Plot Synopsis
Joey Harker, a normal boy, stumbles into another dimension, and so begins his journey, fraught with peril, as a Walker. The other Walkers are Other Joeys from various worlds in the Altiverse, and as if that isn't enough for Harker to contend with, the army of magical beings wants to boil him up and use his soul as fuel.

My Thoughts
I love the premise for the fight in this book. It isn't good versus evil; it is science versus magic, and they are both evil. Each side wants to conquer and control the gazillion other worlds, pushing each to one side or the other. The good guys belong to a understaffed, underprepared, oddly young group of Walkers, who are committed to ensuring the balance between science and magic in all the worlds of the Altiverse.

The premise of the Pendragon series is eerily similar, and I found myself thinking about this similarity while reading (I reviewed books 1-8 in the series in May and June). In Pendragon, the lead character is not leaping through various versions of Earth, but in fact is going to entirely different worlds, but still both main characters are walking through wormholish thingamabobbers in order to fight an entity/group that wants to control all worlds. And of course both are mid-teen males who have the whole reluctant hero thing going on.

My favorite character in this book is not the lead, but rather Jai, an enigmatic sesquipedalian (logophilia baby). Every sentence he utters is like taking a trip through a thesaurus. Afterall, "What good is a vocabulary that isn't used? My second favorite character is Hue, a blob of somethingoranother that communicates through color changes. My third favorite...okay, I liked the characters.

The story is quick, moving from action-sequence to action-sequence with less reflective abstractness than is typical in Gaiman; in other words, the story didn't make me contemplate any deep universal truths like with American Gods, Anansi Boys, the Sandman series, or Good Omens. But it was just what I needed to keep my attention for a nighttime read-a-book-in-one-sitting-marathon. I quite liked the story in general. I want sequels, a whole series, and the door is wide open for future books. Alas, no plans on that front.

Memorable Scene: Joey's first walk into the In-Between was a setting I will remember. I loved imagining this world which made me think of dropping acid while taking a ride through some strange combination of Disney World's Pirates of the Caribbean and It's a Small World and simultaneously having someone read Edgar Allen Poe's poetry to you. Yep. (Note: I have never dropped acid. And I don't even know where I would drop it if the chance ever came. Seems like something you'd want to hold onto being all expensive and everything.)

Memorable Quote: Commence our intradimensional excursion. I can so picture Spock saying this. ( )

Interworld is light, fun book for the Tweener and MG crowd. And, of course, we goofy adults that enjoy such literature, enough that we read and review it.

The story is set in a multiverse. A place where all variations of earth (and other places) exist. In this book, those universes extend past what we might expect, in that there are earths with varying degrees of tech, and earths with varying degrees of magic.

The setting in this book is very important to it's success. What little description is used --this is an action genre book, and it moves quickly ahead, without a great deal of verbiage wasted on scenery and such -- focuses on the inter-dimensional space that lays between worlds. The authors do their best to extract their physics from String Theory and whatnot, and they do pretty well making it kid-friendly, interesting, cool, and understandable.

And it's here afterall, that a good percentage of the action takes place. And it's here where Joey picks up his side-kick, a multi-dimensional creature he calls "Hue". [Hue communicates with colors].

As far as characters, Joey is done fairly well. The rest of the cast is rather standard -- the commander who's stern stuff and who everybody calls the 'old man'. There's the strong guy, and the tech wizard.... Well, if you've seen those old war movies, I'm sure you can guess the rest (if you keep in mind that magic needs to be added.)

By adult standards, the plotting isn't thorough. There's nothing in the way of foreshadowing, and frequently solutions are sort of pulled out of the authors'... eh, ...hat, but again, that's probably only going to bother adults and not kids who want an action story.

The story, by the way, focuses on Joe's not fitting in. For one, he's the new guy. And for another, he managed to get the guy who was sent out to 'bring him in' killed.

There's enough emotion along the way that the book isn't totally void. And there's plenty of action and 'science'. It's not as good as Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones", but it's meant for a similar audience.

Talking Points:::
Despite my criticism, I have to say that I found Interworld to be fun read. I'd suggest it for youngsters looking for adventure.

It's a quick read with some novel ideas that ought to make people think.

**The one concern I haven't mentioned yet is the mild cursing. There's a "son of a bitch" and "damn" or two. Certainly not a problem for teenagers, but the back cover mentions that this book is for those as young as 10 years. As a mom of a 9 y.o. I know that they haven't all been exposed to cursing yet. (Yes, you may applaud my self control)

Finally, those expecting this book to have prose that sounds anything like Gaiman's are going to be thoroughly disappointed.

Pam T~
mom and reviewer at BooksForKids-reviews

I don't really like SF so I was not crazy about this book. There are lots of worlds so I found it ahrd to follow, but the action was great! ( )

This exciting book which includes both fantasy and a little sci-fi would probably appeal to a younger teen who has enjoyed the Percy Jackson series or othe Neil Gaiman adventures. ( )

Teenager Joey Harker, who is notable in his hometown only for his terrible sense of direction, finds himself in alternate universes where he is hunted by the magical HEX and technocratic Binary and aided by InterWorld, a corps of "Walkers" able to cross between universes, after which Joey has to decide whether to join InterWorld or return to his own world.

This was a run-of-the-mill juvenile science fiction story, which reminded me of Heinlein juveniles (except for the absence of romance). I was disappointed, because my expectations for Gaiman were high and because not all raised issues were resolved (such as Hugh's importance). While the Audible version was well-done, I don't recommend the book or the audio to Gaiman fans. ( )