Ahlgren melds the multiverse, quantum mechanics, the mysticism of the East, horror worthy of
Stephen King, a little “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” and the violence
of addition into a skillfully woven story of young Douglas Cole: his dog dies, he loses his
family and moves to Texas, his friend kills himself, and his girlfriend leaves him (though,
admittedly, the dog came back to life), all before reaching a time-travel-infused turning
point.
Many small things were just that little bit off for me, such as the initial
introduction of the uncertainty principle.
Unfortunately, while I was becoming more adept at making the business decisions that
repeatedly benefited my shareholders, I had also been informed by my mentors and closest
friends that the proliferating global acts of terrorism—along with the economic
catastrophe which had ended only a few years earlier—had been engineered by a
power-hungry madman whose sole objective was to become a diety, thereby ruling the
entirety of space and time.