La sinopsis de The Immesurable Heaven me llamó la atención desde el primer momento en que la vi, prometiendo una space opera con variadísimas especies alienígenas, realidades alternativas que florecen como flores tras una lluvia de mayo y un preciado mapa para saber cómo navegar por estos mundos. Just my cup of tea.


Quizá mis expectativas estaban demasiado altas, pero conforme iba avanzando la lectura me parecía que Caspar Geon había dejado que su imaginación para crear distintas criaturas corriera sin riendas pero que no fue capaz de formar una trama bien conectada que diera soporte a todo el despliegue pirotécnico de razas que interactúan en las páginas de su obra.

La idea de partida, con infinitos mundos entre los que se puede navegar pero solo en una dirección, ocupando cuerpos distintos que permiten investigar las riquezas y misterios de cada lugar es apasionante. Si a esto le añadimos la presencia de una amenaza que parece capaz de revertir las leyes de la física para volver de los mundos mas profundos y una raza de seres tan avanzados que viven en el corazón de las estrellas (los Throlken), sonaba apasionante. Pero, por desgracia, solo sonaba. Los conceptos con los que quiere jugar son fascinantes, pero la ejecución es demasiado plana.

Los personajes, de nombres bastante curiosos, no evolucionan a lo largo del libro. Y la extrañeza que cualquier lector esperaría encontrar en las relaciones entre una miríada de criaturas tan infinitamente distintas ni está ni se la espera, gracias al idioma universal impuesto por los Throlken. Si al menos hubiese una trama que sostuviera la historia, aunque los personajes no fueran muy carismáticos la novela tendría visos de salvación, pero es que tampoco es así, con lo que nos encontramos con un libro que cojea en muchos de los pilares que conforman una buena novela. Es por ello que no puedo recomendarla, a pesar de que me hubiera gustado.

I received a free copy from Solaris Books in exchange for a fair review. Publish date July 17th, 2025.

I was intrigued by the striking rainbow cover and world-hopping plot of this novel. In Immeasurable Heaven, an alien agent is sent down into the multiverse on a living spaceship in a secret mission to intercept a mysterious signal. To succeed, she must locate a dissolute traveller with an invaluable atlas and evade the universe's overlords, the AI Throlken.

Caspar Geon has a fascinatingly vivid imagination, and The Immeasurable Heaven was bursting with alien life of all kind: antennaed, horned, elongated, with fabulous combinations of eyes and spikes and nostrils. This book would make a fantastic illustrated fantasy art book. However, Geon hasn't quite got the touch for inventing conlangs, and his endless stream of SF make-believe names are absurd: Glorish Peeper, Gnumph, Yokkunphirelleng, Throlken. When you add in the fact that most of his alien species are apparently a foot or two high, it gives an inescapable impression of Whoville.

The three main point of view characters have a relatively static character arc and don't change over the course of the novel. Agent Whira is fussy and always accompanied by her nanobot swarm, the Myriad. Prospector Draebol is careless and dissolute. We don't get much of a sense of either character's past or motivations. And the mysterious being travelling upwards through the dimension is violently nihilistic, characterized only through his excessively gory murders. Not much in the way of emotional stakes, aside from the threat of death.

Like the characters, the riotously colorful surface of the worldbuilding conceals a thinly imagined interior. You can only travel downwards through dimensions--once you've descended, you're trapped in a new body and you can never return. But characters casually speak of being paid by people in higher dimensions, and travel downwards cavalierly. Likewise, the ineffable god-species the Throlken, who dictate the currency and language in the galaxy and beyond, are only shallowly explored.

Fascinating concept, but shallow execution. Not recommended.

My first encounters with Golden Age science fiction shaped my being-in-the-world. The hackneyed phrase 'sense of wonder' is barely adequate. Those encounters were part of a steadily growing religious awe over the idea of existence itself. That reality was vaster than I'd previously conceived. This insight was best conveyed with a lovely chill that reality was not just strange but stranger than I had ever imagined. Leaving me with the conclusion that the Real might even be stranger than anyone had imagined. These books should not be dismissed as escapism. My sense is they are the opposite, they allow one to robustly embrace existence. They are philosophical exercises. They are warnings against falling asleep to the wonder of being alive. The works by golden age science fiction writers of my youth were events. Each story smashed the ice of my everyday hum-drum complacency. The Immeasurable Heaven is a grand return to novels and short stories of that kind. If you miss the great ones: Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, this novel could be for you. If you enjoy speculative fiction that delves into the nature of ultimate reality, then this is the book for you.