Planesrunner

Summary: Everett Singh's father is a quantum physicist, and ever since Everett was young, his father has tried to explain to him the concept of the Multiverse - an infinite number of parallel worlds that exist simultaneously with our own. When Dr. Singh is kidnapped by men in black suits, and Everett receives a mysterious computer program sent by his father, he knows that the two must be connected, and somehow connected to the existence of these other worlds. The program is the Infundibulum - the only extant map to the other universes - and the government, not just of our world but of all the worlds, wants it. In an attempt to escape, Everett travels the universe in which he thinks they're holding his father hostage, and gets picked up show more by Sen Sixsmyth, a pilot aboard the airship Everness. The Airish are a tight-knit group, but Everett must earn their trust if he ever wants to see his father - or get back to his own universe - again.

Review: This book is a crazy mishmash of subgenres and ideas - techno-thriller, government conspiracy, parallel universes, steampunk London, etc. - but it is all so damned cool that it somehow works together. It also helped that this book was a complete unknown quantity when I started - I'd heard Ian McDonald's name, but never read any of his stuff, and never heard of Planesrunner - so there was an element of surprise as well. The book was extremely fast-paced, with plenty of action, and while I could tell that some scenes were there primarily because they'd appeal to the target demographic (read: thirteen-year-old boys), I was having so much fun that I didn't mind. But the whole thing is not just universe-jumping and using Palari thieves' cant and outsmarting the authorities and airship battles, although that's a large part. There's also some interesting character and relationship dynamics going on under the surface, as Everett has to deal with what his universe-jumping is doing to his family, and his feelings for the manic but brittle Sen.

McDonald does an excellent job of bringing his alternate London to life, and filling in enough of the detail and backstory so that it's a plausible path the universe could have taken. It's especially impressive how vivid his city is, given that he's not one to linger much over his descriptions; in fact, his prose in places got weirdly short and choppy. (I would say it took some getting used to, but I was typically too interested in getting to the next part of the story to do more than briefly notice the sentence structure.)

In short, I had a blast reading this, am surprised more people haven't heard of it, and will be anxiously awaiting the next book in the series. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Fans of YA sci-fi/fantasy, steampunk, or alternate universes should definitely pick this one up. show less

I was impressed with Ian McDonald’s Luna series, which brought a struggle between warring mercantile clans to the high-tech environment of domed cities on the Moon. In Planesrunner, the first installment of the Everness series, McDonald is equally adept at young adult fiction. Everett Singh, a teenage math prodigy, witnesses his father being kidnapped by proverbial men in black. Everett uses his insight into quantum physics to decode a software upgrade his father sends to his tablet computer. And we are off on a romp through the multiverse.
The chase leads Everett to a version of England in which the energy economy is based on electricity rather than oil. McDonald has called the genre “Teslapunk.” Everett joins the crew of a giant show more airship, the Everness, whose captain is wowed by his engineering skills.
The novel provides a compelling father-son relationship tied to puzzles and adventures involving several levels of technology. show less

I'm trying to find the right words to describe my awe while reading this book... Planesrunner has been on my bookshelf for a long time, I just saw few very good reviews from the blogs I trust and bought it. If not for my book buying ban, it would have stayed gathering dust there for much much longer...


The book starts with Everett Singh, a teenage son of a quantum physicist seeing his dad being kidnapped on the streets of London. Police treating the case as of missing person and don't believe that Everett is telling the truth. Desperate boy receives a strange file from his dad's email account and from then on his life is never the same again.

Apparently, his father has been working on mapping parallel universes and a power group following show more his research snatched him to work only for them not for the good of all. Now it's up to his very talented son to jump through the gates and save everyone.

This book starts as sci-fi, incredibly fascinating, with all the theories of parallel worlds and human beings just like you inhabiting them, but it quickly evolves into an electropunk as Everett himself calls it when he jumps to the world in which he thinks his father is held hostage.

The London he sees runs on electricity and is full of magnificent airships. It's very colourful, reminds you of late Victorian era, full of spicy new language that Airish (airship sailors?) use to communicate and strange new customs.

Very quickly Everett gets taken under care of a young, bold teenage air pilot, Sen, the daughter of Anastasia Sixsmyth, the captain of Everness and starts plotting how to get his father back with the help of the friends he is acquiring.

The world-building is incredibly gorgeous (the closest comparison that comes to mind is Iron Seas series by Meljean Brook), the smells, the clothes, the food, the unique nanotechnology, the language, the mannerisms, the prejudice against Airish, - it's all thought through.

Then there is Everett, fabulous Punjabi teen, science geek, footballer, Doctor Who aficionado and a talented chef. His character is written with much love, and really comes to life.

I can say the same about courageous Sen. The women in this book are represented just as equally as men. Sen, who knows all the darkest alleys around Hackney Port and bribes her way out of trouble flashing her unique Tarot cards at people.

Of course there is a villainess with too much make up on, an evil plot of world(s) domination, an airships duel and lots of courage, gaiety and heartbreak. According to Poloni, Airish language, this book is fantabulosa! As in fabulous. show less

Endless alternate worlds to our own, and young Everett holds the key to them all in PLANESRUNNER. Sounds like a dream come true...though its probably a touch bit of a nightmare for him. For us? A marvelous treat of adventure, science and balderdash!

Fun to the Fun squared!
If you've been aching to find that amazing young adult read that mixes science fiction with high adventure this is definitely the book you need to pick up. I've read a fair share of sci-fi YA books and this one is singularly unique. Why? Because of the science! I would describe Planesrunner as heavier on the science side than most other YA books I've read, and it manages to not be so heavy that it gets bogged down. Not that I know if any of the science is correct *grin* show more but it sure was fascinating to read. It was great in that it didn't seem as if anything was dumbed down or glossed over, indeed this would probably be a techie kids uber dream.

The geek of the Earth are a tribe and they are mighty. - pg 67

Young Everett is a science genius and all of the details we are given support that. Even though that in itself might be hard to swallow, a young teen being such a quantum physics genius. But at every turn his personality and his actions meld so well that it couldn't be any other way, this kid just makes sense. Yes, he's a young teen with smarts beyond compare but he still makes from the hip decisions like that of the teen he is. Rash, spontaneous, and not always thinking ten steps ahead type of behavior, now that is teen to me. I loved how well all aspects about him worked together and made him all the more believable! Especially some of his basic common sense.

Rules for twenty-first-century living: never give the police your only photograph. - pg 21

Indeed, I adored how each of the characters were given such unique touches. So much so, that even the side characters had their own voice in my mind, and that my friends is hard to pull off.

We don't always get what we wont, but sometimes what we get is better!
Everett is pulled into a high stakes situation, with father kidnapped, and him left with the key to the multiverse - he has to think fast and make an even faster plan of action. Even he thinks it's somewhat ridiculous at best, or is it? Not only that, he has to find the means to execute his not very well thought out plans. Lucky for him Sen (a spunky young tarot card reading girl with a marvelous white afro) finds him instead, and tries to rob him no less! But what better way to start a friendship than a little attempted thievery? Not to mention Sen is the perfect counter balance to Everett. She is a sassy little firecracker with continual burst.

She could be bitingly cruel with deadly accuracy, but Everett wondered if her taunts and nasty little rhymes were thought out in advance, to be drawn like knives when she needed weapons, or if she was like a wasp that stings by reflex. - pg 238

Diversity is the spice of life!
One of the major things I loved about Planesrunner is the racial and cultural diversity we get to experience and the fact that the main character was of mixed race, or a non Caucasian race which we just don't see enough of. The book is peppered with ethnic flavor, and I mean that literally cause this kid is one hell of a cook. Everett steps into a world completely different from his own, and yet sometimes so alike. He has his culture and world that he comes from and while he is slowly getting to know the crew of the Everness so too is he learning about their culture and class, the Airish. This has to be the best part of the book that it brings up issues of race as well as class and cultural prejudice. These things exist across different planes of existence. You can change the world but I suppose you can't change human nature and that is one of the aspects that helped make this different version of our world all the more real. Oh yes and I can't forget to mention that you are in for a treat with the amazing slang! If you don't normally handle heavy slang well in your reading then be forewarned because Sen and some of the other dialogue is made up of it. Personally I loved it, but I loved it even more when I realized there was a darn glossary in the back! My recommendation to you - read the 3 page glossary first, or as you're reading the book, so you get comfortable with the slang terms. I wish these kinds of glossaries were at the FRONT of novels so I know immediately they are there, sigh. Still an excellent move by the author to include this because I used it a lot until each word cemented itself into my brain.

Adventure isn't adventure without an airship or two!
Another one of the best parts you might have guessed from the description. Airships! That's right there be no airplanes here ye land lubbers, but airships. And things wouldn't be complete without a battle in the skies! I have to give it to Ian McDonald he really knows how to leave a reader satisfied. Fancy weapons, different types of fuel and technology, crazy cool clothes and a sweet air ride that so so need to stow away on.

Planesrunner might just be the book you've been looking for, it definitely was for me and I can tell things are only going to get better! If all of this isn't enough to tempt you, well then, maybe your sense of fun is broken. show less

Everett Singh sees his father kidnapped before his eyes and now the kidnappers are after him believing his father has given him the secret to travelling between parallel universes. Can he find the secret and rescue his father?

Rollicking YA adventure. After all who wouldn't want to join a Polari-speaking airship crew?

Add Ian McDonald's Planesrunner to the list of the most interesting and well-written young adult novels I've read this year. With the third book coming out soon, I'd initially picked this up to get caught up with the series, but in doing so I also finally discovered why so many readers have been raving about Everness. Adventurous and fun but also fresh and clever, if you're looking for a YA offering that's a little different but has a great story at the same time, consider checking this one out.

Planesrunner tackles a topic in fantasy and science fiction that I have a great interest in: multiple universes and alternate dimensions. I have rarely seen it handled with such detail when it comes to YA fiction, though. The protagonist is show more Everett Singh, whose father is a brilliant scientist and one of the leading researchers in the study of parallel earths. But then Tejendra Singh is kidnapped from the streets of London one day, leaving his son with a mysterious file on his computer called the Infundibulum.

The Infundibulum ends up being a map to the parallel earths -- all 10 to the power of 80 of them! -- making Everett the guardian of the most valuable tool in the whole entire multiverse. But there are others who see the Infundibulum as a powerful weapon, nefarious factions in the group of plenipotentiaries of the Ten Known Worlds. To escape their reach, Everett travels to a very different parallel earth. With the help of new friends, he is determined to find and rescue his father, while fighting to protect the Infundibulum at all costs.

Hard sci-fi readers will probably find the science behind the quantum physics and theory of multiple universes to be on the light side, but I still find Planesrunner to be a fabulously clever novel. There's enough information to enjoy this fun and action-filled story without getting bogged down with details, and when it comes to his imaginings of parallel earths, Ian McDonald takes things all the way.

The sights and sounds in the world Everett ends up in, designated E3, are beyond amazing. It is a world where fossil fuels have never existed, leading to a society powered by a system that can only be described as a souped-up version of steampunk or, as Everett so amusingly observed, "electropunk". Everett ends up being taken in by an airship crew, thus introducing the reader to the rich, imaginative culture and language of the "Airish". The author certainly does not skimp on the descriptions of the people and their way of life, making it easy to picture the setting and put myself right there.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the characters, though Everett himself comes off as a bit unrealistic as a 14 or 15-year-old boy. The extent of his intelligence is played up and so farfetched it's difficult for me to feel otherwise, but on the other hand, his more mature point of view and way of thinking might make him more relatable to a non-YA reader, thus making Planesrunner a book that may appeal to a much wider audience.

And finally, this book was just plain fun. Where else would I be able to get the craziness and thrills of an actual airship duel outside the pages of this awesome novel? I love YA fiction like this -- quick, clever and full of great ideas. The Everness series is simply "bonaroo"! Looking forward to continuing Everett's journey with the next book, Be My Enemy, and then on to Empress of the Sun, dropping early next year. show less

I haven't read much by Ian McDonald but what I had previously read by him had been dense, complex and highly imaginative science fiction which had won him great critical acclaim. This book marked a departure in that it was the first in a lighter science fiction/steampunk trilogy aimed more for the YA market. As such the plot was more linear and straightforward, the narrative told from a single character's POV and the language a tad simpler than the dense, rich stew the author usually serves up.

The story follows young Everett Singh, the son of a physicist working on the cutting edge of quantum mechanics and something of a prodigy himself. After his father is kidnapped he receives a mysterious email containing an app that is the key to show more using Heisenberg gates to travel to alternate earths in alternate universes. Everett will need to figure out how to use this can figure out how to use them if he is to rescue his father and he will need help from whatever allies he can find on the alternate earth he has to travel to.

The story is enjoyable and the main character a compelling voice. The action unfolds in a stately fashion which I personally didn't mind as the author takes the time to build up the world Everett travels to in interesting and believable ways. Though I can't help but feel that some of the ideas and language will be rather complex for the intended target audience but I may be wrong. The ending is satisfying but also with the promise of more (and perhaps more wide-ranging in the multi-verse) adventures that lie ahead. Overall a decent read though not an outstanding one. show less