In Robert A. Metzger’s hard science fiction novel Picoverse a team of physicists is trying to develop fusion power via a new development in plasma physics, a Sonomak, but accidentally stumbles on a method to create new, smaller-than-usual universes, which they call picoverses. These replicate everything in our universe but on a smaller scale.

A disastrous test of the Sonomak machine shakes things up and a new project director, previously unknown to the group, is appointed. Alexandra has her own secret priorities and one of them is to escape from her superiors into one of the picoverses. To do this, she needs the researchers to execute her plan. Unfortunately, things go amiss and the team finds itself stuck in a picoverse duplicating 1920s Earth, but with its own version of a Sonomak, vacuum tubes and all. Among the local team are Werner Heisenberg and Albert Einstein.

As the pace of the story accelerates, the original team races from one picoverse to another, trying to return to their home base and thwart Alexandra’s plans. In a clash of alternate realities, the fate of Earth and the entire universe hangs in the balance. Cosmic rabbits need to be pulled from alternate universe hats before this tale comes to a satisfying–and scientifically rigorous–end.

E-Reads has also published another terrific science fiction thriller by Metzter, Quad World.

You don’t have to be a scientist to write science fiction but discerning fans live to catch authors in technical errors. “Gotcha!” will never happen with Robert A. Metzger – that’s Dr. Robert A. Metzger (Ph.D in Electrical Engineering), but feel free to spend five or six years of postgraduate study if you’d like to try.

Of course, once you have your scientific grounding you have to do something with it, speculate on what could happen if… In Quad World time suddenly freezes for its protagonist and when it resumes, he’s stuck in a parallel universe. But what a universe! With Joan of Arc and Elvis batttling the “Quads,” Metzger’s imagination is obviously at full throttle. Amazon reviewer Colin Wood, who compared the book’s scientific mystery to “peeling layer after layer away from some globe-sized onion,” said the book was so challenging, “My brain hurts.” “A turbo-speed puzzle that will require you to keep all your neurons engaged,” Wood concludes.

So, inform your neurons that something really big is coming their way, then pick up Quad World. If it makes your brain hurt too, take two aspirins and call us in the morning.

- Richard Curtis

(Pictured above, Ingres’ painting of Joan of Arc)