Finity

Lyle Peripart is an average astronomer, an American ex-pat living in New Zealand and making a pretty good go of it, in a world where the Nazis won WW2 and Twelve Reichs divide the globe. He's got a steady relationship, a nice house, and a talking suborbital rocketship. When he accepts a new job with a mysterious industrial tycoon his life gets seriously weird. He starts running into a Gestapo agent, his fiance is a gun-slinging international assassin rather than a history professor, and there are gaps in what Lyle can say and think: worlds and phrases that trigger headaches and amnesia. The biggest problem: no two people agree on what history looks like, and no one has every actually communicated with America. An entire country has been show more missing for decades, memory is a lie, and something is very fishy.

What follows is a thrilling quest into the empty heart of America, the weirdness of Many Worlds Quantum Mechanics, and what it means to really Pursue Happiness above all else. Finity is a strange strange book, a breezy picaresque tied to quantum speculation and a brutal death march, but it's quite cool and an under appreciated gem. show less

Entertaining high concept Gonzo romp, that falls off a cliff towards the end. Alternate title could be Deadline, after the looming publisher threat that must have pushed Barnes to rap everything up in three pages of exposition and wish fulfillment. Added to the hilarity for me, but I could see this concussion disguised as a conclusion pushing readers to throw this book at the wall.

Finity was an interesting book to read. The premise isn't new -- alternate worlds and histories. I mean Philip K. Dick has the market cornered on that. But Barnes seems to take a fresh approach to this and I couldn't put the book down. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

As the Goodreads description blurb reads, "A professor living in Auckland in a Reich-dominated world is recruited for private industry by a mysterious industrialist. Whenever he and his friends try to even think about the United States, it seems someone is trying to stop them--and even kill them." Lyle is an astronomer recruited by ConTech, owned by a man named Iphwin, in the year 2062, when there are a number of German Reichs around the world, because Germany won World War II. show more Lyle is an American expat living in New Zealand with other expats. His girlfriend, Helen, is also a professor living the same type of life.

Lyle is hired by Iphwin for his abductive reasoning capabilities, and Helen is hired as his admin assistant. Before they even have a chance to celebrate, Lyle is attacked by Billie Beard, a female Reich goon. And strange things start to happen. First, Lyle's talking boat/car has been messed with and its "brain" needs to be rebooted. Billie roughs him up on it. After he leaves to rendezvous with Helen, he discovers that he's already taken her there, to Saigon, earlier in the day even though he has no recollection of it. In any event, he proposes and they get a diamond ring. They then go a restaurant to celebrate and he is attacked and shot at by a fat German tourist. To his utter shock, his meek little girlfriend pulls out a gun and and shoots the attacker. They're both placed under arrest, where Lyle is shocked to find out his attacker was Billie Beard, again -- not the fat German tourist. Helen also claims she saw Lyle get shot in the attack, when he clearly didn't. Strange things are obviously occurring.

Lyle and Helen belong to a VR chat group. Iphwin places Lyle and Helen under his protection, but they are soon sent on a mission to rescue a ConTech employee in Mexico. When they get there, they are shocked to discover the members of their VR group are there too. Iphwin appears and tells them some things about the world(s) in which they live and why odd things are happening to each of them. He mentions that no one has had any contact with anyone in America for decades and wonders what's happened to America and its occupants. They go on a trek to America to find out for themselves. They discover that the world has been run by quantum computers engaged in parallel computing and that there are innumerable worlds and people jump from one to another -- without knowing it -- when using the Net, phone, or their computer operated vehicles. That explains the hardened battle operative Helen Lyle saw kill Billie Beard in the restaurant as opposed to his usually mild Helen. Even more odd, Iphwin lets them know he's one of these computing "phages" in human form and its his need to know what's happened to America that allowed them all to gather together simultaneously in the same world to go on this journey with him.

Their trip is dangerous. Billie Beard, thought dead, keeps appearing, trying to kill them. Turns out she's a phage too. Some of the group members are killed, but the survivors keep plugging along, determined to make it to a facility in Santa Fe called the Department of the Pursuit of Happiness. Iphwin thinks this will answer everything.

I'm not going to give away the ending, but I thought it too abrupt and unsatisfying. Barnes tries to tie everything up neatly, but it's not what I would have done if I were writing it, nor is it what I want as a reader. Thus, I'm marking it down to four stars instead of five. Still, the book really was a thriller and hard to put down and I enjoyed reading it. I shall have to read more of Barnes now. Recommended. show less

This has to be one of the weirdest novels I've ever read.

It's the late 21st century, Lyle Peripart, an American ex-patriot living in a world in which Germany won WWII and the world has been divided into independent Reichs, is offered a job by Geoffrey Iphwin, owner of a hugely profitable company called ConTech. The company has come under attack and Iphwin thinks he can figure out the who,how and why behind the attacks, but he needs a specialist in 'abduction mathematics' to do so. It's a means of reasoning that is heavily discussed at the beginning, but isn't very clear on what, exactly, it is.

Strange events begin to occur, such as the repeated reappearance of a dead character bent on killing Lyle and anyone helping him. What he show more discovers is that no one has the same memories of anything. The problem, as he discovers, is that the use of devices based on quantum physics, which is allowing people, unbeknownst to them, to slip between realities, most of which are so close that people aren't even aware it has happened.

While it starts out slow and with loads of technical discussions between Lyle and Iphwin, it soon becomes a slow-paced adventure tale as Lyle and a hand-picked team try to discover what happened to America, which is off the international grid, so they can hopefully find out how to stop the attacks and interdimensional shifting. Plenty of bad guys and harsh terrain.

This turned out to be an interesting story with a cast of truly unique characters, but the pace was too slow for my taste. The ending is a surprise even though most of this novel is a surprise. If the pace had been better I'd have rated the story higher. show less

This book has a fascinating premise and (on dipping into it) some intriguing and well-written ideas. When I went to list it on LT, however, I discovered that I had read it and awarded it 2.5 stars. Evidently it's not as good as it appears at first glance, and not particularly memorable.

Lesser Barnes and disappointing. Although the title and cover copy makes it clear this is about parallel Earths, about a third of the book is spent just bringing the characters to that understanding. You might think this was in order to develop better his alternate history a century after Hitler won the war the globe is dominated by various Reichs. But the last half of the book ignores all that and turns into a mix of infodumps on the SFnal concepts underneath and chase scenes running from blurrily defined opponents. Sadly, by the end, instead of multiple realities, nothing feels at all real and nothing appears to be at stake.

This is a fun read if you are a fan of alternative historical fiction.

In this world there are millions of alternate realities and people jump back and forth between the adjacent universes. Can make it a bit hard to follow at times but I enjoy this type of story.