mrissa | The Subtle Art of Folding Space, by John Chu (Reply)

Review copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a dear friend, and I read an earlier draft.

I'm so glad we're finally closing in on the day when the rest of you can talk about this delightful weird book with me. If you've been reading John's short stories for all these years, rest assured that this book has the same heart and the same absolutely fresh take on the world and its structures. If you haven't, what a treat you have ahead of you! Go forth and read!

This book, though. Okay. Ellie looks after the structure of the universe far more than most of us with physics training. She regularly visits the skunkworks, an extra-universe space that allows for tweaking and re-coding the laws of this and other universes. John puts the physics in metaphysics here--there's a whole community of people dedicated to this work in a way that's a lot more like a branch of engineering, architecture, or software design.

Unfortunately, most of that community has been poisoned against her by her self-righteous, violent, and gaslighting-prone sister Chris. And when their mother dies, Ellie is left scrambling against changes in the laws of physics themselves. She's not sure who she can trust. Thank goodness for her hulking cousin Daniel, the most food-focused metaphysician you'll ever meet.

So yeah, you'll be intrigued, you'll be hooked, but you will also be hungry. Maybe it's that John and I have similar taste in food (the bao! the brussels sprouts! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THAT EGG TART, CHU), but I was on the edge of my seat mostly to find out how Ellie and Daniel would beat Chris's machinations but also a tiny bit to see what food item Daniel would come up with next. I always knew that cooking was crucial to the maintenance of space-time. Soon the rest of you can see why. Highly recommended.