Just Finished Reading the InterWorld Trilogy by Gaiman and Reaves

In other recent blog articles here, I alluded to the fact that I was in the process of reading Neil Gaiman's teen-level fantasy trilogy titled InterWorld.  That wasn't entirely accurate: Gaiman tops the writing credits, but this series was really a collaboration, first between him and Michael Reaves, and later with the addition of Michael's daughter Mallory Reaves when his worsening Parkinson's Disease made typing unfeasible.  In truth, as far as I know it, Gaiman himself had little to do with InterWorld other than meeting with the Reaves and making creative suggestions to them.  But, you know, if you have an established brand backing your product...and Neil Gaiman is definitely established and highly respected...you can't go wrong...

The story with this trilogy involves a teenage boy named Joey Harker who one day, during a high school social studies class field assignment, finds that he can "walk" into other dimensions where there are Earths different from his own.  And on many of these Earths, the composite total of which comprises the "Altiverse", there are other "Joeys", albeit with different names and biological forms.  The common trait that they all share is their unique (at least for each one's home world) ability to walk from one Earth to another.  Now, the Altiverse  is shaped like an arc, and on each end is an enemy empire fighting against the "good guys".  One regime, the Binary, is computer-based and relies on science while the other, called HEX, is oriented to magic.  They are both mortal enemies of the "Joeys" because they use the essences of walkers, after their bodies are killed off, to power their respective ships and machines.  "Our" Joey discovers his peril right away as he is detected by both sides and pursued. He is rescued by another manifestation of himself from a different Earth and is eventually brought to InterWorld, the home base of all the walkers.  The three books involve themselves with InterWorld's campaign of resistance against the Binary and HEX, while later on in the series inter-dimensional travel is complicated by the insertion of time-travel (and time agents) into the story line...

InterWorld is written for young readers, and it has a lot of action sequences in it.  I felt that the speculative ideas about interdimensional and time travel were interesting, but nevertheless eventually felt overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all.  But since this series is a combination science fiction/fantasy tale, what should I have been expecting, anyway?  All in all, though, I enjoyed reading it and liked Joey and his fellow walkers from all the different Earths.  The three volumes are titled InterWorld, The Silver Dream, and Eternity's Wheel...

My next Neil Gaiman book: American Gods...