A few years ago I was introduced to a fairly simple but easy to miss statistical idea. Every factor you add reduces the odds of something being true, even if all of them are likely. This seems obvious, but it’s easy to forget that the odds of someone being two things are always less than one, even if those two are connected.

The same is true of a book. Every idea you put into a book increases the likelihood that some part of it doesn’t work. “The Space Between Worlds” by Micaiah Johnson runs into this. I love the basic premise of picking people who lived risky lives to be the one to traverse worlds because their counterparts were more likely to be dead and it tied in well to the abuse narrative of the main character having to face different version of her abusers on different worlds. But It didn’t stop there, it also worked in a post-apocalyptic aspect, rebellions, romance and more. None of them were bad, but every one of them drew a bit more away from the parts I was most interested in so that none of them were really as developed as I would have liked.

What is “The Space Between Worlds” by Micaiah Johnson about?

The main character of this book is Cara, a transverser who has died on more worlds than anyone else. This is important because if you try to visit a world where your alternate isn’t dead, it will kill you. She is a child who grew up in a home with a mother who was on drugs and negligent or even abusive depending on the world, and many of her alternate versions died because of that. As an adult, she got into a relationship with the emperor of the wastelands. He is effectively a gang leader who controls the area outside of the wealthy cities. He also killed many alternate versions of her, and she was lucky to escape.

Because she was killed on so many other worlds, she has become one of the last of the transversers, spending most days traveling to other worlds to pick up cashes of data. The value of this wasn’t entirely clear to me but there is a rumor that they are going to automate the job so she is training to be an analyst with one of the former transversers and her supervisor. This is important because if she can stay employed in the city for four more years, she will become a citizen.

There are many subplots. Cara herself is actually from one of the alternate worlds, but has been pretending to be from the one she currently lives in. In addition, she has a sister and mother in this world that she meets even though she’s not entirely related to them. She is also attracted to the woman who is in charge of her travels but is regularly turned down by her. Usually with no acknowledgment at all.

The main plot gets going as Cara discovers that Adam, the man who created the ability to travel between worlds, is the older brother of the emperor of the wasteland who she married. In most worlds his father killed him for being weak, but she discovers one where he killed his father instead. In that world, his younger brother has found religion and is more or less a good person, while Adam, the older brother, is a sociopath who has his gang regularly kidnap and kill people for little reason. Cara helps the rebels and kills him.

When she returns, she assumes that the Adam in her world will be upset but he gives her a substantial bonus. This is when she figures out why no one else has discovered the technology of traveling between worlds. Adam has been using a group of people to hunt down and kill not only alternate versions of himself, but alternate versions of anyone who might figure out the idea. This upsets Cara and she begins to search for a way to stop him. But he is powerful and surrounded by people who will kill for him.

This becomes more vital when he brings everyone together for a big announcement. Everyone assumes it is the automation of their jobs, but he announces he has found a way to inoculate people so they can safely travel to worlds where there is an alternate version of themselves. But Cara realizes what he’s actually going to do is simply killing the alternate versions of them so they can travel there safely.

Unwilling to see alternates in hundreds of worlds be murdered so that Adam can bring a bit of money into the company she acts against him, going to his brother who doesn’t know who he is in this world and explaining that Adam, who has been acting directly against him is his brother and knew who he was the whole time. That and a bribe to convince him to use his gang to help her by attacking and blowing up the machine used to send people between worlds. It won’t end transversing but it will slow him down long enough to come up with a better plan.

This doesn’t go well and Cara is captured, but she reveals she has given Adam a poison that will kill him, but it will take several years. This is important because it will give him time to train someone to understand how his technology works, giving him the choice of revenge or his legacy.

Conclusion

This is a well written book and Cara is an interesting and complex character. Micaiah uses the idea of alternate worlds well to explore that character more fully than you can easily could in another book. You can see what her life could have been like. This works well in some ways, but in others it makes it feel less clear because they are different on different worlds, and while the nature vs. nurture argument is interesting, it doesn’t entirely work for me in this story. But while this certainly has some flaws, it’s a good story and my only real issue is that it tries a bit too much as doesn’t always get it perfect, but I am interested in seeing Micaiah Johnson’s next book.