist , augmented soldiers, a turned spy for the machine worlds and a bunny like creature are working together to try to find an alternative while at the same time trying to avoid getting captured. This odd mix never felt ridiculous and I was really rooting for them as the story developed.
The book considers huge concepts such as the gigantic Registry computer that coordinates Stepping between Earths and the Mother Mass that appears to be a single entity comprising a whole planet , and these concepts certainly kept my brain active and it was hard to put down.

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for the ARC.