In Universes by Emet North
A truly interesting debut, In Universes features what, in essentials, feels like a series of deeply connected short stories. These episodic pieces are deeply entrenched in and intertwined with one another and their core story, set at the beginning almost like a prologue, covering themes about identity, relationships, and agency.
Raffi doesn't really understand their job at an observational cosmology lab where they search for evidence of dark matter. They're a little rudderless, and the heart of the book is in the constructing of stories that are Raffi's imaginings of another existence, another way they've met Britt...or other friends and lovers that come into their life.
Where it worked really well lies in the beauty of North’s words. Their style and thoughtful meanderings perfectly matched the stories, no matter the setting, characters, situations, or tone — aliens and zombies included. All the stories and editions of Raffi are very melancholic, as if they counter the very idea of the hopefulness of the multi-verse. The yeah-but of it all was fairly balanced by the reticent Raffi against the more positive influences in their life, no matter which version. North captures this moodiness with some great writing.
But taking into account each snippet as part of a larger picture, North holds back too far for my tastes. Without a plot pulling the stories forward, Raffi needed to show more growth, self-actualization, and centering. But that didn’t happen. Aside from the absolutely gorgeous second chapter (the first branch in the Raffi-verse), each subsequent one felt very akin to a montage of scenes, rather than individual imaginings, complete in and of themselves, and this got very repetitive. Many of the chapters simply ended with a fade-to-black idea, and lacked a good deal of intention. I actually abandoned this one at 55% only to change my mind and pick it back up, but that’s more a testament to North’s writing style than to what I found in the last half. Nevertheless, I’ll be checking out what North gives us next.
