The Fold

April 6, 2015
Clines (the Ex-Heroes series) adds to the comfort-read shelves with this fun, character-driven techno-thriller. Leland “Mike” Erikson is a supergenius who is gifted—and cursed—with a truly perfect memory. He’s content to teach high school in a small town until his DARPA-employed friend Reggie convinces him to investigate a government-funded teleportation project that has encountered some issues. Mike’s amazed to find that the teleportation works, but there’s something seriously wrong behind the scenes. The scientists consider him a distraction at best, and a spy at worst, until a fatal accident forces them all to work together. Clines lays the groundwork nicely as the tale evolves from a scientific mystery into a thriller with elements of horror and adventure. The solid and diverse cast of characters helps compensate for the slower pace of the first half and nicely raises the stakes once things go really awry. A good smattering of pop culture references serves to ground the story and characters, and it even enhances some plot twists. Agent: David Fugate, LaunchBooks Literary.

April 1, 2015
A schoolteacher with unusual gifts is recruited by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects division to investigate a troubled project.There's a great big bait and switch in the middle of this sci-fi thriller by Clines (Ex-Purgatory, 2014, etc.), but it's unlikely to deter readers intrigued by its full-on Michael Crichton-esque premise. Our hero is Leland "Mike" Erikson, whom we meet quietly teaching the last day of a high school English class in Maine. We soon learn that Mike is one of those gifted people who's chosen to walk away from his talents, but his gifts are particularly thorny. Not only is he a certified genius, but he also got a bonus: an eidetic memory. "I've got...complete, instantaneous recall of anything I've ever seen or heard," he explains. Mike is intrigued by an offer from his childhood friend Reggie Magnus, who's now the head honcho for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A team of six DARPA scientists working on a small campus near San Diego appears to have created a working teleportation device dubbed "The Albuquerque Door," and Reggie asks Mike to see if it's bogus or not. There's definitely Weird Stuff going on. One team member returns from the portal convinced that his wife has been replaced with a stranger. Another comes through the portal with fatal wounds and massive radiation burns. Mike discovers that the team's math is largely based on the work of an obscure, possibly insane Russian scientist named Aleksander Koturovic. There are some leaps of faith to be made-why would the government limit access to a universe-changing technology to six scientists and a schoolteacher? But fans of Clines' colorful fantasy novels will happily follow him into the Lovecraft-ian nightmare that follows. Fans of the author's popular novel 14 (2012) will want to pay particular attention, as these shared universes share other horrors as well.

Starred review from April 15, 2015

Mike Erickson has been turning down jobs from his friend Reggie for years, but he can't resist when Reggie tells him there are scientists working on a project involving instantaneous travel through the folding of space. Reggie works for the Department of Defense and wants Mike to check on the team's progress as he has been unable to get the group to release any information about the project. Mike arrives at the compound where the scientists are working, encountering hostility and a level of secrecy beyond anything he expected. The team is hiding something about the machine and how it works. VERDICT A fascinating and accessible treatment of quantum physics make this a terrific example of science-run-amok that gradually turns to horror as the project's secrets are revealed. Clines (who wrote the excellent zombie superhero series that began with Ex-Heroes) has created a great character in Mike, who has a rare form of nearly photographic memory, making him an ideal eyewitness to events unfolding.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2015
Mike Erikson, a small-town high-school teacher, is asked by his friend, a high muckety-muck in the U.S. government scientific research program, to check out a top-secret project called the Albuquerque Door that could have massive global repercussions, if the project's stated results (shrinking distances so that teleportation is possible) can be believed, that is. Why, you ask, would the government want an ordinary schoolteacher's opinion? Well, as it turns out, Mike isn't an ordinary guy; he has an eidetic memory, an ability to replay events in his mind, to find connections between seemingly unconnected things, to assemble a big picture from many small fragments. And what Mike discovers is that the project will indeed have global repercussions, but not the kind the project's developers had expected. Although the big reveal will probably be anticipated by many readers, the writing is superb, and there are many smaller surprises along the way. A very good novel that blends elements of SF, mystery, and political-conspiracy genres.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)