The Fold

Science Fiction/Horror writers can never go wrong writing about time travel, faster-than-the speed-of-light space travel, worm-holes, multi-verses or teleportation, as long as they are able to give a bit of a unique twist or a fresh take on one or more of these subjects. Peter Clines has managed to do just that in this novel which also references subject matter from his other exciting novel “14.” Mike Erikson is a true genius with an eidetic memory that continues to catalog everything he has ever experienced with his five senses his entire life. A friend from DARPA has been trying to get him on special projects without luck for many years, but Mike prefers to live a simpler life as a high school English teacher. Finally his friend is able to persuade Mike to act as a simple observer on the Albuquerque Door project to solve a mystery and find out if it is worth continuing to fund the secretive project. The project's technology appears to be successful in opening a fold or doorway in space and the group behind the project have successfully traversed through the doorway rings and back again several times between the two building sites containing the doorway ring sets. But something feels wrong about the project and the project group keep delaying releasing the technology to DARPA on the grounds that more testing is needed. The project staff see Mike as a spy and the enemy and so he has his work cut out for him acting as an impartial observer and cataloging in his memory everything he observes as testing of the project continues. Things begin to go south when one of the staff is killed in a horrific way during another routine test of the doorway. Mike begins to unravel what the misunderstood nature of the doorway is and the secrets the staff has been keeping from everyone about the technology. It isn't long before the project group starts losing control of the technology and as the body count rises Lovecraftian horror is unleashed and Mike and the remaining staff must race against time to divert a disaster that could literally end life on Earth.