Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares is a multiversal lovestory a genre savvy sci-fi with a strong emotional core. While not all of the choices made worked for me, I think this was a strong entry in the alternate dimension story canon.

The story centers Hayes and his love for his version of Yusef backdropped across the infinite dimensions – and we know this instantly due to the framing narrative that overlaps most of the story. This framing narrative has a habit – especially earlier on in the book – of hopping back and forth in a way I found confusing, revealing more than I would have liked about characters, motives and outcomes before their time.

The romance itself was sweet, between two men on the younger side of middle aged, very different and yet able to make things work together, for long enough before the sci-fi plot starts putting them in jeopardy.

You see, Hayes alternate self built multiversal prediction engines, and shunted a whole load of them off into other universes. Hayes himself is a struggling documentary film maker, but the manipulate scientist Kaori brings him onto the project to potentially exploit any similarities with his alternate self. The director element gets played into a lot with the narrative, with Hayes’ first person POV imagining the voice-overs and cinematography that moments could have had. It’s mostly a neat touch to the story, but I’m not sure it adds much beyond a bit of style.

My favourite aspect of the book is a character that is gone by the time the story starts, Hayes’ best friend Genesis, activist and subject of his latest documentary in progress. Her impact on him is a powerful one, elevating the story and contrasting his own struggles. There are some emotionally powerful moments in the book, and the ones involving Genesis are impressive considering she’s only present in Hayes’ recordings and memory.

It takes the story a while to break free from the compound where the device is kept into alternate universes, which I would have found less frustrating had I not known where Hayes ends up in the framing narrative, with his teasing of infinite universes. There was also one big choice at the end of the book that… well, didn’t quite sit right with me.

Fractured Infinity is a flawed multiverse story that has enough merits that I can’t help thinking will find an audience who truly loves it. I almost got there, but it’s good enough for me to recommend to those who like their sci-fi with a dose of love, albeit a potentially tragic one.

Rating: 7.5/10