Book One of the Multi-Dimensional State Series (MDS Series)
Reviewed: August 1st, 2020
The young Lucinda Soames-Parker, brought up in a dysfunctional family environment, discovers a terrible truth when she joins a drug trial.
Gaining access to the hidden multiverse highway, the domain of infinite doppelganger universes, endowing unlimited possibilities for all those that enter, Lu begins a journey where she meets some of the worst of humankind.
Palimpsest is Craig Herdern’s first novel, and I was given a copy of the novel, in return for a review.
I must admit I had to check the meaning of the word: Palimpsest. Although I have come across it before, I wasn’t quite sure of the relevance of the name to the story until I checked. And then it all made sense.
This book is extremely clever.
Lucinda is the youngest child of four living siblings and spent most of her life being mentally abused by them. It is only once she reaches eighteen and can escape the family home, that she can finally breathe and make her own way. Needing money to support her studies, she enrols in a medical trial for a new sleeping drug, and then the fun begins.
Lucinda experiences more than dreams. She enters the Multiverse, another dimension that she can’t even compute and what she finds there is most unexpected.
I did struggle to get into the book. Craig gives us a lot of details about various characters from different periods in time, and to begin with, you’re not sure how it all fits together. Still, if you persevere knowing that you have all the information, and you just need to piece it in the right order, then voila the story comes together.
Craig does alternate between third person omnipresent and limited third person, which can be a little frustrating at times. Just when you think you’re getting to know a character; and you’re in their head, you are suddenly distanced from them, and it becomes a more factual report of events, or the all-knowing narrator makes a comment. The technique supports the medical and judicial trial threads that dog Lucinda through most of the book, but I like to get to know my characters and took a while to get used to the step change. But you do get used to it, and the story gallops along once you get going.
As I said, this is a very clever book, with some mind-bending possibilities about how humans are limited to four dimensions, and what could happen if we had access to other dimensions, and Craig pulls all the threads together beautifully.
It is well worth reading, and there’s even a twist at the end, which leads to the second book Winter: Book Two of the Multi-Dimensional State Series (MDS Series)
Oh, and for those who didn’t know either, the definition of Palimpsest:
noun
a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text. (Source: Thesaurus.com)
Link to Palimpsest on: Amazon UK
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Craig is a British novelist, author of the MDS book series of which Palimpsest is his first novel. He lives in England with his wife and his Italian sports car, spending his days writing and drinking coffee…You can usually find him on twitter @craigherdern
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Helen Garraway 