Thresholder: Teaguewater

Thresholder #1

by Alexander Wales

A portal opened, and Perry's curiosity got the better of him.
Once.
Twice.
Three times did Perry step through a portal, each to a new and strange world.
He stepped through into a world of advanced technology, power armor and micro reactors.
He stepped through into a world of knights and kings, orcs and goblins, where old wizards handed out magical swords.
He stepped through into a world of hidden vampires and rainy streets, where the clocktower tolled the hour as ships sailed by.

Perry is a Thresholder, one of many exploring the vast multiverse. Able to bring ideas, technology, and magic with them as they travel, each Thresholder has an oversized impact on the world they're in, each one attempting to shape and change it to their will. Some, like Perry, try to uplift the world and improve everyone's circumstances, while others are interested only in gaining advantages for themselves.
Why should Perry leave his mark on one world, when he can leave it on all of them?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

496 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 24, 2025

About the author

Alexander Wales is the pseudonym of Ben Friesen. Ben is a writer and stay-at-home dad located in Duluth, MN with his wife, their son, and cat.

Reviews

[Leslie Baptiste · Rating 3 out of 5]

The MC is a generalist as far as knowledge is concerned the story needs a MacGyver.

Don’t waste your time reading this book. How does the main character start off as a dweeb who stepped through a portal, gets his girlfriend killed, winds up as a werewolf, and seems to be a generalist in knowledge not a MacGyver. The MC doesn’t know very much like I said he’s a generalist And he studied geography. What benefits is he bringing to the world that he traveled to. I see why the ratings are so low. You may enjoy the book, but I doubt it.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wales, one of my favorite authors, is distinguished by his gift for expansive worldbuilding, and a jumpchain story is one way for him to show it off. Perry travels the multiverse at the whim of some unknown higher power, accumulating weaponry and fighting duels in wildly varying worlds - even the laws of physics aren't constant. Some resemble our own Earth, some are more high-tech, some are fantastic. I do recommend the series, more than my three-star rating for this first book would indicate. Teaguewater, a city resembling historical London with the addition of vampires and werewolves, is the setting of the weakest story arc, IMO. Things get much more interesting after Perry jumps to a ringworld with xianxia rules.

One point of interest I want to comment on is that Wales's original plan was that death would not be permanent for thresholders. If Perry died, he'd automatically resurrect in the next world, with some loss of inventory. But fans complained about low stakes, Wales reconsidered, and now thresholders are subject to permadeath like the rest of us. But I think the people who complained got it ass-backwards! On a Watsonian level, auto-res means even death is no escape from the seemingly endless series of duels, and dying remains a catastrophically bad outcome from Perry's perspective. Dying still fucking hurts, there's the loss of inventory to worry about, and most importantly, Perry is still fighting to protect people and things he cares about. If he's dead, however temporarily, he's failed at that. And on a Doylist level, auto-res takes away Perry's plot armor. Wales would have the option of killing Perry before he's ready to end the series, and readers would know that's on the table. Sure looks to me like the stakes were higher with auto-res! So I'm kinda salty about the change. Permadeath and accompanying plot armor for protagonists is overwhelmingly the norm, and I think we could do with more stories that experiment with breaking the rules. It had been nice to see Wales doing that with Thresholder.

NB: My rating and review are based on the original serialized version. The ebook version has been revised with added chapters, which I have not read.

[Monty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is it a trope to have the main character be utterly useless twit? Both MC and Antagonists mentality was also very off-putting.

Well whatever,.. I found this story to be entirely to annoying to get through. If it wasn't for this book being narrated by SBT, my favourite VA studio, I doubt I'd actually have managed.

[Ravi Warrier · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't really understand what the point of this story is? What I should have enjoyed or cared for as I was listening to it. The characters were weak, the story was all over the place. The crises had no gravity.

It started great and then took a nose dive after the events of the second Earth.

[Will Knight]

Note to self: not doing it for me.