Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves (Interworld, #1)

"For a moment I thought you were going rational on me. Always remember: In an infinity of worlds, anything is not only possible, it's mandatory."

I'm always up for reading something by Neil Gaiman. The man has written or helped write more works than even he can keep track of. When I spotted this short novel on the shelf at my library, I decided I would give it a shot, because he's never let me down before.

Joey Harker gets lost wherever he goes. So when he gets lost on a school assignment in the middle of town, he's not surprised. However, he is surprised when he manages to get himself so lost that he ends up in another dimension.

It isn't long after that when Joey meets Jay, who tells him that they are both gifted with the ability to walk between worlds. Joey happens to be one of the strongest with this ability, but that's not necessarily a good thing. It happens to have drawn the eye of those who seek to use him to gain control of every dimension and would kill him in the process. If Joey wants to start saving worlds, he's going to have to save his friends, and himself, first.

While the premise of this story sounded really good, I honestly couldn't really get excited about it. I finished the book mostly because I wanted to see what happened and not really because I enjoyed it. It didn't really draw me in the way the books I love do.

I'm not sure what went wrong with it. It was an interesting mix of sci-fi and fantasy that I had never really encountered before, and I usually love that sort of thing. I think a major factor was that I never really cared for any of the characters and the story was a bit too scattered for my taste. The loose ends that left me dissatisfied at the end were easily explained when I realized this was a series, but I'm frankly not interested in reading a sequel. I didn't hate this book, but I wasn't enthusiastic about it either.

I will mention that I did enjoy the villains quite a bit though. I thought they were well-constructed and scary enough to make them believable foes. I also enjoyed Hue's few cameos throughout.

Overall, this was an unsatisfying novel and I'm just not interesting in reading more. It wasn't terrible. It was just uninteresting for me. So maybe it's just not for me and you'll like it better. It's up to you to find out. (If you have read it and like it, I would love to hear your feedback on what made it interesting to you.)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆


"Sometime was is necessary to teach us the value of peace. Sometimes you need to learn the real value of diplomacy in avoiding war."