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Mark and Gerry's Sci-Fi Reviews Continue.....
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Review of Beyond the Veil of Stars and its sequel Beneath the Gated Sky by Robert Reed
Review by Mark
Let me begin at the end. These two novels are readable and the author almost certainly plans a third volume in what is so far a two novel series. So, if you are a serial reader these books are OK. However, these books are only "OK". They aren't particularly well written, the science in the fiction, while intriguing, is full of holes and the characters are sometimes boring.
Now for some specifics:
The principle ideas in this story are a bit complex and I'd like a chance to explain what I think this author is postulating. Here goes. If the reader is a particle in the universe then the reader is also a piece of unique information and can be defined by position, time, a variety of unique molecular compositions and quantum numbers etc. In general we can say that the amount of "information" is conserved- even if we die our fundamental information survives (some scientists argue that information is lost in a black hole but this is controversial). Beyond the Veil of Stars and Beneath the Gated Sky begin with a premise that observation is a kind of information removal and that there is some kind of quantum mechanical rebellion to the telescopic observation of the sky. Too much peering through telescopes makes such observation a quantum mechanically "forbidden" process and you only can observe yourself.
A subsequent premise in these novels is that life teems in the near universe and that these worlds are united through extra-dimensional intersections. When animals pass through the intersections they land on the connecting world naked and put together as an indigenous lifeform at approximately the same position on the food chain as the world left behind. Non-living items do not pass so immodesty is a requirement for this kind of space travel, and global conquest is made more inconvenient.
Anyhow, there exist a large race (called "The Few") that live among us and the indigenous races of all the near worlds, and their interactions and manipulations bring about complications. Therein lies the story in these two novels.
OK. Well if the exposition I have provided is slightly disjointed it's because Reed never makes clear what the connection is between these two ideas of quantum limits to visual observation of the sky and the interworld portals and their travellers. The ideas themselves are interesting but they dilute each other in a single story and get lost in the muddle.
Within the novel there is a soap opera aspect involving a relatively dispassionate love affair between a human and one of The Few. There is also the obligatory government conspiracy, but it doesn't all amount to very much and the characters are pretty stereotypical. The second novel ends leaving the reader hanging and the author hints about a second race of interworld travellers that have a clashing relationship with The Few. With three years between novels, the next installment should be coming out soon.
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