She works-and shamelessly flirts-with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying-from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Choices, consequences, the rippling effects thereof: Who is to say what sets certain events into motion, making us the particular selves that we are? In The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson makes an unforgettable case for the glorious multiplicity of this fickle thing we call reality. It’s an ideal read for sci-fi lovers, especially those who like their stories with a generous helping of angst-ridden love affairs (Cara’s connection to Dell, her beautiful yet emotionally distant handler, was one of my favorite aspects of this thrilling story). This book is just so incredibly rich: layer upon layer of intricate worldbuilding that envelops you from page one. When one of her few remaining doppelgängers suffers an unexplainable death, Cara finds herself enmeshed in an even stranger new world brimming with dangerous secrets.

Charged with braving the terrifying void that separates each world from the next, Cara collects crucial data to share with her employer, attempting to forge a meaningful life for herself-which, for someone from the wastelands, mostly means just staying alive. The catch? One can only step foot onto another world if their resident counterpart has already died, making her a natural prodigy, given her particular talent for dying on hundreds of other worlds.

And is there any better way to combat daily existential despair and perpetual grief, than by sinking your teeth into a world that is not your own? This is what The Space Between Worlds offers: a way out, and a breathtaking, heart-pounding way in.Ĭara is a traverser, someone who can travel between the multiverses.

This pandemic and the requisite quarantine have compelled me to do a lot of soul searching, and I know I’m not the only one.

The space between worlds book review