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    Interworld
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    Interworld
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    Interworld
    Ebook225 pages3 hours

    Interworld

    By Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    New York Times bestseller by award-winning writers Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves.

    Joey Harker isn’t a hero…

    Joey Harker is the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house. But one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension.

    This walk between worlds makes Joey prey to armies of magic and science, both determined to harness Joey’s power to travel between dimensions. The only thing standing in their way is Joey – or to be more precise an army of Joeys, all from different dimensions…

    Now Joey must make a choice: return to the life he knows or join the battle.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateApr 25, 2013
    ISBN9780007523443
    Author

    Neil Gaiman

    Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling and multi-award winning author and creator of many beloved books, graphic novels, short stories, film, television and theatre for all ages. He is the recipient of the Newbery and Carnegie Medals, and many Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner Awards. Neil has adapted many of his works to television series, including Good Omens (co-written with Terry Pratchett) and The Sandman. He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and Professor in the Arts at Bard College. For a lot more about his work, please visit: https://www.neilgaiman.com/

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    Reviews for Interworld

    3.5/5

    747 ratings70 reviews

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    • 4/5
      not Gaiman's best work; but a good read.
    • 5/5
      I was cautious about this book, but then noticed it was by Neil Gaiman, so I knew i would love it. This really was a good book- recommended for grades 6 -9, but it was a very good introduction to another world and well thought out dimensions.
    • 3/5
      Based on the multi-world idea that every decision creates a new, parallel universe for each possible outcome of that decision, the IntraWorld is an organization that sort-of polices those world. Except that not every decision creates a new universe/world, just the important ones, and IntraWorld only concerns itself with those that contain an Earth. Those worlds exist along a spectrum where magic reigns supreme at one extreme and science at the other, conveniently ignoring the changing laws of physics along the way.The IntraWorld organization itself is made up exclusively of Joe Harkers from some, but not all of those worlds. Apparently Joe or Joey or Jerzy or J/O or other variations on the name are the only people in all of the millions on those infinity of worlds that can travel between them. Except for the evil magicians and technologists from either extreme that capture and kill Joe Harkers to power their cross-continuum conquests.If you ignore all of the holes in the world building and story telling it's not a bad young adult adventure story. But it is also clearly not a Neil Gaiman story, or even something he was a 50% contributor to. But his name is going to sell a lot more copies than Michael Reaves, so he's got top billing.
    • 3/5
      This Audio book wasn't quite what I expected. Joey Harker is a teenager with a weird social studies teacher. They have an "exam" to be left int he middle of town and walk home. Along the way Joey walks right into an alternate dimension. This isn't like Star Trek alternate dimension its more like crazy Hitchikers guide the galaxy alternate dimension. Apparently he's a Walker, like ever Joe Harker in every Earth in every dimension. The Best of the best. Walkers, dimension harkers, are this multiverse delithiom crystals. They power the ships of the evil world. He gets involved in battles between Magic worlds and Science worlds. Ours is neihter, but slowly leaning towards science. Inter-world (the multivers FBI?) can't let either side win, and they aren't powerful enough if they wanted to. I felt like they tried to put a whole lot into this really fast, and I felt it ended rather abruptly. Not until I went to review did I learn it was the first in a trilogy, made the ending make more sense, but evne more so it should have been slower paced. It was in tendint for the Juvenille/YOung Adult Market so maybe that has something to do with it. All in all not bad, if you are into that kind of hting give it a whilr
    • 2/5
      I think I probably read this at the wrong age. :)
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the concept of science and magic being opposite forces, with proponents on both sides, and I loved the alternate Joeys and how their different worlds determined how they looked and to an extent, who they were. Progression of time was a bit iffy, with sentences like "I've been here for 20 weeks," but overall I thought the plot was paced well. I will definitely read the sequel. The only thing I was not too pleased about was the large quantity of long words and higher mathematical and scientific concepts. I didn't have much of a problem with the long words, but the book seemed to be targeted to kids at least 5 years younger than me, and I think the vocabulary and mind-boggling science would put them off.
    • 3/5
      InterWorld is a young adult novel by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves, dealing with the idea of parallel worlds. Joey is a Walker, meaning he can move between the worlds, something he discovers by accident when he gets lost during a class assignment, and stumbles into another version of Earth. On some Earths, science holds sway, others are controlled by magic and have winged people, or wolf people, or magicians. Two evil organizations, Binary and HEX, want to impose their control on the other worlds. Only InterWorld stands in their way, an organization of Walkers comprised totally of parallel world versions of Joey. It's an interesting idea, but I didn't warm to InterWorld as much as Gaiman's other work. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I didn't find it as charming or captivating as Odd and the Frost Giants, Coraline or the Graveyard Book. It's kind of neat to see all the alternate world versions of Joey, including a winged girl, a centaur, a wolf-girl, a cyborg, etc. but for all that I never really connected with him/them.
    • 3/5
      An easy to read story about a teenager with the power of walking between parallel universes. The plot is quite simple and with not many surprises, anyway I liked it, I specially enjoyed the second half of the book.It is clearly a book meant for young readers, maybe for eleven-year-old kids or so. Not the best of Gaiman's and far from Coraline but entertaining.
    • 5/5
      This is such a fascinating idea, and done really well. The characters are likable, the story moves at a very readable pace, and it's easy to get into, even if you don't tend to enjoy sci-fi.
    • 5/5
      I was cautious about this book, but then noticed it was by Neil Gaiman, so I knew i would love it. This really was a good book- recommended for grades 6 -9, but it was a very good introduction to another world and well thought out dimensions.
    • 2/5
      I never expected myself to be DNFing a Neil Gaiman, but here we are. I just don't hear him in this. It's such a common story, and it utterly lacks Neil's magic.
    • 5/5
      Joey Harker is the kind of person who has gotten lost in his own house. One day, he gets so lost, he steps into a parallel world. This is just the beginning of Joey's problems as he discovers that, not only is there a multiverse, but a great war between the forces of Science and Magic trying to control all the worlds within it.Reading this, I felt it seemed more aimed towards a television audience, the presence of Michael Reaves as co-writer strengthening that feeling. So upon reading the afterword and finding out that's exactly where this story started, I appreciated it all the more. It's understandable that executives in the 90s had a hard time grasping the concept (even though Reaves easily could have said "It's Sliders with a healthy dose of Ender's Game and fantasy elements"), but I'm glad Gaiman and Reaves eventually got this story out. It's a blast! I think one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much is that it reminds me so much of the cartoons I grew up loving, but if they were given to much better writers (or at least weren't butchered of any redeeming qualities by the toy executives in charge of the action figure line and arguing that "kids won't understand the grander ideas, so let's simplify it to mush").And, it opens up the potential for so much more.
    • 4/5
      Exciting foray into a world and its shadow worlds. Non-stop action first-person narrated by an unlikely hero.
    • 3/5
      Decent young adult novel. I read it because I crave simplistic uncomplicated stories right now. Felt a little like Ender's Game from what I've actually read of Ender's Game.

      Like I said, decent, but it's no Harry Potter.
    • 4/5
      fun book with unique world building.
    • 4/5
      If you came here looking for Neil Gaiman... well, he's there, but not to the same extent as in Coraline or The Graveyard Book. And if it's Gaiman that you came for, you might be tempted to be disappointed. If so, then, you're missing out on enjoying a great young adult story.The adult in me liked this book, but the twelve-year-old boy adored it. It had just the right amount of wish-fulfillment fantasy, blended with grounded storytelling that does not shy away from the consequences of going off on a big adventure.As could be expected for the first novel in a series, much of the first half of the book involved the main character trying to understand, and thereby explaining to us, how the world works and what we can expect. Only around the halfway mark did it get much traction, and by the time it did, there was enough steam built up to drive us to a satisfying ending.I've already picked up the sequel, The Silver Dream. I understand that Gaiman was only responsible for the plotting of it; the writing itself was handled by Michael Reeves and his daughter Mallory Reeves. Knowing this, I expect to go into the sequel with a more open mind, ready to enjoy ongoing adventures in a fun and engaging world.
    • 4/5
      In many ways, this is your standard "ordinary kid discovers other world in which s/he is totally special and goes on adventures" story. Joey Harker has no sense of direction but discovers that he can travel across dimensions, which turns out to be very important in the ongoing interdimensional war that most people know nothing about. Luckily, this one isn't entirely run-of-the-mill. In many ways it feels like Gaiman created the world and Reaves (whom I admit I had never read before this) wrote the story. The narration is definitely un-Gaiman, but not in a bad way. The concepts of alternate dimensions, where the human race has evolved differently in different universes, is neat. I'm curious to see where the sequel goes with it.
    • 3/5
      Meh - I expected a lot more from this book. It has simple characters, simple rules to the world, the villains were cartoonish. I suspect that this book would have been awesome when I was 12 - but not as an adult. After reading the Afterword - I can see this book as an amazing kids cartoon, which is one of the ideas that was batted around when this story was originally created.
    • 3/5
      The little explanation at the back sums it up: this was really meant to be the two-hour pilot to a TV show that they could never convince anyone to make. It reads like the novelization of the two-hour pilot to a TV show. I think I'd enjoy the show; the book is a little odd.
    • 4/5
      The first third was desperately boring. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't "slow" to start or anything, it's just there was so much background knowledge required to understand the Interworld and multi-verse that at first it was like listening to gibberish with an uninteresting protagonist. It took Joey (the protagonist) quite a while to develop into a moderately compelling character (IMO). It ended very well and I wouldn't be adverse to a sequel - although it ended in such a way that a sequel might actually detract from the story.edit: Oh look, it's a trilogy. Hmmm...maybe next year :)
    • 3/5
      An easy to read story about a teenager with the power of walking between parallel universes. The plot is quite simple and with not many surprises, anyway I liked it, I specially enjoyed the second half of the book.It is clearly a book meant for young readers, maybe for eleven-year-old kids or so. Not the best of Gaiman's and far from Coraline but entertaining.
    • 4/5
      I love all things Gaiman! Excellent book!
    • 4/5
      Joey Harker isn't a hero. In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house. But then one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension. Joey's walk between the worlds makes him prey to two terrible forces -- armies of magic and science who will do anything to harness his power to travel between dimensions. I actually listened to the audiobook, read by Christopher Evan Welch. First a little history: This originated as a TV show pitch, with both Gaiman and Reaves having done a fair bit of TV writing. When they didn't get any takers, they turned it into a novel *.  I've wanted to read this for some time, because I am an unabashed Gaiman fangirl. I did attempt reading it once, but due to some bad timing, I didn't finish it. Unfortunately it has some really rather bad reviews, primarily from other unabashed Gaiman fans, disappointed this is a "not very Gaiman" book. I think, perhaps, that's being a little unfair. It is certainly not American Gods, or Ocean at the End of the Lane, but it's not a bad book either.  Nor is it particularly groundshaking in subject matter: Joey is a teenager with a talent, there is a multiverse of similar and not-so-similar worlds, There are two opposing forces, neither particularly nice, warring over this multiverse, and Joey is coopted into a force dedicated to seeing that neither can win, and a balance is maintained. There is a bit of a unique twist as to who else makes up that balancing force, Interworld, but really, this is just a good solid adventure story. That manages to drop terms like geas and uncertainty principle straight into the same sentence, and have it work. I think this is one of several books that for me work better as an audio book, and I wonder if that's due to it's genesis as a script. It's dialogue heavy, even the exposition often takes the form of an internal monologue. That can be a little disjointed to read, but it makes for good audio, and I thought the narrator did a good job with accents and character voices, providing enough characterization that it was quite an enjoyable listen. It's also worth noting, this is not an adult novel. Although the protagonist, Joey Harker, is YA aged 15-16 during the course of the book, it's equally suitable for middle grade, or perhaps MG moving into YA book. There's no romance, but there is a level of violence and some horror elements, so I possibly wouldn't go too young with it.  It's a short (for an audio book) listen, at 5 some hours. My youngest daughter, the same age as Joey, that is 15 going on 16, really enjoyed it. Although she's not at all averse to boys in theory, and one boy in particular, she doesn't enjoy much YA literature due to the heavy romance. For instance, she thinks The Fault in Our Stars is "ridiculously lovey dovey", so this was a win for her. And while she's certainly a fantasy fan, she mentioned that she particularly likes this kind of crossover between fantasy and sci-fi, describing it "like it lives on the same shelf as Douglas Adams and Doctor Who". Clearly most hard sci-fi fans would shelve this all the way over on fantasy, but I wouldn't - I'd call it a gateway drug, but in a good way.   Similarly, a perennial complaint by adult readers is that much of Joey's training is glossed over with a couple of time skips, and we'd find them fascinating. When I discussed this with daughter she thought it was just fine "Why would I want to hear about his classes and school... I get enough school at school." So while it may not entirely work for everyone, it hit the sweet spot for her, and I guess she's the target audience more than I am. There are two followup books, one published, one due next year, but this works well as a standalone. Also a note as a parent: I appreciated reading a book where the protagonists family is a stable and loving one, you'd think from modern childrens/YA literature such a thing doesn't exist. Joey's mum and dad, although they don't have a big role in the story, seem much more real than any parents I've read about in a long long time. Ditto seeing a teenage boy depicted as having a loving (if occasionally frustrating) relationship with younger siblings. More of this please! Recommended for: Teenagers, particularly fantasy fans who might like some soft sci-fi. MG readers looking for something a little challenging. Gaiman fans who aren't expecting another Coraline, and anyone who doesn't mind getting magic dust all mixed up in their quantum physics. * After it was published as a novel, Dreamworks optioned it some years ago, but nothing's come of it yet. I think it'd make a great movie or tv series, and I also think, it'd make a really good Graphic Novel. I'm giving this a 3: I liked it quite well, and I'd happily read the rest of the series, but daughter says 4 from her, so splitting the difference for BL.(Review originally written 2014-11)
    • 3/5
      Neil Gaiman's name, along with the superhero-looking cover, brought me to InterWorld. I didn't know much about it, and I don't think I'd even heard of it the first time I checked it out of the library, though I didn't actually get around to reading it that time, since I'm pretty notorious for checking out an impossible pile of books. As has been the case with my prior experiences with Gaiman, InterWorld proved an imperfect read for me, being primarily focused on world building rather than character.In an ideal world, all books would be heavily into both world building and character, but accomplishing even one is a feat. The world building in InterWorld is well done, and will appeal to those who enjoy So You Want to Be a Wizard and A Wrinkle in Time. Gaiman and Reaves put their own twist on the multiverse, adding the fascinating concept that some earths are magic-based and some science-based, and then running the gamut between those two. Also awesome are the scenes in the InBetween, which is sort of like Flatland but more fiction, less math.Joey Harker, the novel's protagonist, does not start out as a particularly impressive specimen. He gets lost easily, so much so that he's gotten lost in his own house. His grades are unexceptional. In no way does he seem like a hero. One day, though, he walks through some mist and into a whole new world, one where his mother doesn't recognize him and he meets the female version of himself. Soon, he finds himself instrumental in a war between the different factions in the multiverse.Readers who really love world building and science fiction will eat this up like I eat chips, but, for more character-focused readers InterWorld is a bit challenging. For one thing, in some ways, there is almost just one character. In a sort of twist I saw coming from the beginning, most of the characters in the book are alternate universe versions of Joey, which is cool, but a bit limiting at the same time.Joey does grow a bit as a character, receiving better education, developing a skill (Walking between universes), and becoming braver generally. Still, there's not much of an arc to his development. Reave and Gaiman skip some time, like most of Joey's training. He goes from untrained to more trained without any transition, so it's hard to feel convinced or proud of his development. In fact, I never really had a sense of who Joey was, or of any of his alternate universe incarnations. The character I bonded with most, Hue, never said a word, mostly because he/she/it is a bubble of color. Hue had much more vibrancy and personality than I ever felt from the other characters.Science fiction fans a bit more hardcore than I am will want to check this out. If you like the concept but want more characterization, try E.C. Myers' Fair Coin.
    • 3/5
      I tend to love most of what Gaiman writes, but this one fell a bit flat for me. The concept is fascinating, but the execution was a bit off. The adventure story follows Joseph, a normal boy who walks straight into another world. He discovers and entire army of different versions of himself from other worlds. There’s Jerzy: from a world with feathers where women lay eggs, Josef: who is really strong, Jai: who meditates and has a huge vocabulary, Jakon: a wolf girl, Jo: a girl with wings, and J’r’ohoho: a centaur. The army trains at a boot camp run by the “old man”. Their goal is to, “Protect the Altiverse and stem the tides of magic and science.” That’s a heavy order for the newly inducted Joseph to wrap his head around. There are two different groups of bad guys. The Binary, who travel on gravitons, freeze the walkers to use them to fuel their ships. Then there are the HEX folk. They use magic to boil walkers and use their souls to power interplane travel. Both sets of villains were a bit cartoonish. In a lot of ways, this novel reminded me of the Percy Jackson series. BOTTOM LINE: At times there was just too much going on at once. We bounced back and forth so quickly that it was hard to feel attached to the characters. Apparently it started out as an idea for a TV show and I was left wondering if that might have been a better fit for this particular story. I do think this might be a perfect fit for teenage boys. “I wanted to spare her what I knew: that reality can splinter like a hammered mirror. That it can happen to anybody.” “Sometimes war is necessary to teach us the value of peace.”
    • 4/5
      Quick Note: I read this on my brand-new Nook. I actually checked it out from our local library's e-reading program, which means I downloaded it from the library website onto my laptop, then loaded it into my Nook. I have to say, the Nook is freakin' awesome. The main thing I was concerned about was whether or not the electronic gadget would "disappear," so to speak, as I was reading -- like a paperback. I am happy to report that when reading on the Nook, I sink into the story just as easily as when I read a physical book. My eyes don't hurt after 20 minutes like when I read on a laptop. I surface hours later, head spinning and dizzy with the characters and completely unaware of the medium I was introduced to them through.

      Speaking of characters -- I really don't need to review this, if you're familiar with Gaiman's writing. Unlike other prolific writers (looking at you, Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts), Gaiman doesn't follow the same basic plotline over and over. He doesn't recycle characters, slapping a new face and name onto the same stock personalities.

      No, every Gaiman book is a fresh treat. A tour-de-force in writing that takes the reader to new planes of idea and fantasy. Every time I read a Gaiman book, I half-expect to run into an old, familiar character -- he writes so much, you can't help but expect he'll begin recycling plots and characters. But it hasn't, as yet, happened.

      As usual, his plot pacing is quick and fun, his characters are well-fleshed out, the motivations and actions understandable and relatable. As usual, he introduces fantastic new ways of looking at classic sci-fi and fantasy -- I swear, the man takes a funhouse mirror to every existing fantasy/ mythology stereotype and turns them completely on their head. And as usual, his writing style (turn of phrase, dialogue, etc) is evocative, lyrical, descriptive and fun.

      Gaiman is an unparalleled joy to read. I have favorites among his books, true, but I can say with complete honesty that Gaiman is the one author I've read where I like every book he's written.
    • 5/5
      I wasn't sure about this one at first. the cover looks like weird Manga and the description is … weird. a bunch of joey harkers fighting one another and trying to save the worlds? yeah. weird. but (unsurprisingly) it was really good. I was disappointed to reach the end.
      joey harker isn't a typical hero. he's kind of a dork, bumbling, and definitely a disaster waiting to happen. but he's got "heart" and he keeps trying, which makes him a good hero. he's flawed, so that makes him interesting too.
      the concept of a bazillion of the same basic person in different forms making up a galactic police force is pretty awesome (also, it reminds me of Doctor Who).
      the problem with stories like this is I want to know MORE.
    • 3/5
      A note from the authors at the end of the book talks about how a lack of interest in publishing it resulted in a ten year gap between writing and having it available on the market. I have to say, without the author name attached to this (I usually entirely enjoy Neil Gaiman's work) I wouldn't have picked this up and I wouldn't have hung on through the entire story. It felt incomplete; here's this universe in which there are warring factions trying to control all worlds and universes and timelines, and the people fighting against the domination are variations of the same person from different worlds and universes and timelines. No explanation is ever given as to why they're all the same person or why most of the events in the book happen. The best part was at the end when the little group of heroes are told they're not the greatest thing in the world and that most of what they've done was a result of luck. I think I'm pushing it a little with 3 stars, but I couldn't make myself give it 2. Oh well.
    • 3/5
      Being the massively huge Neil Gaiman fangirl that I am, I’m surprised that I was very indifferent to Interworld even before I finally picked it up. There’s been a number of times where I stood in the bookstore, looked at it, thought “Yeah, I should get around to that one of these days,” and then bought something else. I’ll be honest, I read it because I’m a completist and aside from a few short stories that I’ll probably get to in the next collection, all I have left of the major Neil Gaiman canon is four graphic novels and maaaaybe the Beowulf movie. (Which I have very conflicted feelings on seeing.)

      This is like how Odd and the Frost Giants was for me; I liked the book (I have yet to find something of Neil Gaiman’s that I absolutely hate something about it; see again, the Beowulf movie), but I got to the end thinking, “That’s all?” It’s a book where the story feels so much richer and grander than the 260 pages it allows. It’s mentioned in the afterword that Interworld started as a failed television pilot, and I can definitely see its roots in the story, but I think this would have worked better in a much different medium. *coughcomicbookcough**takeallmymoney*

      I do like the premise. I like the idea of alternate universes, I love the idea of a grand multiverse and the fact that you can easily jump from universe to universe by just walking into soft places in the world. I liked the detail that’s added that while yes, alternate universes are created based on people’s choices, the catalyst for their creation is based on much larger decisions than “What shirt did you wear today?” There’s even the detail that there’s thousands of Walkers spread across the multiverse, but they’re all slightly cracked mirror versions of the same person.

      The main Walker, Joey Harker, is a little boring—standard teen protagonist hero. I liked that he does feel like a real teenager; he has a bit of a mouth, he has a crush, he loves his family but doesn’t necessarily gets along with his siblings. It’s just all the other details that throw him into designated hero mode: he’s the most powerful Walker in the multiverse, everyone else at the base hates him, and he manages to befriend a creature that everyone else insists is dangerous. There’s nothing really compelling about him or his journey that I haven’t seen in other films/books/shows/insert medium here. I was more interested in the other Joey Harkers of the multiverse, how they react when “Oh, it’s another version of me” shows up at base. We get a little of this from Jay’s perspective, but there’s really not much to it and Jay gets killed off fairly early.

      The villains were the biggest example of why the book was so lacking for me. Part of the setup of the multiverse is that all of these universes are arranged in a sort of arc, with more scientifically-developed universes on the one end, magic-developed universes on the other, and the ones in the middle somewhere in between the two. Both factions have evil overlords who are conquering the multiverses and using the Walkers’ life energies to fuel their ships in the respectful fashion. The main villains of the book, Lady Indigo and Lord Dogknife are from one of the magic universes. We hear about the technological universes, and we see some of the inhabitants, but they’re never really front and center. And I feel like there’s so much more to this story that could have been there. I wanted to see more of the multiverse, more of the civilizations that populate them, and how Joey reacts to everything. I wanted more of the different threats—more mudluffs that are actually threatening, the science pirates who get mentioned but are never seen. It’s very evident that there’s a wealth of stories to take place in these universes, and it feels like a shame that we’ve only ever gotten one book out of it.

      I don’t feel like reading Interworld was a waste of my time or that I felt cheated by the end of the book, just overall disappointed that there wasn’t more to the story. It’s a decent enough of a read, but I don’t rank it high.
    • 4/5
      An interesting adventure of a boy who discovers he can walk between alternate realities and save the galaxy from domination by the forces of one of the two opposing powers: science and magic. The book is a pretty quick read and entertaining. I chuckled more at the Afterword than the story itself, though.