I’ve been following the Sword & Laser podcast for a while, but I never really had gotten around to reading along with any of their book picks until this year, with The Fold.

The Fold is something of a more explicitly sci-fi technothriller. It follows Mike Erikson, a high school teacher from Maine with a photographic memory who is brought in by an old friend who works for DARPA. Mike’s friend asks him to get to the bottom of a research team who is working on a teleport portal in California. The team has had a bunch of successes, but they insist their project is not ready for prime time.

So, this book moves fast. If this book were adapted to the screen, it would probably be in the 90-minute range. This is fine, but it also narratively doesn’t give you much to dig into. What you do get is some strong character work, which is important considering what the twist of the story is, and considering that twist is character related, so if that doesn’t work the whole book falls down.

However, this doesn’t necessarily make for a book that makes for serious repeated re-reads. Maybe a couple to see what foreshadowing you missed. That said, I checked the book out from the library, and while I’m glad that I enjoyed it, nothing makes me want to really buy this book for repeated readings in the future – at least not in hardcover. Maybe a Kindle edition or a paperback.

If you want to pick up the book, it’s available in physical or digital editions from Amazon.com.

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