Eternity’s Wheel by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves & Mallory ReavesEternity’s Wheel by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves & Mallory Reaves

Eternity’s Wheel by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves & Mallory ReavesThis review will contain spoilers for the previous two INTERWORLD books, InterWorld and The Silver Dream. You need to read those books before starting Eternity’s Wheel or you’ll have no idea what’s going on.

After discovering in the last book, The Silver Dream, that Hex and Binary are working together to destroy the universes, Joey finds himself back on Earth and not able to get back to InterWorld because it’s being chased by Hex. Though cut off from his fellow Walkers, Joey is determined to fight for his universe’s future, so he focuses on recruiting new agents and building up an InterWorld base in the future. He is also hoping to reconnect with Acacia, the Time Agent who he has a bit of a crush on.

Cleverly, authors Michael and Mallory Reaves (I don’t think Neil Gaiman is actually involved in the writing) recap what happened in the previous books by having Joey visit his social studies teacher and tell him the story so far. This was helpful and felt natural. Strangely, while on Earth, Joey doesn’t visit his family; he just writes them a letter. (Supposedly this is because he is worried about their safety, but it’s one of several instances where the story doesn’t quite ring true.)

Inter World Trilogy (3 Book Series) by Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, Michael Reaves, Mallory ReavesI mentioned in my review of The Silver Dream that the stakes are really high in this series. Joey and all his iterations must stop the bad guys from destroying all the universes and all the people that the Joeys love. How could the stakes be higher than that?

The Reaves’ prose is easily digestible. There’s lots of action and the pace is usually fast, though it bogs down in the scenes where Joey is teaching Josephine, his new recruit, how to Walk. As we’ve seen before, the characters get into seemingly untenable (and somewhat repetitive) situations, and then are dramatically rescued at the last moment. But, at the same time, the Reaves are not afraid to kill off some of their characters.

As the Walkers wage war against their evil enemies, Joey starts to emerge as a leader. This is cleverly, if not completely believably, tied in with some foreshadowing that we’ve seen in the earlier books, so I wasn’t surprised by this process or how it ended. But many kids and tweens, for whom the series was written, may experience some mind-blowing paradoxes in Eternity’s Wheel, making this a nice light introduction to science fiction.

Christopher Evan Welch narrates the audio versions of INTERWORLD. These are produced by HarperAudio and they’re quite good.

Published in 2015. The conclusion to the bestselling InterWorld series, from Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves, and Mallory Reaves! Joey Harker never wanted to be a leader. But he’s the one everyone is looking to now that FrostNight looms, and he’ll have to step up if he has any hope of saving InterWorld, the Multiverse, and everything in between. Eternity’s Wheel is the heart-pounding conclusion to the InterWorld series, full of time and space travel, magic, science, and the bravery of a young boy who must now face his destiny as a young man.

Author

  • Kat Hooper

    KAT HOOPER, who started this site in June 2007, earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University (Bloomington) and now teaches and conducts brain research at the University of North Florida. When she reads fiction, she wants to encounter new ideas and lots of imagination. She wants to view the world in a different way. She wants to have her mind blown. She loves beautiful language and has no patience for dull prose, vapid romance, or cheesy dialogue. She prefers complex characterization, intriguing plots, and plenty of action. Favorite authors are Jack Vance, Robin Hobb, Kage Baker, William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Richard Matheson, and C.S. Lewis.