Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Science Fiction
Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words
Availability
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Author:
Author
Chris James lives with his family in Warsaw, Poland (although I swear I’ve read
he’s a native of the UK, I’m too lazy to verify that.) In addition to this
novel, he’s written its sequel and a comedy/picture book, The B Team and Me. James is also a regular contributor to the Indies Unlimited website.
For more,
visit James’ website.
Description:
“Lucas
Hunter has the best job in the universe: exploring and investigating
alternative realities. But from the first trip he realises something is wrong.
A strange American is chasing Lucas across the continuum; from Soviet Warsaw in
1944, to Muslim-dominated Europe in 1911, and on to Nazi-controlled England in
1967. Lucas soon understands that his superiors have betrayed him, and the
world is on the brink of the first trans-dimensional war.”
Appraisal:
Science
Fiction and I have a strange relationship. If asked, I’ll say I’m not much of a
sci-fi guy, but when I think of the genre what I picture is the space opera subgenre, full of futuristic
space battles, advanced technologies, and life spent entirely in space: Star Trek or Star Wars like stories. Yet I’ve still read some of these and if
the characters appeal to me I’ll enjoy them, even though they’ll never be my
first choice for reading material.
Obviously,
my concept of Science Fiction is way too limited. The truth is, many books I
read and enjoy have some Science Fiction elements, although not always enough
to fall into the genre. M.P. McDonald’s Mark
Taylor series is a good example. What that series and other books which are
clearly Science Fiction (but not space opera) that I enjoy have in common is
some kind of question that starts, “what if?” In the example of the Mark Taylor
books it is, “what if someone had a camera that could show a future negative
event, and the camera owner could potentially prevent it from happening?” The Dimension Researcher explores the
question of “what if there were alternate realities, and we were able to
explore them,” and a second question, “what could go wrong?”
The concept
of alternate realities or other dimensions is a common idea in Science Fiction.
I’ve encountered it before and expect most sci-fi readers have. In case you’re
not familiar with it, the concept is that each time someone makes a decision an
alternate reality is created for each of the possible outcomes. The Dimension Researcher can explore the
differences between these realities and how alternate decisions, both large and
small, could affect the course of the world. It’s an interesting mind exercise.
I think any book that makes you think is a good one, and this one did that for
me.
But no
story is going to work without good characters and, when the story takes place
in a world that is changed from our own, in describing and defining that world
so it becomes real for the reader – often called world building. It is in these areas where James excelled. The main
characters were well-formed with enough detail to feel as if you understood
their personalities, both the good and the not. And the world where most of the
story took place, a gigantic building with many different areas, each with
distinct functions, was described very well. Enough so I could picture it, put
myself in the story, and imagine the setting.
The Dimension Researcher is a good read for both sci-fi fans
and those who, like me, could benefit from expanding their reading diet as a
reminder that the genre is much broader than they think.
FYI:
Uses UK
spelling conventions.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small
number of typos and proofing misses.
Rating: **** Four stars
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