The Knife and the Serpent, Tim Pratt

In the first of two story threads, we meet Glenn Browning, a reasonably nice
inhabitant of San Francisco working on a doctorate in the history of science.
His girlfriend of the last year or so, Vivian, seems to have family issues that
she is unwilling to discuss. Other than that, things are going pretty well.

In the second thread, Tamsin takes off from her San Francisco tech-startup job
to attend her grandmother's funeral and to discover what has been left to her
from the estate.

Both of these threads then transit parallel universes and meet each other
several times.

Yes, this book is a complete story in one volume.

If books are often in conversation with other authors, this one is talking to
Iain Banks (both with and without the M.), making a comment to Douglas Adams,
and waving frantically at previous multiverse authors including Pratchett and
Heinlein.

I enjoyed this more than I was expecting, and I was expecting to be entertained.

-dsr-





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