After reading Medium Dead (reviewed here) I bought Resonance which appears to be Chris Dolley’s best known and most admired book. This book was more challenging to read. It is also harder to review as it is hard to put my finger on what about this left me a little lukewarm.
For one thing I love good science fiction or fantasy, am intrigued by alternate worlds, prefer novels that are well-written with interesting characters and good dialogue. Resonance has all these. Yet it also had traits that I don’t usually enjoy: Obsessive/compulsive behavior in the main character, a character that matures far beyond what we have reason to expect, somewhat confusing setting and middling-good ending.
Overall Resonance is excellent. The writing quality is very good. We see the main character Graham through his own eyes and through his awareness of how others respond to him. Graham knows people think he’s weird, unsocial and probably retarded. What Graham knows is that it’s important for him to follow certain rituals in order to keep the world more or less in running order. Graham has it backwards, it is not the world that flops around but he. Graham moves among alternate worlds.
One interesting side note is how the villain sees the alternate worlds as a source of profit. He isn’t interested in moving goods and people, trading or exploiting, but in harvesting the combined experience of 2 billion worlds to develop breakthrough products. That’s a unique view and probably more realistic way to profit from alternate worlds, if they do exist and if we are ever able to talk to them.
Resonance felt incoherent to me at times. I think that was meant to be the case since Graham would experience the world as constantly changing, but it was unsettling and made it harder to read.
I do recommend Resonance, but be aware that it is unsettling to read and not as fun or as fast as Medium Dead. Be sure you have several hours free and try to finish in a few days.
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