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The Walls of the Universe Paul Melko 9780765319975 Books

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The Walls of the Universe Paul Melko 9780765319975 Books

Paul Melko's The Walls of the Universe reminds me a bit of the old-style Heinlein/Asimov kind of juveniles: plucky young intelligent male protagonist into science gets himself into lots of scrapes then extricates himself using those sciency smarts (say, to invent or build something), all of which is conveyed in adequate but not particularly memorable prose. It also reminded me a lot of the old TV show Sliders, both in its movement-through-parallel-universes premise (not original to Sliders by any means) and in its TV-like presentation--easily digestible writing, various moments of implausibility, a tendency to have things happen a bit too easily. What redeems the novel somewhat is its use of multiple point-of-view from the "same" person--two parallel versions of the main character, a nicely managed twist on a familiar premise that lifts Walls of the Universe above its other, more pedestrian qualities.

John Rayburn, a high school senior, is surprised in the woods near his family farm by another version of himself (John Prime), who explains he is from a parallel universe. Years ago John Prime was himself surprised by yet another version of John (John Superprime) who showed up and gave him the device which allows for interdimensional travel--a small machine that straps across one's chest. Prime, who plans to make money by transplanting as yet untapped ideas from other universes into new ones (such as "inventing" the Rubik's Cube), convinces Farmboy John (Prime's name for him) to take the machine for a spin and see for himself. Unfortunately, the machine only goes up the universe chain, meaning Farmboy John (hereafter referred to in this review simply as "John") can't get back home, which was Prime's plan all along, as he now slides relatively effortlessly into John's life: going to college, becoming a businessman, eventually marrying and impregnating the high school cheerleader John had always been too shy to speak to.

Meanwhile, after having some near-shaves in a few of the multi-universes, John eventually settles in one and gets on with his life, going to school (where he meets his best friends and eventual partners Grace and John), starting a business by introducing the pinball machine to this world, and trying to learn as much as he can about the transport device in an attempt to fix it and return home. These twin goals eventually bring him into conflict with other interdimensional travelers who become the eventual villains. And behind them, it is rumored, is another group who seemingly enforces interdimensional travel and rules.

As mentioned, the premise is a familiar one and Melko doesn't do much here to expand on it or make it feel all that new. We only see a very few of the multiverses and not for any extended period of time at all. The vast majority of the book is set in Ohio in Universe One (John's original universe) and Universe Two (John's new universe) and there really are very few differences between them. On the one hand, it serves the plot, as this is what allows the two John's to insert themselves so easily into their new worlds. But even then, it would have been nice to have seen some tiny, even trivial divergences of world and culture that wouldn't have been disruptive but could have added a bit of imaginative spice.
The two separate storylines are mostly exciting. Prime's gets complicated by some legal issues and then complicated more by a murder and John's storyline picks up in action and stakes-level with the arrival of the other travelers. There are some pacing issues, mostly in John's story arc, where I'd say the author spends a bit too much time on the pinball creation (probably more detail on the actual construction as well) and on the finer more mundane points of business creation.

The villains are a little cartoonish, edging near to caricature mustache-twirling masters of a massive criminal conspiracy while at the same time being a bit too conveniently inept. That "too-easy" aspect raises its head multiple times, unfortunately. Even at the very beginning, I found it implausible just how easily John accepts the idea of parallel universes, a too-fast acceptance we see repeated by several characters throughout the book. Having one character say "I read a lot of science fiction . . so this is not as much of a shock as it should be" doesn't quite cut it.

That's mostly just a little annoying, but when the still-in-college kid manages to reverse engineer an interdimensional transport device, well, that was not only harder to swallow but detracted much more from the reading experience. A few other more minor complaints include the ease with which some of the characters use weaponry, a few somewhat abrupt character shifts, and the sense that the whole dimensional aspect isn't quite fully nailed down. For instance, as when one character reels off a whole bunch of percentages--1% of the time the South wins the Civil War--but we're given no explanation for how such a percentage could possibly be determined; or when the idea arises of "Singletons", people with no alternate versions of themselves, versus "Dups", duplicate versions such as Farmboy John and John Prime, and again, we're given no explanation of how one could determine this or how it happens.

As mentioned in my intro, the style is relatively pedestrian. It isn't bad at all; it's smooth flowing, doesn't clunk very often, speeds you easily through the plot, never slows you down. For some, I realize, that's the definition of just what they want in style. Others would say this is just what is needed for a YA audience. I prefer a bit more of a challenge, some lines that startle me with their originality of phrasing or use of metaphor/simile, some evidence that the author is at least a little in love with language. As for the YA argument, there are certainly enough gorgeous YA stylists out there that one can debunk the idea that YA means language stripped down to its easiest, most digestible, most dull chunks (China Mieville's Railsea completely explodes that idea, while Ursula K. Leguin undermines it with starkly graceful beauty, to offer up two such examples).

If those are the book's weaknesses, what are its strengths? It's best aspect is the use of the two points-of-view to show us how the "same" character can diverge from identical beginnings into two quite different personalities based on the situations they find themselves in. The complicated relationship that eventually forms between John and John Prime is extremely interesting. In many ways, actually, I found John Prime the more interesting of the two characters, if only because we tend to like the "good" characters but be fascinated by the "bad" ones. Prime isn't wholly bad by any means, and it's that grey line he walks that I found intriguing, as well as his introspection over it. I also thoroughly enjoyed the relationship he ends up forming with the Casey of that world, who is also quite different in fascinating ways than the Casey John originally hooks up with in his adopted universe.
Conceptually, I like what Melko does when he raises the question of what value does a life have or not have when we become aware that there may be an infinite number of versions of that life? Should we really care, for instance, what happens to any of the Johns or Caseys since there are infinite Johns and Caseys? He does a good job of exploring this, though I wish he had done even more with it.

I also did enjoy the almost nostalgic feel of the plot, with its optimistic focus on young characters banding together and using their intelligence and other personal strengths to overcome the odds. I think had I come across this as a child fresh off my Danny Dunn and Tom Swift reading and in the midst of my Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov reading it would have slid quite happily into the rotation. Is it as good? Who knows? I'm sure in some ways it's actually better written despite its flaws (some of the dialogue in those books would probably make me cringe now), but I have so much sentimentality wrapped up in those books it just wouldn't be a fair comparison.
Finally, as it is YA, I should mention that there are a few brief references to sex ("he felt how hot her sex was near his" is the most graphic line amongst not very many references at all), as well as a good amount of gun violence and death.

In the end, I'd say I was a bit disappointed in The Walls of the Universe, as I'd heard lots of good things about it. It seems to me it's what people are thinking when they use that qualifying line I usually hate, "it's good for a YA book": not challenging, smooth flowing plot, lots of action, likable characters, not a lot of depth. To me, it makes it not a "good" YA book, but a "pleasantly decent but wanting" YA book, which is what Walls is.


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The Walls of the Universe Paul Melko 9780765319975 Books Reviews

Paul Melko's "The Walls of the Universe" put me in mind of Robert Heinlein's juvenile books, such as Starman Jones, Podkayne of Mars, Tunnel in the Sky, etc.

The idea of these stories was a young person being thrust from the comfort of their childhood into the big and mysterious universe, and learning that character makes destiny. The stories wove a sermon of independence, self-reliance, learning and integrity into a plot line filled with conflicts that had to be resolved, and ended with the character on the verge of making his permanent step into adulthood. This plotline is often called "the hero makes a journey."

The "hero makes a journey" is a fundamental storyline, but not an insignificant one, or one which should be disdained simply for being fundamental. To the contrary, it's an important storyline because everyone goes through it at one time or another. There are worth things to do with one's writing than to capture the imagination of the young and offer a model for how the tricky passage between juvenilia and adulthood should be navigated.

In the case of "The Walls of the Universe," we see how John Rayburn is shanghaied by John Rayburn into a one way trip into alternate universes. The first John Rayburn, a nice young man with a naive, trusting and somewhat rigid code of honor, meets his double who claims to come from a parallel universe where things are just slightly different. The intruder - John "Prime" - has a device that permits him to dial himself into alternate worlds. Where the device comes from is not explained, and doesn't arouse the curiosity of either John Prime or his naive alternate, John "Farmboy."

Unknown to John Farmboy, John Prime intends to commit a new kind of "identity theft," one which eventually leaves Farmboy in a world where his alternate was never born. From there, Farmboy plans to learn the secrets of the device and return to his universe. Along the way, an offhand comment leads to the invention of pinball, which attracts the dangerous attention of others who have been stranded in the backwater universe that is so close to Farmboy's own universe. Before he knows it, Farmboy is playing a high stakes, blindman's bluff game of industrial espionage.

Back in his homeworld, we see character lead to destiny as Prime's "cut the corner" approach leads to failure and murder. Moreover, because of his attempt to introduce the Rubik's cube, Prime has also attracted some unwonted attention from someone who recognizes the Rubik's cube for what it is.

Will the Johns' paths cross again? Will they find a way to resolve their problems? Who the heck are these people with so much knowledge of alternate universes? Where do they come from? What are their plans? Why are they so indifferent to causing suffering to people they interact with?

Well, there's a sequel, so if the answers aren't provided in this instalment, they will be provided in the next one.

The writing was clearn and direct. The two-level plot was not difficult to follow. The characters were somewhat two-dimensional, but on the whole it entertained and pulled me deeper into the book. Since that's what I want - and I'm a sucker for alternate history or "portal worlds" stories - I cannot help but recommend this book.
Have you ever wondered what your life might be like had you, or someone else, just made a different, possibly even minor, choice? Just how much would change? Such speculation provides the grist for alternate (or parallel) universe novel The Walls of the Universe. Into the life of simple farmboy and engineering school hopeful John Rayburn walks...John Rayburn. John Prime (nicknames being necessary for obvious reasons) tells John Farmboy that inter-universe travel is possible courtesy of a device small enough to strap to his chest. He loans John Farmboy the device as proof it works, and things get interesting from there.

It's this period, when John Farmboy is darting from universe to universe, when The Walls of the Universe is at its best. It's fast-paced, and the glimpses of alternate universes alluring (perhaps too alluring, I would like to have seen more of some of the worlds). John Farmboy discovers that some worlds are very, very different, but also that some things never change.

The story begins to bog down when John Farmboy finally takes an extended sojourn in a universe. Your mileage will vary for this section depending on how interesting you find entrepreneurship, as John starts a pinball company. POVs alternate between John Prime and John Farmboy most of the novel, but Prime's POVs curiously disappear well before the end of the book (there's good reason, but Melko could have been smoother about it).

I will leave the evaluation of the physics to those more qualified to comment. The entrepreneurial aspects are generally well done. The logic holes of the sort inherent to alternate universes are present.
Paul Melko's The Walls of the Universe reminds me a bit of the old-style Heinlein/Asimov kind of juveniles plucky young intelligent male protagonist into science gets himself into lots of scrapes then extricates himself using those sciency smarts (say, to invent or build something), all of which is conveyed in adequate but not particularly memorable prose. It also reminded me a lot of the old TV show Sliders, both in its movement-through-parallel-universes premise (not original to Sliders by any means) and in its TV-like presentation--easily digestible writing, various moments of implausibility, a tendency to have things happen a bit too easily. What redeems the novel somewhat is its use of multiple point-of-view from the "same" person--two parallel versions of the main character, a nicely managed twist on a familiar premise that lifts Walls of the Universe above its other, more pedestrian qualities.

John Rayburn, a high school senior, is surprised in the woods near his family farm by another version of himself (John Prime), who explains he is from a parallel universe. Years ago John Prime was himself surprised by yet another version of John (John Superprime) who showed up and gave him the device which allows for interdimensional travel--a small machine that straps across one's chest. Prime, who plans to make money by transplanting as yet untapped ideas from other universes into new ones (such as "inventing" the Rubik's Cube), convinces Farmboy John (Prime's name for him) to take the machine for a spin and see for himself. Unfortunately, the machine only goes up the universe chain, meaning Farmboy John (hereafter referred to in this review simply as "John") can't get back home, which was Prime's plan all along, as he now slides relatively effortlessly into John's life going to college, becoming a businessman, eventually marrying and impregnating the high school cheerleader John had always been too shy to speak to.

Meanwhile, after having some near-shaves in a few of the multi-universes, John eventually settles in one and gets on with his life, going to school (where he meets his best friends and eventual partners Grace and John), starting a business by introducing the pinball machine to this world, and trying to learn as much as he can about the transport device in an attempt to fix it and return home. These twin goals eventually bring him into conflict with other interdimensional travelers who become the eventual villains. And behind them, it is rumored, is another group who seemingly enforces interdimensional travel and rules.

As mentioned, the premise is a familiar one and Melko doesn't do much here to expand on it or make it feel all that new. We only see a very few of the multiverses and not for any extended period of time at all. The vast majority of the book is set in Ohio in Universe One (John's original universe) and Universe Two (John's new universe) and there really are very few differences between them. On the one hand, it serves the plot, as this is what allows the two John's to insert themselves so easily into their new worlds. But even then, it would have been nice to have seen some tiny, even trivial divergences of world and culture that wouldn't have been disruptive but could have added a bit of imaginative spice.
The two separate storylines are mostly exciting. Prime's gets complicated by some legal issues and then complicated more by a murder and John's storyline picks up in action and stakes-level with the arrival of the other travelers. There are some pacing issues, mostly in John's story arc, where I'd say the author spends a bit too much time on the pinball creation (probably more detail on the actual construction as well) and on the finer more mundane points of business creation.

The villains are a little cartoonish, edging near to caricature mustache-twirling masters of a massive criminal conspiracy while at the same time being a bit too conveniently inept. That "too-easy" aspect raises its head multiple times, unfortunately. Even at the very beginning, I found it implausible just how easily John accepts the idea of parallel universes, a too-fast acceptance we see repeated by several characters throughout the book. Having one character say "I read a lot of science fiction . . so this is not as much of a shock as it should be" doesn't quite cut it.

That's mostly just a little annoying, but when the still-in-college kid manages to reverse engineer an interdimensional transport device, well, that was not only harder to swallow but detracted much more from the reading experience. A few other more minor complaints include the ease with which some of the characters use weaponry, a few somewhat abrupt character shifts, and the sense that the whole dimensional aspect isn't quite fully nailed down. For instance, as when one character reels off a whole bunch of percentages--1% of the time the South wins the Civil War--but we're given no explanation for how such a percentage could possibly be determined; or when the idea arises of "Singletons", people with no alternate versions of themselves, versus "Dups", duplicate versions such as Farmboy John and John Prime, and again, we're given no explanation of how one could determine this or how it happens.

As mentioned in my intro, the style is relatively pedestrian. It isn't bad at all; it's smooth flowing, doesn't clunk very often, speeds you easily through the plot, never slows you down. For some, I realize, that's the definition of just what they want in style. Others would say this is just what is needed for a YA audience. I prefer a bit more of a challenge, some lines that startle me with their originality of phrasing or use of metaphor/simile, some evidence that the author is at least a little in love with language. As for the YA argument, there are certainly enough gorgeous YA stylists out there that one can debunk the idea that YA means language stripped down to its easiest, most digestible, most dull chunks (China Mieville's Railsea completely explodes that idea, while Ursula K. Leguin undermines it with starkly graceful beauty, to offer up two such examples).

If those are the book's weaknesses, what are its strengths? It's best aspect is the use of the two points-of-view to show us how the "same" character can diverge from identical beginnings into two quite different personalities based on the situations they find themselves in. The complicated relationship that eventually forms between John and John Prime is extremely interesting. In many ways, actually, I found John Prime the more interesting of the two characters, if only because we tend to like the "good" characters but be fascinated by the "bad" ones. Prime isn't wholly bad by any means, and it's that grey line he walks that I found intriguing, as well as his introspection over it. I also thoroughly enjoyed the relationship he ends up forming with the Casey of that world, who is also quite different in fascinating ways than the Casey John originally hooks up with in his adopted universe.
Conceptually, I like what Melko does when he raises the question of what value does a life have or not have when we become aware that there may be an infinite number of versions of that life? Should we really care, for instance, what happens to any of the Johns or Caseys since there are infinite Johns and Caseys? He does a good job of exploring this, though I wish he had done even more with it.

I also did enjoy the almost nostalgic feel of the plot, with its optimistic focus on young characters banding together and using their intelligence and other personal strengths to overcome the odds. I think had I come across this as a child fresh off my Danny Dunn and Tom Swift reading and in the midst of my Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov reading it would have slid quite happily into the rotation. Is it as good? Who knows? I'm sure in some ways it's actually better written despite its flaws (some of the dialogue in those books would probably make me cringe now), but I have so much sentimentality wrapped up in those books it just wouldn't be a fair comparison.
Finally, as it is YA, I should mention that there are a few brief references to sex ("he felt how hot her sex was near his" is the most graphic line amongst not very many references at all), as well as a good amount of gun violence and death.

In the end, I'd say I was a bit disappointed in The Walls of the Universe, as I'd heard lots of good things about it. It seems to me it's what people are thinking when they use that qualifying line I usually hate, "it's good for a YA book" not challenging, smooth flowing plot, lots of action, likable characters, not a lot of depth. To me, it makes it not a "good" YA book, but a "pleasantly decent but wanting" YA book, which is what Walls is.