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The Broken Universe (Universe #2)

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 73 ratings · 19 reviews

Possessing technology that allows him to travel across alternate worlds, John Rayburn begins building a transdimensional commercial empire, led by him, his closest friends, and their doppelgängers from several different parallel universes. But not every version of every person is the same, and their agendas do not always coincide.

Despite their benign intentions, the group’...more

ebook, 384 pages

Published June 5th 2012 by Tor Books

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Jul 01, 2012 Dan Schwent rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sf, 2012, books-by-authors-i-have-interviewed

John Rayburn, his friends, and their doppelgangers from other universes build a transdimenional corporation. However, there old enemies the Alarians aren't finished with them and then there's the matter of John Prime visiting universes on his own, unbeknownst to the rest of the Pinball Wizards...

Sequels. You hate them, right? Yeah, me too. Rarely do they pack the same punch as the original. While Broken Universe doesn't make me forget about my general sequel hate, it does a pretty good job in sh...more

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May 20, 2013 Clay rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-fantasy

It’s always a bit of a risk to jump into the middle of a series, but it’s particularly annoying when you start a book and then discover there was one (or more) before it.

That just happened to me with “The Broken Universe” (Tor, $27.99, 384 pages), and it wouldn’t have happened if there had been any hint on the cover that this was a sequel to “The Wall of the Universe.” Even worse, “The Broken Universe” isn’t that good, so not only did I not really grasp was what going on for much of the book, it...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Alisa Hedden rated it 4 of 5 stars

What if you could really see what would have happened with your life if you had made different decisions? Everyone has imagined this; well Paul has managed to give it to us, with a difference. Instead of an international company, he has given us an interdimensional company, run by the same group of people in each multiverse. They are mostly the same, but with differences brought about by their individual choices in each of their individual universes. There are also two other dimension hopping gr...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Andrew rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“How can he have no doppelgangers, if there are an infinite number of universes?”

“Because, first, maybe there aren’t an infinite number of universes and, second, once you start traveling between universes—me—or interacting with someone who does—you—you can no longer be parallel with any other versions of yourself.”

“What?”

“Travel between parallel universes pollutes the synchronicity of the universes. No other John Rayburn is experiencing anything of what I’ve experienced once Prime showed up with...more “How can he have no doppelgangers, if there are an infinite number of universes?”

“Because, first, maybe there aren’t an infinite number of universes and, second, once you start traveling between universes—me—or interacting with someone who does—you—you can no longer be parallel with any other versions of yourself.”

“What?”

“Travel between parallel universes pollutes the synchronicity of the universes. No other John Rayburn is experiencing anything of what I’ve experienced once Prime showed up with the device. My life took a radical divergence, because there can’t be any other universe where other versions of me traveled the same sequence of universes that I did. Once you start moving beyond your current universe, you become a meta-person, a meta-event, beyond what normal versions of me experience.”

***

Parallel universes—a staple of science fiction and comic book story telling. Perhaps not as ubiquitous as time travel stories, but thankfully less prone to repeating and recycling the old temporal-paradox chestnut. The cell-splitting of one universe into an unknown number is a potentially dangerous proposition—attempting to wrangle some modicum of plausibility from any contemporary science fiction narrative is difficult enough when set in one world. But managing to tightrope walk across dozens of worlds, iterating on similar themes, locations, and even characters—without completely getting lost along the way—is a feat in and of itself.

In The Broken Universe, Paul Melko takes the very wise route of using character to sell the science, and not the other way around. John Rayburn, together with friends Grace, Henry, and Casey, whom he is in love with, have a god key in their possession: an iaciorator—a device which allows them to cross back and forth between a so-far undefined number of parallel universes. Using their Pinball Wizards company as a publicly acceptable front, they recruit other Johns, Graces, Henrys, and Caseys from across the different universes to acquire wealth, help others, and stave off annihilation from the psychotic Gesalex and his Alarian associates—“singleton” exiles from another universe in which women are very much subjugated and dictatorship seems the norm. The Alarians look down on “dups”—men and women with doppelgangers spread across the parallel worlds. To be unique, a singular entity with no parallels, is, in the eyes of the Alarians, to be a superior being.

By focusing on John and his relationships to Grace and Henry, his love of Casey, and the painful other-side-of-the-coin relationship he has with John Prime—the John who first introduced him to the iaciorator device—Melko weaves an exciting, sometimes mind-bending tale of corporate deception, social justice, oppression, and in the end, war with an inter-universe Green Lantern-style police force known as the Vig.

The Broken Universe is actually the second book in a series. Having not read the first book, 2009s The Walls of the Universe, I was at an immediate disadvantage. Right off the bat, Melko tosses out specialized terminology and hypothetical concepts (and numbers—lots of numbers for too many universes to name). Instead of ramping up slowly, re-introducing the world and the science behind it in the opening chapters, he assumes readers have read the first book and are already up to speed. This is not a complaint. In fact, I admire the approach. It’s a sales gamble, to have a somewhat difficult to penetrate second book in hopes of persuading readers to step back and seek out the first in the series. In many ways, it pays off. I was able to gather enough of an understanding of the first book’s events to become entrenched in The Broken Universe’s plot and character interactions.

Where it stumbles, however, is that The Broken Universe feels very much like the middle chapter of a trilogy—the first half is spent wrapping up threads and detritus from the first book, while the second half paves the way for the confrontations that I imagine will dominate the third book in the series. This does not negatively impact The Broken Universe too much. The novel is an exciting page-turner that doesn’t wrap itself too tightly around any metaphysical lampposts, nor does it gloss over the inherent paradoxes that would inevitably present themselves if such technology were possible. Yes, I would have loved to know more about Visgrath’s villainous, torturous ways and to better understand the impact his actions in the first book had on our character’s lives, just as I would have preferred a less truncated, MacGuffin-inspired finale. But I’m not terribly frustrated by these details, because the ideas and characters presented are inventive enough to keep me on board, waiting to see what happens next.

I like to imagine Paul Melko’s office is wall-to-wall whiteboards of universe names and numbers—that even he struggles to keep the details separating each location intact. That is, perhaps, the greatest threat his story has: becoming so bogged down in its own details that it risks overwhelming new readers. A threat, absolutely, but this is also what makes Melko’s story so much fun—that he is willing to go so deep into the construction and layering of these universes that they become characterized within the novel, stepping away from simple numbers and nomenclature that define the individual universes early on.

The Broken Universe is a great deal of fun, and I’m excited to see where Melko goes next. However, I do recommend, if you are interested, picking up the first title before diving into this one. As much as I enjoyed the second chapter in Melko’s surprisingly down-to-earth epic, I know there is much that I’m missing.(less)

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Jun 14, 2012 Paul Lunger rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The sequel to last year's "The Walls of the Universe" is an adventure that is essentially 2 stories in one. In the first half of the "Broken Universe", Melko resolves the issue of the Alarians & their thwarting of things within Grauptham House & the pinball company. The second half involves a threat to the various aspect of the multiverse & a police force. This time around we have more versions of John, Casey, Henry & Grace & the differences in the universes gets simplified a...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Raechel Schink rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Broken Universe is the continuing story of John and Prime along with their friends and their alternate universe selves. Yep, lots of the same characters, yet all are somewhat unique by being from slightly different universes. In the book, the group must face down the threat of their enemies of the first book and then there comes another enemy - a group the first group doesn't like either - the Vig. There are many twists and turns as the group figure out how to deal with the issues that arise wit...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Justin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: spec-fic

Broken Universe is the sequel to alternate universe novel The Walls of the Universe. In The Walls, Farmboy John’s doppelganger (himself, from an alternate universe; John Prime), gave him a device that would allow him to move from one alternate universe to another (the universes being identical but for different decisions made, with small or large consequences), but wouldn’t allow him to move back, including to his home. The Walls ended with Farmboy John figuring out how to build a gate of his ow...more Broken Universe is the sequel to alternate universe novel The Walls of the Universe. In The Walls, Farmboy John’s doppelganger (himself, from an alternate universe; John Prime), gave him a device that would allow him to move from one alternate universe to another (the universes being identical but for different decisions made, with small or large consequences), but wouldn’t allow him to move back, including to his home. The Walls ended with Farmboy John figuring out how to build a gate of his own to allow backward travel between the universes. Farmboy John, Grace, Henry, and their doppelgangers begin to use the device and its replicas to begin building a cross-universe business empire. Complications predictably ensue.

I can’t exactly say that Broken Universe picks up where The Walls of the Universe drops off, because it changes the last scene of The Walls, without explanation and without need. Presumably it was done to inject some oomph into Broken’s open, but it was jarring to read directly after finishing The Walls. It’s also just lazy writing; Melko could have easily created the desired emotion without rewriting his earlier work. This is, unfortunately, a significant complaint for Broken. Plot, logic, and scientific holes abound.

The first half of Broken is, like the middle third of The Walls, heavy on the nuts-and-bolts of cross-universe business. I think I enjoyed it more than most in The Walls, given my general interest in business and in entrepreneurship in particular, and it continues to raise interesting questions (Is there anything wrong with stealing an idea from one universe and making money off of it in another? After all, they’re creating value in the new universe by giving them something they presumable want and would not otherwise have, and they’re doing it using technology only they have.), but much of the suspense of The Walls is lacking. When antagonists arrive offering threats to more than their business interests, they’re somewhat disappointing. On the other hand, the action sequences in the second half of the book are pretty good, and Melko doesn’t pull any punches.

I would recommend Broken to anyone who thoroughly enjoyed The Walls. If you finished The Walls unsure whether you wanted to continue, you can probably live without Broken. Melko does answer a lot of the questions left from The Walls, albeit not all, and there is no obvious sequel hook. He also explores a lot of the themes of The Walls and implications of alternate universes in greater depth.

Disclosure: I won an ARC of Broken Universes through a Tor.com sweepstakes.(less)

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Oct 17, 2012 Tim Martin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewed, parallel-universe, alternate-history

This was a fun book, one that was thrilling and read really fast as it proved quite the page turner for me. The main characters were interesting and engaging, I loved the setting (or settings, as it is about parallel universes), and though I think best read as a great adventure story, it did explore some fascinating concepts related to parallel universes.

I do need to point out to anyone reading this review that it is a sequel to the earlier book _The Walls of the Universe_ and that you if you ha...more This was a fun book, one that was thrilling and read really fast as it proved quite the page turner for me. The main characters were interesting and engaging, I loved the setting (or settings, as it is about parallel universes), and though I think best read as a great adventure story, it did explore some fascinating concepts related to parallel universes.

I do need to point out to anyone reading this review that it is a sequel to the earlier book _The Walls of the Universe_ and that you if you haven’t read that, I would imagine you would be very lost. Ok, having said that, the book succeeds quite well as a sequel. The original book left a lot to explore, not just in terms of finishing up or continuing various plot lines and character arcs, but also with just general concepts.

The Alarians, the original bad guys of the first book, do figure into this work though they lack some of the punch that they had in _The Walls of Universe_. A minor complaint is that are hinted at being a bigger villain than they perhaps prove to be (some might even say it is a bit of mopping up from the plot of the first volume) but they are still very much a problem for the main characters. Interesting, they might even prove a source of information (or even “hostile ally” of sorts, like perhaps a hostile witness in a court of law or courtroom drama), as a far worse villain appears, one that the both hate; the Vig. I won’t say anything more about them other than they are a very worthy opponent and I enjoyed reading about them.

I love how the author took the concept of parallel universe and just went beyond anything else I had ever seen. Convinced that someone is a threat or a villain (or perhaps doing a background check)? Investigate him or her in a parallel universe, as perhaps that individual got caught for a crime in another universe. As neat as that is though, the author doesn’t stop there; how much does this really reflect the reality of every instance of an individual (of every doppelganger or dup, depending upon which terminology from the book you want to adopt)? If say in nine out of ten universes a person is a murderer, does that make him a murderer too in the tenth universe, even if there is no evidence? Do people have natural tendencies to perform certain actions, lacking only the means and opportunity? How different really are the “same” person across realities?

The differences (or lack thereof) between one universe’s instance of a person and another universe’s version is one of the central themes of the book. On the one hand, there are clearly similarities as the Pinball Wizards functions incredibly well as not only are the main characters – John, Casey, Henry, and Grace – very intelligent and resourceful people but they are supplemented by multiple versions of themselves. The various versions work well together, are able to predict the actions of other versions of themselves to an astonishing degree, and provide few surprises to even the other characters; know one version of Henry, you have a good handle on other versions of him. Though differences emerge – the Grace of the first book is clearly scarred by her experiences with the Alarians – they seem more alike than different. They fall for the same people again and again and they tend to gravitate towards the same roles in Pinball Wizards again and again.

Yet for all that one of the most interesting aspects if the original differences between John Rayburn and John Prime. Though they became allies in the first book, can they stay that way? Is John Prime’s past – still incompletely known to John Rayburn – so different that the two will never truly be alike? Or was something different at the outset? More to the point, can John Prime ever truly be trusted?

One thing I would like to note is that the book had a Golden Age feel to it. The characters came from universes that apparently lacked personal computers or of course the internet, something I found fascinating, but I also loved how they were characters who simply loved to explore and saw the positive in life. For them the science of parallel universe travel and its possibilities were good things, not something to be feared, regretted, or built up angst over (very nice), though towards the end they had reasons to believe there was a dark side indeed to parallel universe hopping (starting with but not finishing with the Vig).

I have really very few complaints. At times the various versions of the four central characters could be hard to tell apart but that wasn’t really a huge problem, as only a few versions ever really were main characters and those were the ones that needed to be focused on. The book did leave some obvious unfinished plotlines – the nature of the original owner of John Prime’s iaciorator and the culture and world he came from, the strange equipment that traveler carried and what it could do, what the Vig are going to do to Pinball Wizards among others – but I don’t see that as a problem as clearly this book is the setup for another sequel, one I am eager to read.
(less)

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Jul 10, 2012 Jason Bergman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Another great book from Paul Melko. The Broken Universe picks up right where The Walls of the Universe left off (literally!) and takes the story in crazier directions across the multiverse. Like the first book, it's surprisingly dark at times, but still a very light read. I really enjoyed this book a lot, and hope Melko has a third volume planned. Highly recommended!

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Aug 06, 2012 Batsheva rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: series, multiverse

Enjoyable companion to the "Walls of the Universe," describing the further adventures and adversity facing Pinball Wizards, Transdimensional. Interesting discussion of how much of "you" an alternate universe doppleganger of yourself is, depending on their divergent experiences and decisions.

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Jul 24, 2012 Sharon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was a sequel to Walls of the Universe in which the main character John is given a device that lets him move between universes. This one wasn't as well written as the first book, but it was interesting enough.

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Jul 23, 2012 Robert Carter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not as good as the first book, but still pretty darn good sci-fi.

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Jan 01, 2013 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, genre

Very nice sequel to "The Walls of the Universe".

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Dec 20, 2012 Tymothy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great sequel! It could be the end of the story or number two in a series. Either way, I'm happy with the writing, characters and ideas :)

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Nov 18, 2012 Douglas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Its not over yet. Another thriller.

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Oct 02, 2012 Robert rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-12-season

An eagerly aweaited novel that disappoints. There are so many plot bits that are jammed in and given short shrift, it makes me wonder whether this woudn't have worked much better as a series of short stories (a format with which Melko has had much more success).

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Mar 25, 2013 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

sequel to alternate universe novel The Walls of the Universe.

Very fun read, though it gets a little confusing near the start (inevitable when you have ten copies of the main character, 7 copies of his best friend, etc).

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Jul 17, 2012 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A little more confusing for me than the first one due to all the different universes, but Melko's writing clicks with me. It's the perfect combo of sci-fi, procedural, thrilling, and satisfying.

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Shelves: fiction

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About Paul Melko

Paul lives in Ohio with his beautiful wife and four fairly wonderful children. He is an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, where he sits on the board of directors as the South-Central Regional Director and is chair of the Grievance Committee.

Paul’s fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Spider Magazine, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and other...more

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