[Book Review] Echo of Worlds (Pandominion 2) — M. R. Carey
The battle for organic existence echoes through the multiverse!
A fresh take on the often-trod setting of the multiverse, Echo of Worlds is the gripping conclusion to the Pandominion duology, following the well-received Infinity Gate.
The sequel continues the high-octane conflict between the multi-Earth governance Pandominion, as they face the looming threat of the Machine Hegemony, known as the Ansurrection. This greater conflict was set up in the closing chapters of Infinity Gate. The first book dealt with the worldbuilding of the reality-teleporting “step plate” technology and how that gave rise to the Pandominion. It also introduced and fleshed out the key players of the series, brought from various factions and various realities, forced together to face the larger threat facing the entire Pandominion. Thereby setting up the central premise of Echo of Worlds.
Echo of Worlds follow our rag-tag group of unlikely protagonists, the artificially enhanced rabbit-analog Topaz “Paz” Tourmaline FiveHills, her friend-but-actually-imposter-Hegemony-traitorous AI being, Dulcimer “Dulcie” Standfast Coronal, the fox-analog grizzled Pandominion jarhead Moon Sostenti and human-soldier-dealing-with-battle-PTSD Essien Nkanika, the treacherous Watchmaster Orso Vemmet, as well as the scientist-turned-AI Hadiz Tambuwal and her faithful benevolent super-AI friend, Rupshe. Forced together by the culmination of the events of the first book, this multi-species, the multi-allegiance group has to work together to come up with a plan to thwart the inevitable Mutually Assured Destruction event, the Scour, from annihilating both the Ansurrection as well as the billions of lives across all realities of the Pandominion.
With stakes as mind-bogglingly vast as this, Carey does an amazing job zooming in and out between the “bigger” picture of the reality-spanning conflict, as well as the smaller set-pieces of our protagonists navigating various subquests to effect a change in the larger conflict. While many of these set-pieces felt a bit too “checkpoint-y” and not properly motivated beyond “benevolent AI says this will help the war effort so we must push on”, it does help to ground the reader into a more familiar territory rather than getting lost in the technobabble that multiverse sci-fi usually devolves into.
The compression of this series into a duology caused uneven pacing issues and a rushed second half as the plot raced toward its conclusion. Carey does a serviceable job tying up all the loose ends in a reasonably satisfying way, I cannot help but feel a wee bit shortchanged in the journey to get there. There was plenty of material and an expansive plot structure to spend the requisite time fleshing out a more robust second act to make even the dreaded “middle book” a rewarding setup for the final conflict in what could have been an explosive conclusion to the trilogy.
A particular gripe was that the Mother Mass was set up to be a key plot element (not a spoiler since it is mentioned in the official synopsis). Still, the entire plotline felt quite lackluster and left me scratching my head about its ultimate need in the overall story. It was also the aspect of the book where the story dived into the metaphysical side of SciFi which is often my least favorite aspect of this genre, and I find myself glossing through the overly philosophical sections. Again, Carey does a much better job than other writers, but if your name doesn't begin with Adrian and end with Tchaikovsky, these overtly abstract set pieces are best left out.
The author tried his level best to give some level of depth, to varying degrees of success. I preferred the more morally grey characterization of all the protagonists in Infinity Gate and the switch to “we have to be on the same side, the side of good” felt a bit hamfisted, with only Sostenti’s character devolving into the stereotypical naysayer. Paz’s character too felt too hero-washed and her character became more of a caricature of the “even a small creature can change the universe” trope, again, a little too heavy-handed. To repeat, many of these issues would have been assuaged greatly by the luxury of having a third book to flesh out the characters, their motivations, their roles in the plot, and the overarching conflict to yield a more thorough product.
Still, Echo of Worlds is a satisfying and largely enjoyable read, with cool concepts, and a fresh take on the tired multiverse trope that Marvel has driven into the ground. With influences ranging from the Culture series to the Children of Time series, along with a smattering of other classic and modern sci-fi elements, Echo of Worlds and the Pandominion duology can largely be called a success!
