I’m immensely appreciative of Stuart Heinrich for undertaking quite a project – sharing complex and niche scientific ideas such as physical relativism and quantum cosmology with a general audience of sci-fi/speculative fiction readers in novel form. Think The Celestine Prophecy, but for science!
Heinrich has previously published non-fiction articles on similar topics, and The Quantum Revelations is his attempt to integrate these areas of study into fiction.
The plot is fun. In the near future, climate change rapidly accelerates past the point of no return. The weather is awful, violent storms are common, staple foods are becoming scarce, and everything is expensive (sound familiar?). Skyler Wexler, a low-level physics researcher, stumbles upon some technology that may help everyone…or not! Skyler and his lab-mate Zara go on some adventures to try and make it through the cataclysm alive.
Unfortunately, while the story does have the skeleton of a fun plot and does succeed in sharing scientific and philosophical ideas, it fails as a novel.
Primarily, the problem is that the characters are caricatures of people. There is no real humanity in anyone. A few of the main characters do have some motivations and psychology, but they don’t feel like people as much as automatons moving through a standard thriller plot.
The second problem is that the protagonist, Skyler, is extremely unlikable. He is a low-level researcher convinced he is meant for greatness. Everyone he comes into contact with is treated with nothing but disdain and condescension. Maybe this was intentional. Certainly, novels can have unlikable protagonists. But those protagonists need to be compelling. Skyler didn’t do it for me, and neither did the book.
2.5/5, rounded down.
NOTE: The author links his papers on his website. They are worth a read!
Thanks to Endless Tree Books LLC for providing a copy of this book to me via NetGalley for review. Opinions, as always, are my own.
This book is taking the Free/Diaspora spot on my Bingo card, thus giving me a Bingo (Yay, me!)