I found this book interesting and annoying by turns.

The premise is neat. About forty year prior to the action of the present novel, the inhabitants of a planet called Sharona discovered a portal that led to another planet: a planet almost exactly like Sharona in its topography, but completely uninhabited by men. In that universe they found a second portal, to yet another planet, equally like Sharona, but also uninhabited. As the story opens they have colonized widely, running rail lines through the portals and providing ferry links where need be, and they are exploring yet another, the forty-something universe they’ve found. All of them have been uninhabited and open for exploitation.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the multiverse, the inhabitants of a planet called Arcana long ago discovered a portal that led to another planet, a planet exactly like Arcana in its topography, but completely uninhabited. They’ve been exploring the network of universes, colonizing as they go, and as the story opens they are exploring yet another. All of them have been uninhabited and open for exploitation.

Until now, of course, when the two exploration teams collide with disastrous results.

There’s a lot to like about this book. The civilizations of Sharona and Arcana are nicely realized, right down to the global geopolitics of each; neither is truly monolithic, but has a full array of cultures and subcultures. Although Sharona and Arcana are both at a roughly 20th century level of sophistication, they have vastly different technologies. The blurb and the cover leads you to believe that Sharona is a high-tech society similar to our own, while Arcana is based on magic, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Arcana’s magic is highly developed, and extends to a variety of computer-like gadgets that run “spellware”. In many ways, Arcana feels more like home. Sharona’s technology is larged steam-based…but many of the inhabitants have various telepathy-based “Talents”. Each civilization has its own strengths and weaknesses, but on the whole they are evenly matched.

Another neat touch is that the topography of all of these planets is clearly that of our own Earth; all of the names and cultures are different, of course, but it’s fun to match up places from the little hints that are dropped.

The main problem I have with this book is that the characters are doomed to lose. The authors are setting up a multi-volume epic (as if this volume weren’t big enough, at over 1200 pages), and are clearly going to explore the military and political implications of the two sets of cultures and technologies during the course of a long, drawn out war. And the galling thing is, the war is thoroughly unnecessary. Both sides have a policy of peaceful first contact that is subverted initially by surprise, then by errant and repeated stupidity, and ultimately by malice–but it was clear early on that despite men and women of good will on both sides, Peace wasn’t going to happen. And because there are likable characters on both sides, that’s really a pain.

In short, I liked everything but the plot. I might read subsequent volumes; I’ll have to see what they look like.