Ten Thousand Skies Above You Review

This week's novel is Ten Thousand Skies Above You, the sequel to A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray.  I really liked the first novel in this series, and this one did not disappoint.  It was arguably even more enjoyable because I did not guess the twist.

Marguerite's parents created a device called the firebird that lets a person travel across the multiverse, their consciousness inhabiting the body of their selves in that universe.  Now Evil Tech Mogul Conley blackmails Marguerite into working for him.  Her parent's grad student, Theo, is going through withdraw and on death's door after being possessed by a Theo from another dimension who kept using a possession drug all through the events of the last book.  Conley fractures her boyfriend, Paul's, soul into four pieces and will give her their locations and a cure for Theo if she sabotages her parents' research in two detentions where they are close to inventing the firebird.

The worlds that they visited were once again fantastic in their originality.  They were all so different, they were each like a breath of fresh air.  There was the Warverse, where the world was at war, everyone worked for the war effort, and all the supplies went towards the war effort.  The thing I liked about this one was that it was never fully explained.  Internet is restricted and used purely for the military and history books are a waste of rationed paper, so Marguerite never finds out who is fighting who or why or how it started or how long it's been going on.  Just as Gray doesn't get sucked into a trap of unbelievable science by not explaining things, she doesn't get sucked into unbelievable worldbuilding also by not explaining things.  It works really well.

But most of the differences in the worlds Marguerite visits in this story are different because of her interpersonal relationships.  She never visits a world where she and Paul are together romantically.  This gets her doubting whether math really does keep bringing people together over and over in all the universes, and more importantly gets her doubting her theory that every version of a person is inherently the same in every universe.  It also starts to really get into how horribly violating it is to have your body controlled by another version of yourself, and whether they should continue to travel to other universes.  The ethical dilemmas are laid out very well as believable reactions to the situations Marguerite encounters.  There's an interesting bit where Marguerite stars to really think about these ethical decisions and Theo is like, "I've been saying that the whole book.  Did it really have to happen TO YOU for you to believe me?"  Yes.  It's a little selfish and embarrassing, but I totally buy it.

I'm looking forward to the final installment, where it looks like this will shift into horror.

***

Next week: Swamplandia! alligator wrestlers and swamp ghosts by Karen Russell.