Review: The Fold by Peter Clines

Posted on July 9, 2015 Updated on July 23, 2015

Peter Clines’ The Fold is about a team of scientists who have created a successful teleportation machine. How, you ask? They have discovered a way to fold space. But, the problem is that they won’t tell anyone how. After one of the scientists shows up no longer knowing who his wife is, the scientists’ patrons decide to send in a third party to make sure everything is as safe as they say it is.

For those of you with an interest in audiobooks, you can check out a clip of the audiobook.

Thanks to Audible for the sound byte!

I should start off by saying I have a complicated relationship with dimension/time travel stories. I say this for every story even remotely like this, because it frames my perspective on most of the construction and plot issues. The story writes off the technology almost entirely. That strikes me as a bit lazy, but better to not do it than to muck it up or give something half-assed.

I really wanted to like this story. It wasn’t terribly original, but that’s not such a big deal. The problem with the whole story for me was two-fold: The presentation of the main character and his abilities was poor and the humor was totally lacking.

The main character is a high school teacher with extraordinary mental abilities. His potentially is woefully underutilized until his best friend gets him involved in the Albuquerque Door (the aforementioned teleportation project). There, he’s sent in to check stuff out, make sure everything is on the up and up. Why was he sent in? He’s got a record breaking IQ and remembers literally everything he’s ever seen. Ok. I’ll bite.

The problem here comes in when the character’s abilities are mentioned every page. The story doesn’t build because it is constantly being brought up. We aren’t being led to conclusions because the character’s abilities are just *soooo* remarkable that he tells us what’s happened.

Compounding the problem, is that the humorous parts are super repetitive. He’s compared to Severus Snape not once, not twice, not three times, but so frequently it’s not worth counting. He’s named Leland, but goes by Mike. Why? Everyone started calling him Mycroft Holmes– Sherlock Holmes’ intelligent but underachieving brother.

It just was eye roll worthy.

I received this for free in exchange for an honest review.