Book Review: Order of the Dimensions

Title: Order of the Dimensions

Author and Publisher: Irene Helenowski

Copyright: 2012

Genre: Science Fiction

The author of this book, Irene Helenowski, contacted me through Book Blogs and asked me if I would be interested in doing a review of this book in exchange for a free copy.

When I was 8, I daydreamed often that I had a twin somewhere in the world. I’d imagine that when I brushed my teeth, she was brushing hers too. It was an 8-year old’s take on parallel universes. Theories about parallel universes and multiverses assum­­e that that each choice a person makes splits her world in two or more worlds – one universe existing where a person takes option A and another universe for option B.

If you’ve seen the movie Sliding Doors, you’ve seen the theory in action. In the movie, the heroine lives two different lives based on a single action (choice) of whether or not she catches a train. When she catches the train, she falls in love and is eventually hit by a car. When she misses the train, she breaks up with her live in boyfriend who she caught cheating on her. Two separate outcomes or universes created simply by the timing of a train.

Irene Helenowski manages not two, but many universes or dimensions in her story, “Orderof Dimensions.” The heroine, Jane Kremowski, is a physics grad student whose professor has created a machine that can take people to other dimensions. Jane secretly tests the machine after hours when her colleagues have gone home. In the main dimension, her parents are dead from a car crash that also debilitated her cousin. But when Jane jumps to other dimension, she finds that in some dimensions  her cousin is mentally healthy and that her parents are alive.

Jane’s dimension hopping is innocent play until an evil physicist, Dr. Zelov, learns of the machine and decides to use it to rule the world.  Jane attempts to thwart his mania.  A long drawn out struggle ensues with Jane and her friends bouncing back and forth through multiple dimensions hunting down Dr. Zelov.

The story’s premise has potential that could be achieved with better story structure. The story was hard to follow. Events often repeated without advancing the plot. The world building of the various dimensions is weak, deteriorating the story’s overall comprehension. 

With a little editing, the book could become an enjoyable guidebook for the do's and don’ts of cross-universal travel. String theory, quantum physics, neutrinos, and quarks are fascinating subjects because of their infinite possibilities of time travel and various life outcomes. In time, the theoretical physicists may morph into applicable physicists; a group is currently pursuing making time travel a reality. I’m holding on to hope. In my 5th grade school picture, I emulated Pat Benatar.