Famous Men Who Never Lived

October 15, 2018
Musing on xenophobia, forced migration, and fear of the other, this debut from Chess too often goes off track. Hel and Vikram escaped from a parallel-universe version of Queens, N.Y., to the one we know, fleeing the explosions of sabotaged nuclear power plants. Only 156,000 universally displaced persons (UDPs) escaped before the gate letting them through closed forever. The refugees were only able to bring a few things with them, and they cherish these irreplaceable items, such as Vikram’s copy of The Pyronauts, a classic work from their world. When the book is stolen, Hel risks being arrested to get it back, as she worries that a crucial part of the history of her people—including the son she left behind—will be forgotten. Several different subplots and unnecessary excerpts from The Pyronauts are scattered throughout. Chess has constructed a good premise, and part of the story has a satisfactory conclusion; however, the narrative frequently loses momentum. This confused debut will leave readers with more questions than answers. Agent: Stacia Decker, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

DEBUT Hel and Vikram are just two of 156,000 refugees living in New York who arrived not from another country, but an alternate earth. Hel, unwilling to grow attached to anything in her new world, becomes obsessed with the divergence of her earth and ours and hopes to found a museum dedicated to her fellow UDPs (Universally Displaced Persons). The centerpiece of her fixation is a book Vikram brought with him called The Pyronauts, by an author with a cult following in Hel's world but who died as a child in ours. When the work, a symbol of everything lost to Hel, is presumed stolen, our prickly protagonist, tortured by what she left behind, is determined to get it back. VERDICT The plight of refugees gets a sf twist in this enjoyable debut from award-winning short story writer Chess. While the side plots could have been tightened, those looking for character-driven, science-light sf should give this a try.--Megan M. McArdle, Lib. of Congress, National Lib. Svc. for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

December 15, 2018
An ambitious debut set in New York, but not the New York we know.The story's protagonist, Hel, is one of a handful of UDPs--Universally Displaced Persons--who left a parallel world to escape nuclear holocaust. In her world, Hel was a surgeon. Now she's a refugee with too much time on her hands and a growing obsession with an author named Ezra Sleight. Hel's lover, Vikram--another UDP--was doing graduate work on Sleight's science-fiction masterpiece, The Pyronauts, before the end came, but, in our world, Sleight died as a child, long before he ever wrote a word. Hel is convinced that she should turn his house into a museum of memories, a tribute to all the people and things that existed in her world but don't in the world in which she is stranded. This is a promising concept, and there is much here to enjoy. There's the frisson of discovering the subtle differences between universes. There's dark humor in attempts--formal and informal--to acclimate the newcomers. Vikram, who finds work as a security guard, gets nightly lectures from a co-worker "on such diverse topics as John Grisham, Cher, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and the Brooklyn Nets." There's obvious--but not belabored--commentary on the immigrant experience in the United States, made more poignant by the fact that, not only can the UDPs never go home, but they also must live in a place in which their home never existed. Hel's quest to preserve her past is both quixotic and perfectly understandable. But the characters here--especially Hel--are underdeveloped, and much of the plot hinges on a twist that strains credulity. Hel loses The Pyronauts--the only copy in existence, one of Vikram's prized possessions, and the cornerstone of her proposed museum. And then she doesn't realize that she's lost it until it's been missing for days or weeks. Vikram doesn't seem to notice its absence, either. Chess' fantastic worldbuilding is convincing; this depiction of mundane human psychology and behavior is not.Flawed but still impressive. Chess is a writer to watch.

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February 15, 2019
After a series of terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants threatens their existence, a group of lottery-selected evacuees flee through a high-tech gate into a parallel world. Two of these universally displaced persons, or UDPs, are Hel and her partner, Vikram. They end up in our own present-day version of Queens, New York, enduring the struggle of marginalization and prejudice most UDPs face, along with adapting to a strangely skewed and unfamiliar environment. One touchstone from her old life that Hel prizes and obsesses over is a tattered paperback of a sf masterpiece titled The Pyronauts, by Ezra Sleight, a book that, in our world, was never written because Sleight died as a child. When the volume mysteriously disappears, however, Hel risks Vikram's love and support from her fellow refugees to track it down. Chess' debut novel offers an intriguing and fresh spin on the parallel-worlds theme with its timely emphasis on the challenges facing migrants in hostile, unfamiliar surroundings, marking her as a promising new voice in speculative fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)