Infinity's Web

by Sheila Finch

Anastasia Valerie Stein discovers her many possible selves through a warp in the fabric of time, and together they unite to battle a force that manipulates the diverse universes

Genres: Science Fiction

Paperback

First published August 1, 1985

About the author

Sheila Finch was born in London, England, and attended Bishop Otter College before coming to the United States in 1957, where she did graduate work in medieval literature and linguistics at Indiana University. She has lived in California since 1962, and teaches Creative Writing, and the Literature of Science Fiction at El Camino College in Torrance. She also runs workshops in fiction writing each summer at Idyllwild Arts Academy in the San Jacinto Mountains. She has three daughters, six grandchildren, and two cats, all of whom supply enough ideas to keep a writer busy. She has published seven science fiction novels. The first one, "Infinity's Web," won the Compton Crook Award, and the most recent, "Tiger in the Sky," won the San Diego Book Award for best juvenile fiction. She has published short stories in F&SF, Amazing Stories, Asimov's, Fantasy Book, and a number of anthologies, as well as several articles about science fiction. "Reading the Bones," won the Nebula Award for best novella of 1998.

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shame, this clip-art-ass cover keeping readers from the book. Equally strange, however, the book itself — its bissected narrative interests (partially C-grade Jane Smiley and partially knock-off Deepak Chopra profundities), its topsy blendings of science fiction and fantasy undergirding, its disinterest in anything other than emotional climax. Likely too loosey goosey in the second half for a full throated “give it a shot”, but worse shots are daily taken. STORY: four different versions of “Ann” play out in parallel dimensions, with each, to varying degrees, in the process of being made aware of the fact, some through quantum physics, some through tarot, and some through a cosmic godhead selecting one as the chosen threshold breaker whose wakedreams are filled with visions of all the others. Yup.

[Susan]

DNF. Just not interesting.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was difficult to read. The concepts/theories were complex and jumping between various characters at various stages of understanding was difficult. Very interesting concept and masterfully written. It took me almost half the book to see that Ann, Tasha, Stacey & Val were all variations on the main character's name.

[John Loyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ann is a housewife with husband Neil and twin daughters. She is having periods of time that she can't remember, but lots of memories of other people. The reader gets to look in on these others Tasha, Val, Stacey, and know that she's seeing alternate versions of herself. Bad things start to happen. Ann's daughter is bitten by a spider and has a severe reaction, she thinks her husband is cheating on her, Val loses her job, one of Tasha's mirrors is broken.

In the different dimensions there are people working on inter-dimension communication. Val is close to physicist Ted who is working on this project. Tasha is more of a witch that has been contacted by the government to work with their scientists. In Stacey's world there is a prophet.

Ann starts seeing a psychiatrist which isn't helping much. Val starts seeing Ted. Stacey leaves Kermode and Big Arthur to be with her son. There are enough plot elements to keep the story going. Then the action heats up a bit and we get the satisfying but not quite fulfilling ending.

The major premise of the story is the multiple realities. Finch takes several approaches at explaining. I found it a little hard at times to follow what Tasha was doing and ended up just going with it, reading on. How she used the realities to interact with each other was better. We are waiting for some major breakthrough to happen, and then wonder how it will fix the problems in each of the alternate dimensions. The way she finished the story was satisfying.

[Kyleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had a great premise, but it failed to live up to my expectations. It was too preachy. The beginning is good. The alternate realities that Finch creates are fascinating and interesting. Once she starts the move towards the character’s affecting each other, it gets very lame. Finch tells the story as if she's trying to convince you that this is the way the world actually is. Instead of finding interesting ways to explain how her fiction could be science, she uses a lot of jargon that sounds almost-good and expects you to fall for it. This is not science-fiction; it's just fiction.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have you ever picked up a mirror and reflected it into another mirror to gaze into the infinity of reflections? That’s an image used in this book, but instead of gazing in wonder, I was bored. The premise is quite interesting: a woman exists in multiple universes that eventually converge. Unfortunately, I found the convergence really hard to follow and just found myself reading through it just to get to the end.

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[Martin Sanchez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating concept, but with some issues

The concept of multiple universes is always fascinating and the author uses the scientific theories around them in an effective way, weaving the stories of the different versions of the main protagonist.
However, the ending felt rushed and left some of the story lines unresolved, which might be on purpose of course but it didn’t satisfy. Her treatment of people of color in the book is also quite questionable and antiquated.

[Graisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really good, though it moved a bit slowly in places. The ending was fast paced and held my attention.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book about a group of women who are living on parallel Earths. In each case, for one reason or another, they are tied to a questioning of what constitutes reality, and what effect an observer has on what is observed. It's based on an actual scientific experiment, and postulates that communication between parallel realities might be possible. It's a good and fascinating book.