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Alternities
What if...there is more than one Earth?
Sister worlds exist, recognizably alike yet startlingly different. And the "gate house" between these worlds is a closely guarded secret of America's fanatical leader...
- For President Robinson, the gate house is a military ace-in-the-hole, a last laugh in his ever-more aggressive sparring with the Soviets.
- For Senator Endicott, the first man to travel from one Earth to another, the Alternities provide a playground for his most evil, power-crazed fantasies.
- But for Rayne Wallace, member of the elite Guards sent to spy on these other worlds, the gates offer a chance to start his life over again...
Sister worlds exist, recognizably alike yet startlingly different. And the "gate house" between these worlds is a closely guarded secret of America's fanatical leader...
- For President Robinson, the gate house is a military ace-in-the-hole, a last laugh in his ever-more aggressive sparring with the Soviets.
- For Senator Endicott, the first man to travel from one Earth to another, the Alternities provide a playground for his most evil, power-crazed fantasies.
- But for Rayne Wallace, member of the elite Guards sent to spy on these other worlds, the gates offer a chance to start his life over again...
383 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
7 people are currently reading
179 people want to read
About the author
Michael P. Kube-McDowell
52 books58 followersMichael Paul Kube-McDowell's earliest science fiction stories began appearing in magazines such as Amazing, Asimov's, and Analog in 1979. His 1985 debut novel Emprise, the first volume of the Trigon Disunity future history, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. The Quiet Pools, published as a Bantam hardcover in 1990, was a Hugo Award nominee.
In addition to his solo novels, Kube-McDowell has collaborated with Sir Arthur C. Clarke (The Trigger) and Isaac Asimov (for the YA series Robot City. He also wrote the popular Black Fleet Crisis trilogy for the Star Wars Expanded Universe; all three volumes were New York Times bestsellers.
A former middle school science teacher, Kube-McDowell has written about science and technology for a variety of periodicals, on topics ranging from gnotobiology to ultralights to spaceflight. He covered the launch of STS-4 for The South Bend Tribune.
Kube-McDowell has attended more than 80 SF fan conventions, and met his wife Gwen (then an artist) in a con huckster room. They both were later members of the Pegasus Award-winning electric filk ensemble The Black Book Band, which performed at cons in the Midwest in the 1990s and released the live album First Contact (Dodeka Records).
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 2, 2021
Let's start with the good stuff, which is (to my mind, anyway) really good. Alternities is a great title, and Michael P. Kube-McDowell's 1988 novel does still, by and large, live up to it.
Might-have-beens are easy to come up with, after all, but they're really hard to get right. Too many stories about parallel universes end up being paralyzed by the idea that, if any alternatives exist, all alternatives must exist. But when any conceivable decision could have gone either way—when every imaginable (and unimaginable) option did go both ways, somewhere in the multiverse—what's the point of anything? Leaving aside Larry Niven's classic—nay, canonical—short story "All the Myriad Ways," that surfeit of choice can be suffocating.
What makes Alternities so fascinating, even upon second reading, is that it is so well-constrained. Kube-McDowell's characters have only a few alternatives available to them—few enough that they can be named after the colors of the rainbow—and none of them seem to be our own. To me, that makes this novel a more compelling exploration of what might have been than just about any of its contemporaries.
Alternities also benefits from having primary characters who are both well-rounded and imperfect. Walter Endicott discovered the pathway between worlds, but he is no heroic explorer—quite the contrary—and Rayne Wallace, our primary viewpoint character, has significant blind spots and personality flaws too.
As does Alternities as a whole, I'm afraid—although I still really like it, the novel hasn't aged especially well, in several ways. For example: all of its primary characters are men, even in the more liberal alternities where that might not be expected. And, Rayne Wallace employs some explicitly racist language, early on—which may be plausible for the time-and-timeline described, but it's still very jarring.
The timelines in Alternities have become foreign along another axis as well: they come from an alien past. The Soviet Union still exists, and the U.S. is still embroiled in a Cold War (hotter in some alternities than others) with it. And there's a gangster President who must have been shocking in 1988 but who seems all too plausible now. It's unfair to expect Kube-McDowell to have anticipated our own rather screwed-up 21st-Century timeline in detail, though—instead, I think it's important to approach this book as an artifact of its time.
To sum up: Alternities remains a pretty good book, at least for its time—and if you like exploring Uchronia, you owe it to yourself to check out this fascinating example.
Might-have-beens are easy to come up with, after all, but they're really hard to get right. Too many stories about parallel universes end up being paralyzed by the idea that, if any alternatives exist, all alternatives must exist. But when any conceivable decision could have gone either way—when every imaginable (and unimaginable) option did go both ways, somewhere in the multiverse—what's the point of anything? Leaving aside Larry Niven's classic—nay, canonical—short story "All the Myriad Ways," that surfeit of choice can be suffocating.
What makes Alternities so fascinating, even upon second reading, is that it is so well-constrained. Kube-McDowell's characters have only a few alternatives available to them—few enough that they can be named after the colors of the rainbow—and none of them seem to be our own. To me, that makes this novel a more compelling exploration of what might have been than just about any of its contemporaries.
Alternities also benefits from having primary characters who are both well-rounded and imperfect. Walter Endicott discovered the pathway between worlds, but he is no heroic explorer—quite the contrary—and Rayne Wallace, our primary viewpoint character, has significant blind spots and personality flaws too.
As does Alternities as a whole, I'm afraid—although I still really like it, the novel hasn't aged especially well, in several ways. For example: all of its primary characters are men, even in the more liberal alternities where that might not be expected. And, Rayne Wallace employs some explicitly racist language, early on—which may be plausible for the time-and-timeline described, but it's still very jarring.
The timelines in Alternities have become foreign along another axis as well: they come from an alien past. The Soviet Union still exists, and the U.S. is still embroiled in a Cold War (hotter in some alternities than others) with it. And there's a gangster President who must have been shocking in 1988 but who seems all too plausible now. It's unfair to expect Kube-McDowell to have anticipated our own rather screwed-up 21st-Century timeline in detail, though—instead, I think it's important to approach this book as an artifact of its time.
To sum up: Alternities remains a pretty good book, at least for its time—and if you like exploring Uchronia, you owe it to yourself to check out this fascinating example.
March 30, 2014
Boy, there wasn't a single character in this book that was likeable. Not one. The protagonist, Rayne Wallace, a "Runner" who goes between alternate versions of America, is an absolute asshole to his wife, who in turn is a total bitch to him. Wonderful marriage. In one of the worlds he visits, he happens upon an alternate old crush named Shan. We're supposed to applaud their falling in love as he can start a new life, possibly, and finally be happy. Never mind that he's cheating on his wife and leaving his little girl in the dust. Shan seems somewhat likeable -- until she turns him in to the government because of a strange gift he brings her from his world, thus ensuring his capture and interrogation, leading to the climax of the book.
There's also President Robinson, who's a psychotic intent upon starting a nuclear war with Russia, which in this world (the "Home" alternity) is a big bully to pussycat America and which has its nuclear subs appearing in our ports. Robinson's out to change that and nukes one of their subs, which is only a precursor to what he intends to do. And he intends to use these alternate Earths as escape vehicles for he and his government cronies so that they can continue to dominate worlds while their America is obliterated by Russian nukes. Real nutjob.
Then there's Senator Endicott, who discovered the "gates" to these alternative Americas, although we're never told how. He has women from these alternaties brought over for him to serve as sex slaves whom he ultimately murders. And he murders others in his quest for power. Real nice character. He tortures these women first, by the way.
Tackett and O'Neil are also characters and perhaps we can identify with them a bit because they're opposed to Robinson's plans, but O'Neil's a whiner and Tackett is in the dark, which is surprising because he heads the intelligence unit that utilizes these gates to steal things from alternate Americas and bring them back to improve the "Home" America's chances of evening the playing field with the Russians.
Then there's the mysterious maze that lies between the alternate gates with its own demon that destroys people it encounters. That's never really satisfactorily explained, although the author tries to late in the book, to my dissatisfaction.
I wanted to give this book four stars because I like alternate world stories -- Philip K Dick has it down. But the characters in this book have no redeeming qualities and I hated just about everyone I encountered and everything they stood for in this book, and for that reason alone, I can't recommend it.
There's also President Robinson, who's a psychotic intent upon starting a nuclear war with Russia, which in this world (the "Home" alternity) is a big bully to pussycat America and which has its nuclear subs appearing in our ports. Robinson's out to change that and nukes one of their subs, which is only a precursor to what he intends to do. And he intends to use these alternate Earths as escape vehicles for he and his government cronies so that they can continue to dominate worlds while their America is obliterated by Russian nukes. Real nutjob.
Then there's Senator Endicott, who discovered the "gates" to these alternative Americas, although we're never told how. He has women from these alternaties brought over for him to serve as sex slaves whom he ultimately murders. And he murders others in his quest for power. Real nice character. He tortures these women first, by the way.
Tackett and O'Neil are also characters and perhaps we can identify with them a bit because they're opposed to Robinson's plans, but O'Neil's a whiner and Tackett is in the dark, which is surprising because he heads the intelligence unit that utilizes these gates to steal things from alternate Americas and bring them back to improve the "Home" America's chances of evening the playing field with the Russians.
Then there's the mysterious maze that lies between the alternate gates with its own demon that destroys people it encounters. That's never really satisfactorily explained, although the author tries to late in the book, to my dissatisfaction.
I wanted to give this book four stars because I like alternate world stories -- Philip K Dick has it down. But the characters in this book have no redeeming qualities and I hated just about everyone I encountered and everything they stood for in this book, and for that reason alone, I can't recommend it.
January 18, 2008
I love the idea of alternate universes, and using it as an idea in a political thriller sounded fun. A president who gets more aggressive with the Russians, knowing he can escape to another universe? Awesome. Unfortunately, that's only a third of this book, and it's really not exciting. Most of this book, we follow a senator and his sex slaves stolen from other worlds and a man cheating on his wife with a girl in another world. You care for none of the protagonists (really, the main character is a racist, a misogynist, and a cheater). The last little bit gets exciting, but really wastes the premise. If you truly love the ideas of parallel worlds and alternative history, maybe struggle through this for the last 100 or so pages.
February 20, 2008
This is an awesome book... the premise of alternate realities and how they can corrupt is fascinating. A must-read!
September 1, 2021
DNF'd @ pg. 100
Alternities by Michael P. Kube-McDowell sounded so cool. It has so much potential and the central idea behind it is fascinating. I was really looking forward to this one, but it just wasn't working for me. I didn't care about any of the characters. Plus, I guess I was getting a little too confused to keep track of everyone to top it off. The novel is going for Philip K. Dick, but it just didn't manage it for me.
Alternities by Michael P. Kube-McDowell sounded so cool. It has so much potential and the central idea behind it is fascinating. I was really looking forward to this one, but it just wasn't working for me. I didn't care about any of the characters. Plus, I guess I was getting a little too confused to keep track of everyone to top it off. The novel is going for Philip K. Dick, but it just didn't manage it for me.
December 2, 2010
I hated the characters in this novel. Not only were they poorly written, but the were emotionless and their acts and motivations made me despise them. The characters were unrealistic, especially the poorly written dialogue. This novel seems as if it were written with the hopes of being adapted to a movie, but it is too uninteresting for a movie let alone a novel. The beginning seemed to be promising with some good ideas but was boring until about page 300 when it finally started to have some action, but not enough. I'm also thinking that the author is quite the male chauvinist because all the characters and even the characters he wants you to like have these prominent aspects in their personalities.
October 25, 2017
I read this book ages ago ... I remember that It was good enough I had my copy signed. Also that I will not reread it as parts were disturbing (I quit reading Orson Scott Card for that reason--that's a sort of gauge of my perspective). I'm not going to make claims about the quality of the writing as I was less discerning than, and honestly, I don't remember. The concept is sound and the story made sense. If I had infinite time, I would consider a reread, skipping the parts I didn't care for, but I'm too old to reread non-beloved books.
September 28, 2023
Didn't actually finish this book. I got to pg 152 and just stopped caring. Finally found an author who made parallel dimensions boring. For the first couple of chapters it reads like a political thriller that happens to involve alternate dimensions than a sci-fi book.
We're introduced to a "Home" reality (or Alternity" and four alternate ones, designated by color but not given any real characterization. What's the difference between the Yellow Alternity and Red one? Does it matter?
As other reviewers have pointed out, none of the characters are likeable. They're all various levels of evil, self-absorbed or selfish. It is possible to have a "bad guy" as a protagonist, if it's in service to the story. The reader should be interested in them, gain an understanding of their point of view, give a damn about the story they're involved in. I didn't care about any of these people.
The point of view changes every few pages, like an erratic channel surfer, so it was hard to understand what the point was for most of the scenes. Really could have used an editor.
Maybe it gets better toward the end, I don't know. But it couldn't hold my interest enough in the first half of the book to want to spend more time finding out.
We're introduced to a "Home" reality (or Alternity" and four alternate ones, designated by color but not given any real characterization. What's the difference between the Yellow Alternity and Red one? Does it matter?
As other reviewers have pointed out, none of the characters are likeable. They're all various levels of evil, self-absorbed or selfish. It is possible to have a "bad guy" as a protagonist, if it's in service to the story. The reader should be interested in them, gain an understanding of their point of view, give a damn about the story they're involved in. I didn't care about any of these people.
The point of view changes every few pages, like an erratic channel surfer, so it was hard to understand what the point was for most of the scenes. Really could have used an editor.
Maybe it gets better toward the end, I don't know. But it couldn't hold my interest enough in the first half of the book to want to spend more time finding out.
May 13, 2022
It took awhile to get going,but when all the threads started to come together it was an excellent story.
April 10, 2024
Excellent alternate reality thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed this one!
January 31, 2023
read this many years ago
One of the best of all time. Wish he had followed the thread with more. Stopped too soon. A classic
One of the best of all time. Wish he had followed the thread with more. Stopped too soon. A classic
June 13, 2021
What would you do if you discovered a path to alternate worlds? This question is at the heart of Michael P. Kube-McDowell’s novel, which begins with a businessman from a different America who stumbles across a gateway to a number of parallel Earths. His discovery is exploited by a U.S. government in a world where it is losing the Cold War. Initially using it as a means of gaining new technologies, the president is emboldened by its existence to take increasingly aggressive measures that risk annihilation by the superior Soviet forces, secure in the existence of an alternate world refuge should it occur. Yet as he pushes the world closer to nuclear war, a growing number of people in his world and another work to stop him before it is too late.
Kube-McDowell’s novel is an impressively imaginative work, one that succeeds through quality writing. His genius is in respecting the reader’s intelligence; whereas many alternate history authors convey the differences of their worlds through clumsy exposition, Kube-Mcdowell lets readers discover his worlds slowly through the story itself and “documentation” that he intersperses between the chapters. Though I found this approach frustrating at first, it created a real sense of investment in the text that paid off as the novel went along. Though his explanation of the gateway phenomenon at the end of the novel was not to my taste, it is a minor quibble, and one that is presented in a way that detracts neither from the plot or the ability to enjoy the book as a whole. In short, this is a quality novel, one worth the time of any fan of science fiction.
Kube-McDowell’s novel is an impressively imaginative work, one that succeeds through quality writing. His genius is in respecting the reader’s intelligence; whereas many alternate history authors convey the differences of their worlds through clumsy exposition, Kube-Mcdowell lets readers discover his worlds slowly through the story itself and “documentation” that he intersperses between the chapters. Though I found this approach frustrating at first, it created a real sense of investment in the text that paid off as the novel went along. Though his explanation of the gateway phenomenon at the end of the novel was not to my taste, it is a minor quibble, and one that is presented in a way that detracts neither from the plot or the ability to enjoy the book as a whole. In short, this is a quality novel, one worth the time of any fan of science fiction.
April 14, 2013
This 1988 novel is an excellent candidate for a movie or miniseries adaption, but it would take a very talented director with great respect for the source material to pull it off.
After reading Kevin J. Anderson's Alternitech collection, I dragged this novel out of my science fiction paperback collection. I only remembered about the first two-thirds of it, but as a reader this time around I had more to bring to the story.
Protagonist Rayne Wallace is a less than perfect character. I found myself wincing at some of the attitudes he expressed, and then found out his "Alternity" (Alternate Reality) was less desirable than my own. Kube-McDowell scatters clues regarding the different Alternities that seem familiar at first, but suddenly are very different from what we *think* they are.
Wallace is offered the chance to make different choices than in his Home Alternity, and discovers... Well, I'll leave that up to you. He and his fellow "Runners" (field agents who explore alternate realities) run into things that Officially Don't Exist ("There's nothing in the Maze"), which adds to the suspense.
Another though-provoking possibility to ask, "What would *I* do if faced with the chance to choose things differently?"
Apr. 14, 2013.
After reading Kevin J. Anderson's Alternitech collection, I dragged this novel out of my science fiction paperback collection. I only remembered about the first two-thirds of it, but as a reader this time around I had more to bring to the story.
Protagonist Rayne Wallace is a less than perfect character. I found myself wincing at some of the attitudes he expressed, and then found out his "Alternity" (Alternate Reality) was less desirable than my own. Kube-McDowell scatters clues regarding the different Alternities that seem familiar at first, but suddenly are very different from what we *think* they are.
Wallace is offered the chance to make different choices than in his Home Alternity, and discovers... Well, I'll leave that up to you. He and his fellow "Runners" (field agents who explore alternate realities) run into things that Officially Don't Exist ("There's nothing in the Maze"), which adds to the suspense.
Another though-provoking possibility to ask, "What would *I* do if faced with the chance to choose things differently?"
Apr. 14, 2013.
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October 19, 2011I read this book in paperback in the 90's I think, and it's stuck with me as one of the best alternate reality novels I've encountered. I remembered it last week because I'd finished reading all ten volumes of Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughn, and in that series, one of the clues that was dropped early on was the existence of a Nirvana song emanating from an alien artifact that was never known to have existed or been recorded before. I remembered that in this book, I think it was a Joni Mitchell album that made it from one universe to another, and that music became critical in identifying infiltrators from another brane. I'll need to read this again someday.
September 24, 2011
This book could have been better. It only got interesting towards the end: the last few pages of the book. Maybe the author spent too much time introducing the characters.
June 5, 2012
This was book was just plain run to read!
June 4, 2024
Probably the best parallel universe book since H. Beam Piper's PARATIME. Kube-McDowell studs his narratives with genuinely believable detail and his characterizations are always interesting.
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August 25, 20101ST UK PUBLICATION.
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May 1, 2017Paperback
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