Thursday, July 19, 2012

Planesrunner (Everness #1) by Ian McDonald

Planesrunner (Everness #1) by Ian McDonald
Publisher:  Pyr 
Publish Date:  December 6, 2011
ISBN:  978-1616145415
Pages:  269


I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.



I feel that you've all gotten to know me since you've been reading my reviews.  However, there might be a few things you don't know yet.  One is that I'm an absolute geek for parallel universes or a multi-verse.  The use of quantum physics just makes me so happy!  Then, when the author tosses in words like 'infundibulum', I'm fifty kinds of excited!  (An infundibulum, basically, means it's bigger on the inside.  For example - the TARDIS)

The story goes like this:
     Everett (age 14) is waiting for his physicist dad to go to a lecture when he sees him being kidnapped.  The police seem to be shrugging it off and no one seems really worried about it.  However, Everett receives an electronic file from his dad.  He's not sure what it is, but with the help of a video from his dad's co-worker, he figures it out.  It's an infundibulum, which he configures into a map of the multi-verse.  Everett sets off, knowing that his dad is somewhere out there.  He ends up in an alternate universe on an airship.

Characters:
Everett - amazing, awesome, good kid.  He's brilliant in the field of physics and cooking, but otherwise he's an average kid.  He plays goalie for his school soccer team and deals with his parents divorce.  He gets mad and does stupid stuff.

Sen Sixsmythe - Everness navigator, at times got on my nerves but I ended up loving her.

The Captain - an absolute delight.  She's authoritative, demanding, decisive and yet caring at odd moments.  There is an amazing scene that isn't really clear on what she does but that she holds her own and I loved it!

Mr. Sharkey - he's our biggest gray character.  It's hard to see which way he'll swing.  He's a bible and Shakespeare quoting southern man.  He's quick to jump into a fight and he's loyal to the Everness.

Mchynlyth - Scottish engineer.  He's straight talking and seems to get Everett.

The writing is so good that you don't even notice it.  To me, that's amazing.  I never thought 'That doesn't make sense', 'he would never do that' or 'wasn't his hair brown?'.  Between the author and editor, they did an divine job.

The Airish language was wonderful and honestly, I was able to figure 98% of it out using context and from relating it to other languages.  No, I don't speak a lot of languages, but for some words, it's easy to translate them from one language to another.  Or is that just me? :)

Of course there are villains! There are now 10 known worlds, so there's a huge possibility for helpfulness and villainy.  The biggest issue is that with every planet Earth, there's another you...maybe a good one, maybe a bad one, maybe a smarter one, maybe a dead one...  The same goes for the villains.

The author gives great details about the differences in the worlds and how the machineries work.  There are nods to other fab works as well, such as Dr. Who and Star Trek.  This is a great start to a series, I certainly hope that there's many more to come!

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