Book Review: Reality Alternatives by Lesley L. Smith

I quite liked this one – I recently read and reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (I actually read it concurrently with this title), and was insanely excited to have not one but TWO multiverse books going at the same time… I am fascinated by the quantum theory concept of multiple branching, parallel universes that arise out of our choices (or decisions not to choose). Reality Alternatives puts a novel take on this construct, using virtual reality as a gateway to (at least one of) these other universes. I liked this idea; it gave the story a fresh angle with which to come at the concept, while simultaneously addressing the often ignored problem of what happens to the you that is physically here when your consciousness branches out into another universe and puts you in another you’s body… (Incidentally, Crouch addressed this problem in an altogether different – and Crouch-ly realistic yet horrifying – way. It was fascinating to see the same basic theory handled in such distinctly original fashions in the two books – a bit of parallel universe-ing of its own!)

The basic premise – what our lives would look like if we had made different choices – is not a new one, and not one that is unique to the quantum multiverse concept. But the tech spin of quantum theory makes the standard “what if” idea just that much more interesting because it allows the author to actually play out the choices without relying on tropes like dreams or imagination. When Professor Chloe Carsen’s grant proposal actually works, no one is more surprised than she – and when it not only works, but gives her a life so radically different than her own that she literally cannot leave it, well, that’s when things get interesting…

The vast majority of the book is Chloe’s alterna-life, which is fine – it’s a unique and strange one, with odd goings on, and a lovely cast of characters. It would have been nice to get more contrast with a little more back-and-forth between her “real” life and her VR-induced one. Learning about the highs and lows of the path-not-taken is, after all, more dramatic when there is a thorough explanation of each path and its consequences. Also, it rather starts to stretch the bounds of credibility when she immerses herself so totally that she literally threatens her “original” life – even though an explanation is given for how this is possible, it is still hard to believe she could pull it off. Still, that aside, the two lives are strikingly different – for more reasons than the obvious, although I can’t mention why without a spoiler – and as a reader I had no trouble comparing them on my own. Had Smith done a more extensive job of that, she may have been unable to avoid explicit or implicit value judgments; this may be one reason she did not. As it is, the reader gets to interpret Chloe’s decisions – all of them – and that is a satisfyingly complex job in its own right.

Lesley Smith has created a credible scientific explanation for traveling between worlds – one I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope she has plans for more such creations – this was a fun, engaging, smart story and I look forward to reading more from her!

My review copy was provided by NetGalley.