THREADER ORIGINS by Gerald Brandt – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Threader Origins by Gerald Brandt
Series: Quantum Empirica #1
Published by Daw Books on January 12 2021
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Threader Origins had a lot of potential, but a sluggish middle section made this an uneven read for me.

Threader Origins has a great hook: a machine called the Quantum Power Source, designed as a solution to the world’s energy needs, misfires and pushes a young undergrad into a dystopian parallel world where everyone seems to be after him due to his abilities to see and manipulate “threads.” The story gets off to a great start, and I was immediately pulled into Darwin’s story, but unfortunately the middle section of the book had a lot of pacing problems. What started strong quickly became tedious, at least until the last few chapters when things picked up again. This inconsistency resulted in a lower rating than I had hoped, although the author certainly has lots of good ideas.

Darwin Lloyd is a physics student at Princeton and has been working with his father on a big project over summer break at Quantum Labs: the QPS machine, or Quantum Power Source. But during the final test of the machine, something goes terribly wrong, and Darwin finds himself thrown into another world. He wakes up in a dystopian nightmare, a prisoner of a group of people called the Qabal who are led by a woman named Rebecca. Even worse, he’s still inside Quantum Labs, but in this world his father is dead. Despite his fear and confusion, Darwin discovers something amazing: he can suddenly see “threads,” weird quantum strings that surround every living thing. Although threads are invisible to most people, some have the ability to see and manipulate them. Rebecca is fascinated to find out that Darwin can not only See (yes, that’s “See” with a capital S) the threads, but that he’s actually from another world, and she’s determined to learn his secret.

But Darwin refuses to remain a prisoner, and so he escapes as soon as he can. On the outside, life is harsh and dangerous. Wild dogs roam the streets, food and water are scarce, and no one can be trusted. But with the help of some kind strangers, Darwin begins to make friends and form a plan. He desperately wants to go home, but in order to do so, he’s going to have to master his ability with threads first.

I do love parallel universe/multiverse stories, which is one reason I wanted to read this book. And for the most part, Gerald does some interesting things with the idea. I’m not an expert in quantum physics by any stretch of the imagination, so admittedly a lot of the technical descriptions of threads went over my head, but the author does a pretty good job of explaining how they work without alienating his readers. There were some very exciting scenes in this book involving the threads, which can also be used as a weapon (the closest example I can think of is a Star Wars lightsaber battle). If you can See threads, you can learn how to control them, and Darwin learns very quickly how to do all sorts of things, including defending himself against the bad guys, who are trying to capture or kill him (or both, I was a little confused about that part of the story).

But while all this sounds like the fixings for a thrilling sci-fi adventure, the story starts to fall apart once Darwin is transported to this alternate world. He spends a great deal of time trying to get away from various groups of people who want to use him for nefarious purposes (purposes which are never really explained to my satisfaction), running off into a dangerous world that he doesn’t understand, getting attacked/captured or fainting from hunger because he can’t find food or water, and then being miraculously rescued by a good Samaritan and nursed back to health. This scenario repeated itself over and over and soon became tiresome. Even worse, Darwin never really seemed to learn from these experiences and kept making the same mistakes over and over again.

Perhaps the biggest issue I had, though, is the character of Darwin himself. I just didn’t like him all that much, and he never really grew on me at all. Plus, he’s sort of clueless, and for a physics student I found that hard to accept. For example, when Darwin first finds himself in another world, it takes him forever to figure out what’s going on. Readers like me, even without a background in quantum physics, will instantly know that Darwin has traveled to a parallel universe. I also couldn’t figure out why everyone was after him. I mean, everyone thinks he’s special and is super important and wants to “keep” him for themselves. Apparently he’s very good at using the threads, and of course he has the distinction of being the only person who has ever come from another world, but some of the dialog surrounding his “specialness” really grated on me. As one character tells him, “You’re an incredible man, Darwin.” I would have to disagree.

Using threads also means some people can create “holes,” like small wormholes, I guess. Going through a hole can instantly transport someone from, let’s say for example, New Jersey to California in the blink of an eye. This was another element that slowed down the pacing and added quite a bit of confusion to the story. Darwin and his traveling companions go from New Jersey, to Oregon, to California and back again, all by using holes. I often forgot where the characters were at any given time, and I couldn’t figure out the reason for all this moving around. Darwin’s ultimate goal is to get back home, and to do that he needs to be in New Jersey where Quantum Labs is located. Other than take up a bunch of pages, I’m not sure how these jumps contributed much to the story.

Brandt throws in the obligatory romance, which I honestly could have done without. I just didn’t feel the emotions between the two characters and I honestly couldn’t have cared less whether they ended up together or not. Other emotional moments, like Darwin’s continued remorse about playing a part in his mother’s death five years earlier and his desire to see his father again just didn’t have the impact I was hoping for. These moments had the potential to be memorable, but Brandt’s writing didn’t evoke any kind of emotion for me, unfortunately.

I know I’ve focused more on the negative in this review, but I have to say I was surprised when the last four or five chapters turned around and finally gave me the exciting, fast-paced story I was hoping for. It was a great way to end the book, and even though this is the first in a planned series, I thought the author tied things up nicely. It was too bad that the overall story was so inconsistent, although I have to admit I’m curious to see where Brandt takes his story next. I’ve read so many other excellent parallel universe stories that it’s hard to recommend this one, but some readers might find Brandt’s unique set-up worth checking out.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.